The room was a dead end. His end. Lan Fan hung loosely on his shoulder. Bradley and the monster where closing in. The dust cleared. His heart stopped. Bradley.
"Live long, young master"
The next second was a blur. Her weight disappeared from his shoulders and the obstacle wall vanished in a screen of smoke. She launched herself at Bradley and she too disappeared.
"Lan Fan"
His whisper ghosted in the quiet night. A sheen of sweat clung to his face, eyes searching hungrily in the darkness. He spotted her in the window seat. She was there. She was there. If so, why did she appear so unreal?
He approached her quietly. An arms length away. A stirring in the back of his mind, a shred of boundary that pressed him to stop. Suppressing the urge with a clench of his hand, he ventured with the other to touch her. Her hair was soft and silky in his hands. She shivered as a breeze tugged her hair from his hand. Frowning he pulled the spare blanket from his bed and tucked it around her. This girl who had given everything for him. His conquest had even taken the last of her family. She was the servant but he owed her more than she could ever hope to owe him. And he couldn't even gather himself enough to take care of her as well as himself in her grandfather's stead. She had been the one to shoulder the extra weight. It had been her who had taken care of them, pushing herself to her limits and beyond until she crashed. They had achieved their goal. He had everything he had been born to have and yet she had nothing. The duties of marrying her off had become his and yet he never found a male worthy enough, even within the ranks of nobles. He had tried to ignore the tightness in his chest when he thought of her with another man. He looked away when she smiled at another possible suitor. The council of advisers tried to coerce him to himself marry before worrying about the arrangements of a simple guard. But among the scores of women each clan sent he could find none that held his interest, none that could read and understand him like her. They could not hold wordless conversation, the way she could or understand what was on his mind before he himself did. He had spent the majority of his life with her. They trained side by side. How could he have not fallen in love with her?
He had been trusted with a duty to see her married. He looked down at the woman he had loved always and decided that perhaps he could keep his promise after all.