Morning arrived with the particular aggression of palace schedules.
Ash appeared at the breakfast table looking marginally presentable—a minor miracle after another sleepless night haunted by golden eyes and the memory of obsidian horns.
Seraphina was already there, hair loose and flowing like living flame, cradling a cup of something that steamed dark purple and smelled faintly of ash and cinnamon. She brightened the moment she saw him.
"You look terrible," she said cheerfully.
"Good morning to you too," Ash replied, sliding into the seat across from her.
"Didn't sleep?"
"Slept fine." He poured himself a measure of something amber from the nearest carafe and didn't examine the lie too closely. "Late night with the trade documents."
"Boring." Seraphina propped her chin on her hand, her tail curling and uncurling behind her in the lazy rhythm of someone in a genuinely comfortable mood. "I don't know how you stand it. All those clauses. My eyes glaze over after the first paragraph."
"It's a gift," Ash said gravely.
She laughed, bright and unguarded, and for a few minutes they ate in easy silence—the comfortable kind that usually took weeks to build and meant something when you found it. Seraphina fed small pieces of toast to a tiny scaled lizard like creature that had materialized from under the table, its three eyes blinking up at her with pure devotion. She did it without even looking down, the way people performed rituals they'd repeated ten thousand times.
She's been lonely, Ash realized with a quiet pang. Not in any dramatic, obvious way—she had her court, her advisors, dragons who had known her since she first learned to fly. But lonely in the particular way of someone who had grown up watched, admired, and rarely simply known. She had learned to perform warmth so reflexively that she barely noticed she was doing it anymore… until someone stopped performing back.
She wasn't performing now.
The guilt rose again, sharp and familiar. Ash set it aside. Picked it back up. Set it aside again.
The morning passed in a haze of minor diplomatic tasks: meetings with his delegation, reviews of revised clauses, and the endless small courtesies required when a foreign prince navigated dragon hospitality.
By midday, Ash had successfully avoided thinking about Ignis for approximately forty-seven consecutive minutes—an impressive personal victory.
Then he turned a corner in the library corridor and walked directly into him.
Literally.
The impact sent Ash stumbling back a step. His stack of papers scattered across the polished stone floor like startled birds. Before he could fall, Ignis's hand shot out—pure reflex—catching his arm in an iron grip.
The warmth of those clawed fingers burned through the thin fabric of Ash's sleeve, steady and impossibly steadying. Ignis released him the instant Ash regained his balance, as if the touch had scorched them both.
"My apologies," Ignis said. The perfect, seamless courtesy was back in place, armor firmly donned.
"My fault," Ash managed, already crouching to gather the scattered documents. "Wasn't looking where I was—"
"Your schedule is ambitious this afternoon."
Ash looked up. To his surprise, Ignis had knelt, folding his considerable height down to Ash's level on the floor. The Dragon Lord was collecting papers with the same precise efficiency he brought to everything else. Their hands brushed twice during the process. Both times, Ignis's expression remained perfectly neutral, golden eyes unreadable.
"I like to stay busy," Ash said, voice steadier than he felt.
"Evidently." Ignis handed him the neatly realigned stack. "The artifact transport clause—your revised language is acceptable. My advisors reviewed it this morning."
"You reviewed it, you mean."
Something flickered behind those molten gold eyes—there and gone in an instant. "I reviewed it. Yes."
"Thank you."
"You've said that already."
"I'll keep saying it until you stop doing things worth thanking you for." Ash stood, brushing dust from his knees. "Which, based on recent evidence, might take a while."
Ignis rose with fluid, predatory grace, the kind of movement that made it clear he had never once been awkward about occupying space. The corridor was empty, afternoon light slanting through tall arched windows and catching along the dark, gleaming curves of his obsidian horns. The silver threads in his deep midnight robes shimmered like captured starlight.
"The council meets again in three days," Ignis continued, tone impeccably formal, "to finalize the grain route agreement. If your delegation has no further objections—"
"We don't."
"Then we will proceed."
A pause settled between them—the kind that had begun to feel dangerously familiar. Charged. Heavy with everything neither of them would name.
"Seraphina mentioned you're taking her to the eastern markets this afternoon," Ignis said.
"If she's still interested. We spoke about it at breakfast."
"She is interested." Another pause, briefer but no less weighted. "She speaks of you often."
Ash kept his expression carefully neutral.
"Good things, I hope."
"Good things." Ignis's gaze held his for a long moment—long enough to mean something, not long enough to acknowledge it. "She deserves good things."
"She does."
They stood there, two men who had once kissed in a haze of incense and desperate want, now calmly discussing the woman who might marry one and become family to the other. The sheer absurdity of it pressed against Ash's ribs like a breath he couldn't quite release.
"Lord Ignis," Ash began.
"The markets close at dusk," Ignis interrupted smoothly. "If you're taking her, don't let her spend too much time with the jewelers. She has a weakness for things that sparkle and no concept of reasonable prices."
It was such a mundane, fatherly warning that Ash almost laughed. Almost.
"I'll protect her from the jewelers," he promised, lips twitching.
"You'll try." The faintest shadow of something—almost a smile, but not quite—crossed Ignis's face. "She is very persuasive."
"I've noticed."
Ignis inclined his head in a gesture that felt like both acknowledgment and dismissal. Then he continued down the corridor without another word, robes whispering against the stone. Ash watched him go, papers clutched tightly to his chest, and didn't move until the Dragon Lord had turned the corner and vanished from sight.
Only then did he let out a long, shaky breath and head in the opposite direction, toward the eastern wing where Seraphina was presumably waiting.
He was getting very good at walking away from Ignis.
It was almost becoming a survival skill.
Yet the encounter refused to leave him.
As Ash made his way through the sunlit halls, the ghost of Ignis's touch lingered on his arm like a brand. That brief, reflexive grip—strong, warm, controlled—had sent unwelcome heat racing through his veins. He could still feel the phantom pressure of those claws, the way Ignis had steadied him without hesitation before pulling away as if burned.
Get it together, Ash scolded himself. You're supposed to be wooing the daughter, not thinking about her father.
But his traitorous mind supplied the contrast anyway: the cold, composed Dragon Lord in the corridor versus the wrecked, moaning version who had clutched him so desperately the other night. The same golden eyes that had looked at him with molten hunger now regarded him with perfect, impenetrable courtesy.
It was maddening.
By the time he reached the eastern wing, Seraphina was already waiting in a small antechamber, dressed in a flowing tunic of deep crimson accented with gold embroidery that complemented her scales. Her tail swayed with barely contained excitement when she spotted him.
"You came!" she exclaimed, bouncing lightly on her toes. "I wasn't sure if the boring documents would win."
"Documents never stood a chance against your sweet company," Ash replied, forcing his most charming smile into place.
She laughed and linked her arm through his without hesitation, chattering happily about her favorite stalls as they headed toward the palace gates. Ash listened, nodding at the right moments, offering teasing commentary when appropriate. She was easy to be with—warm, genuine, and refreshingly straightforward.
And yet, as they stepped out into the bright afternoon sun and the distant clamor of the eastern markets reached them, Ash couldn't shake the feeling of golden eyes watching from somewhere behind him. Couldn't stop wondering whether Ignis had returned to his balcony, or whether he was now pacing his study, tail twitching with that same barely-contained agitation Ash had glimpsed in the corridor.
He pushed the thought down and focused on Seraphina's bright laughter.
This is the plan, he reminded himself. This is the safe path. The one that saves everyone. He told himself.