The scent of the North still clung to him.
The faint traces of frost on his coat, the lingering warmth of the Duke's embrace—it all followed Darian long after he'd left Lioren's mansion.
He leaned back in the carriage, gloved fingers pressed against his lips where he'd kissed the Duke's cheek.
Lioren hadn't reacted the way he used to. No scolding, no teasing remark, no quiet smile afterward.
Just awkwardness.
As if the man before him wasn't the same one he'd known all his life.
Something was off and Darian, of all people, would know.
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They'd known each other since birth. Their mothers had been inseparable—two women who dared to laugh in a court that punished joy.
When Lioren's mother passed, Darian's mother became his second home. They grew up sharing toys, secrets, and eventually, silence.
He remembered the day Lioren's illusion first appeared and he had been the only one to see through it.
The only one who'd ever seen the real him.
He still remembered when Lioren first showed him his true face after so many years.
Darian hadn't spoken he'd only smiled and said, "Guess I'll be the lucky one who gets to see this."
Lioren didn't respond but just smiled and Darian had seen the small relief in his smile the kind of trust words couldn't explain.
Darian had never asked for his birthright.
He was born of a scandal—his mother, the emperor's forbidden love.
The court had called him the 'emperor's shadow' or 'the bastard of the West.'
The emperor never acknowledged him. For a long time his name wasn't spoken at royal gatherings. His place was always one step behind the rest, never quite allowed to belong.
He grew up in the West, far from the golden halls of the palace, raised by his mother and grandfather.
His mother taught him to smile through cruelty. His grandfather, the old Duke of the West, taught him to wield a blade with elegance—to make his enemies bleed before they could sneer.
And when his grandfather died, Darian inherited his title.
He was twenty, young, too scandalous, too unwanted. The nobles opposed, his brothers didn't comment.
But he smiled because he'd learned early on: if the world won't accept you, you charm it until it forgets why it ever hated you.
So he became what they feared most—handsome, confident, untouchable.
The Duke of the West, beloved by women, admired by the court, envied by his others.
But none of them ever saw how lonely that smile truly was.
His brothers only met him when politics demanded it. For formal dinners and ceremonies. Handshakes that felt like cold iron.
They spoke to him as one might speak to a distant cousin—polite, indifférent. He didn't hate them. He didn't love them either.
He simply didn't care.
Because, deep down, he already had someone who mattered more than any of them. Someone who'd never treated him as an embarrassment or a shadow.
Lioren.
He never envied his brothers, not once.
While they acted as a perfect family, Darian fought for something quieter—his place beside the Duke of the North.
The carriage wheels hummed against the frozen road, and the night blurred past like a painting undone by wind.
He could still feel the ghost of Lioren's touch—rigid, trembling, distant.
It wasn't the same warmth he remembered.
Something had changed. Something deep and hidden, like frost beneath the earth.
He frowned, leaning his head against the glass. Maybe Lioren was just tired. Maybe he was overthinking.
But his instincts—those that had kept him alive in the venomous court—told him otherwise.
There was something different in Lioren's eyes today.
Not sorrow. Not coldness. Something else. Something that didn't belong to his Lioren.
"Don't disappear on me," he whispered to the empty air. He wasn't sure if he was talking to the man he'd seen today…
or the memory of the one who used to smile just for him.
He closed his eyes, and for a moment, he could almost hear their laughter as children, the snowball fights, the stolen pastries, the warmth of a shared blanket in front of the fireplace.
Those were the moments that made the West bearable. Those were the moments that kept him from breaking.
And even if the entire Empire turned its back on him again, Darian knew one thing would never change: he'd always find his way back to the North.
Back to him.
When the carriage finally stopped before his estate, he stayed seated for a while, hands resting on his knees, eyes distant.
Outside, the snow fell soft and slow.
"You've always been the calm before my storm, Lioren," he murmured, voice trembling with a smile. "So don't you dare vanish now."
He stepped down into the snow, unaware that his world like the Duke's—was already beginning to shift in ways neither of them could stop.