“Never for something as small and dangerous as a girl laughing near a window.”
Kael
The boundary didn’t look like anything important.
It never does.
There was no gate, no wall, and no clear line to cross.
There was only a subtle change in the air.
It felt like the world took a breath and let it out.
Then, suddenly, the space between my kingdom and theirs disappeared.
I stepped through anyway.
The silence of my kingdom vanished the moment I crossed.
It wasn’t gradual; it was instant.
Sound hit me from all directions.
Wheels screeched on stone paths not built for such weight.
Voices overlapped in a chaotic, human way, as if they didn’t realise silence could mean something.
Above us, lights flashed randomly.
I stopped walking.
I wasn’t overwhelmed.
I was adjusting, taking in the noise, and deciding what might pose a threat.
The air was the worst part.
It was sweet in an artificial way, like something designed to imitate sweetness without truly understanding it.
Weak, I thought.
Everything here smells weak.
Riven stepped in behind me.
He stood at my left, his usual spot since we were boys.
He said nothing, but I could feel him doing the same as I was.
He slowly turned his head, taking in the street and the humans moving without awareness.
“…this place is unstable,” he said softly.
His voice was flat.
Riven rarely complained.
He observed things as they were, stored them away, and moved on.
I didn’t respond.
My eyes were already darting around, watching everything.
Humans filled the street, brushing past each other without apology, laughing loudly enough to show they had no restraint.
They had no sense that the space around them belonged to anyone but themselves.
I watched a man grab his friend’s arm to make a point.
They had control, I thought.
We moved forward.
And then, I felt it.
It hit all at once.
It wasn’t pain or pleasure, I didn’t have a word for it.
It was a pull, deep in my chest, moving without my permission.
I’d sensed echoes of it before, but this was different.
This time, it had a direction.
I ignored it.
I kept walking, my face neutral, my stride unchanged.
Whatever my body was feeling, I would not show it.
And right then…
I saw her.
I didn’t even know how I was led to her.
She was standing near a shop window, holding a piece of pale fabric.
She examined it with the focus of someone who takes small decisions seriously.
The girl beside her was talking and gesturing, trying to convince her of something.
But she hadn’t been convinced yet.
I could tell by the slight tilt of her head and the sceptical press of her lips.
Then, she laughed softly.
It was the laugh of someone who’d forgotten to be anything but exactly who she was.
I stopped walking.
My body refused to move.
She shifted as she spoke, her hair moving with the turn.
Her expression was open in a way that people in my world had long forgotten.
There was no calculation on her face.
She was just…
there.
The pull in my chest tightened.
I didn’t move towards her, nor did I speak.
I stood at a distance that kept me invisible.
I watched this girl laugh at small things, unaware that behind a boundary she couldn’t see, her name had been whispered in dark corridors for years.
She turns eighteen in three days, my mother had said.
Did you feel it today?
She’d asked.
I hadn’t answered her then.
I was answering now, standing on a human street I had no business being on, unable to walk away from a window.
Riven noticed my stillness.
He always did.
“That one,” he said.
I didn’t answer.
I watched until she was out of sight.
I lingered in the space she left for a moment, then finally walked away.
* * *
Night fell later, and the human world changed with it.
Music seeped through the buildings’ walls.
The bass thumped in my chest.
People stood in doorways, more relaxed because of the night and alcohol.
We followed the crowd.
The pull became stronger, more focused, dragging me forward with a quiet, impatient force.
It led me to a building full of loud music and movement.
I saw her inside.
She was inside a building filled with loud music and movement.
She danced and laughed freely, without hesitation.
I watched the transformation slowly happen, the careful parts of her fading, her laughter becoming quicker and fuller, and she stopped thinking about the space between her and others, living in it.
More human, I thought, in every way.
Then, the bond pulled again.
My eyes found hers across the room.
It wasn’t a choice; something led me straight to her.
My gaze stayed on her, fixed with a heavy, certain feeling—stronger than the cautious way I’d been watching her all day.
In that moment, the bond made it clear there was a difference between merely watching and truly seeing her.
I felt something release from me.
A certain coldness, the kind I had chosen over the years as a king, slipped out for a second before I caught it and pulled it back.
Just one second.
I reined it in at once, shut it down, and rebuilt the wall between who I was and what the humans around me could perceive—but one second was enough.
Across the room, she stopped smiling.
I watched the change on her face as her laughter faded and her expression grew more alert.
Her eyes shifted, as if she sensed something she couldn’t explain.
She turned, scanning the room and the crowd, but she couldn’t see me.
She rubbed her arms.
I had caused that.
The cold she felt was mine, slipping out for an unguarded second when the bond pushed against my control.
She sensed it but didn’t understand.
Still, she knew it was no trivial thing.
Her friend approached and handed her a drink.
She took it, made a face after a sip, then laughed when her friend did, allowing herself to rejoin the party.
But the searching look remained.
It stayed beneath her laughter, beneath her relaxed shoulders and easy smile.
She trusted her feelings, I noted, even if she couldn’t explain them.
She left when the night was at its loudest.
We followed discreetly, as the streets quieted.
She reached a house at the end of the street, and the door opened before she arrived.
Her mother.
She looked at her daughter for about two seconds, but it felt like they exchanged everything with just a glance.
The door closed.
Inside, the lights went out one by one.
I watched until a single room turned into a soft blue darkness.
Riven stood beside me in the shadows.
Neither of us spoke.
We were used to silence, but this silence felt different.
The moonlight moved across the house until it reached her window, where it lingered.
Something in the air shifted.
The bond settled deeper into me, becoming stronger and more permanent.
I didn’t move.
Riven watched the house, understanding what was happening.
Something had begun tonight.
I hadn’t chosen it, but it had started anyway—like the tide or the changing seasons.
I looked at her window for a long moment.
Then, I finally turned away.
“We leave,” I said.
Riven walked beside me without a word.
But even as I left, I could still feel her.