His expression didn't soften. If anything, something in it tightened—jaw clenching the smallest bit, eyes narrowing as if he was seeing too much all at once and didn't like any of it.
Heat crawled up the back of her neck.
He looks angry, she thought. At what? At me? At this?
She forced herself to look away, heart beating too loudly in her ears.
Behind her, she heard Kestrel's low voice cut through the air.
"You know," Kestrel said, not bothering to lower her tone that much, "most people smile when they're pleased."
Alistair didn't move. "I'm not 'most people'," he said.
Vane snorted. "You don't say."
Elissa pretended she hadn't heard. But the words—and the way Alistair's stare had felt—stayed with her long after she left the yard.
—
That night at dinner, it was worse.
The hall was quiet, fire throwing soft light over stone. The king spoke little. Dante answered when he had to. Vane and Kestrel bickered over something pointless, probably out of habit.
Elissa ate slowly, careful with her hands. The match-flames might be small, but they left her fingers buzzing and sore.
She could feel Alistair's gaze before she saw it.
She lifted her eyes, and there it was again—steady, sharp, like a physical thing pressed against her skin.
He didn't look away.
She did, quickly, staring down at her bread like it had become the most fascinating object in the world.
What is wrong with him? she thought, frustration twisting with something more fragile. Am I that much of a disappointment? Or does my existence just irritate him now?
She barely heard Vane's joke or Kestrel's dry comeback. Her mind looped around and around the same question until the plates were cleared and people began to rise.
On the way back to her room, Kestrel finally said it out loud.
"He's getting worse," Kestrel muttered, once they were alone in the corridor.
"Who?" Elissa asked, even though she knew.
Kestrel gave her a look. "Alistair. He watched you the whole meal like you were a riddle that insulted his mother."
Elissa's cheeks heated. "Maybe I am," she said. "A riddle, I mean. Not the mother part."
"He's just…bad with feelings," Kestrel said.
"He doesn't have feelings," Elissa said quickly. "He has…only anger." While lowering her eyes.
Kestrel huffed. "You really don't see it, do you?"
"See what?" Elissa asked, genuinely lost.
"Nothing," Kestrel said, shaking her head. "Forget it. If he wants to stew in his own confusion and glare at you until his eyes fall out, that's his problem."
"It feels like my problem," Elissa said softly.
Kestrel's voice gentled. "Then let me make it simple," she said. "He is not angry because your magic is small. He's angry because his life just got tied to someone who makes him feel things he doesn't understand, at the worst possible time, with the worst possible enemy on the horizon."
"That sounds…bad," Elissa said.
"It is," Kestrel said. "For him. Not for you. You're just existing. He'll catch up."
Elissa wasn't sure she believed that. But the idea that his glare came from his own confusion, not her failure, lodged somewhere deep.
—
Somewhere else in the castle, the brothers argued.
Vane cornered Alistair in a quiet weapons room, where the light was low and steel caught the glow in sharp lines.
"You're getting worse," Vane said, tossing a practice sword from hand to hand. "You know that, right?"
Alistair, leaning against the rack, frowned. "About what?"
"Elissa," Vane said bluntly. "Your face every time she breathes."
Alistair scowled. "My face is the same as it's always been."
Vane barked a short laugh. "No. You used to look…annoyed. Or bored. Or like you were thinking about patrol routes. Now you look like you're perpetually two seconds from biting something."
Alistair's grip tightened on the edge of the rack. "Her magic is barely more than it was when she arrived," he said. "Everything still depends on her." He excused .
"And yet," Vane said, "she's the one in the cold every day, hands shaking, doing what she can. You, on the other hand, stand in the shadows and brood so hard the stones might crack."
"I'm not—"
"You are," Vane said. "You watch her all the time."
"I have to," Alistair snapped. "We are bound. If she—if something happens to —"
"See? That," Vane said. "That little choke in the middle. That's the problem."
Alistair's jaw flexed. "There is no problem."
"Liar," Vane said easily. "You don't know what to do with her."
"I know exactly what to do," Alistair said stiffly. "Make sure she survives. Make sure she is ready. Make sure she doesn't break and take the rest of us with her."
"Sure," Vane said. "And while you're doing that, your brain has apparently decided to add…...extra things."
"There are no extra things," Alistair said through his teeth.
"Then why are you angrier on the days she looks proud of herself?" Vane asked. "Why do you stare at her like that every time she smiles after a good training?"
Alistair didn't answer.
He thought of the way her face lit up—just a little—when the match-flame held. The way her shoulders straightened when Dante grudgingly said, "Good. Again." The way her heartbeat kicked up, every time she reached for more.
He thought of how that made something twist deep in his chest—protective and furious and…something else. Something he didn't have a word for.
He hated that feeling.
He hated how close it sat to fear.
Vane watched his brother's silence, then sighed. "You're not angry at her," he said. "You're angry at yourself. And at timing. And at the fact that you might actually care what happens to her, on top of everything else."
Alistair's eyes flashed. "I care that the kingdom doesn't fall," he said. "That is all."
"Keep telling yourself that," Vane said. "Just…maybe stop glaring at her like she stabbed you. She doesn't know any of this. She just sees 'angry prince' and thinks she's the problem."
Alistair looked away, jaw tight, throat working.
He remembered the look on Elissa's face when she'd glanced up and caught his eyes on her—hope flickering, then shrinking back so fast it almost hurt to see.
"I don't know how to be anything else," he said finally, the words low, as if it cost something to say them.
Vane's voice softened in a way it rarely did. "Then learn," he said. "You're not the only one having to figure out new things right now."
Alistair said nothing.
Outside, the wind howled against the stone, impatient and cold. Inside, in a training yard she had finally started to claim a little as her own, Elissa flexed her sore fingers and tried to believe that the prince's glare didn't mean she was failing.
If only one of them would say any of it out loud.