"My son shall show you the way," the king said. "We do not cross onto the path, but he will take you as far as the gods allow."

As the prince approached the group, the king stepped toward Serena once more, stopping only a breath away.

"My ancestors delivered their judgment the moment your blood touched the flame. I am bound by it, and I do so willingly." He stepped closer. "When the day comes that you call upon Aevamorra Vyracarum, I will answer. My army will be yours."

His eyes locked on hers. "Go to the temple. Survive it. Today is not your day to die."

Serena bowed her head with composed, diplomatic grace.

"Then I am in your debt, Your Majesty. And when that day comes, I will honor the faith your ancestors have placed in me."

Fin and Dex stood shoulder to shoulder behind her, silent, still, watching their mate bow to a foreign king who had just pledged everything he had to her.

Neither of them had contributed a single word to the negotiation that mattered. Fin processed that with quiet acceptance. Dex processed it with quiet fury aimed entirely at his own ego.

The king turned and led them back toward the throne room. When they reentered the hall, a young man stepped from a side corridor, tall, regal, wearing a gold crown.

The prince addressed them in formal Morbian Vellum. His gaze was directed toward Fin, but Serena answered.

The prince’s expression shifted, a flicker of surprise that she, rather than either Alpha, had spoken. His eyes moved to his father and mother, each of whom offered a silent mindlink.

Whatever the king and queen told their son, it was enough to straighten his spine by two inches. Gav recognized the posture. It was the posture of a man who had just been told to behave.

They departed the throne room and followed the prince into a long, gleaming corridor.

As he guided them through the city, the prince spoke again in the same tongue. Serena replied with measured respect, her tone composed, her words precise and few.

Elara fell into step beside Hale, close enough that their shoulders touched. "This architecture predates Frostborne by centuries," she said quietly, her voice carrying awe she rarely showed. "We studied ruins of cities like this when I was a child."

Hale looked at her, Avalon dozing against his chest. "And now you’re walking through one."

"And now I’m walking through one," she repeated, almost to herself.

The elevated road was clearly reserved for noble tiers. Guards snapped to attention as the prince passed. A sword rested at the prince’s hip, the bearing of his stride unmistakable. He was a warrior as much as he was a prince.

Most nobles who crossed their path allowed their gazes to fall upon Serena first, then shifted to the prince. Their conclusions were immediate and unmistakable.

Dex noticed. Fin noticed. Hale noticed. Gav noticed.

Serena didn’t. She never did. That was part of the problem. She had no idea what she looked like walking through a city that hadn’t seen an outsider in a thousand years, white hair catching the light, flanked by two Alphas and a man holding a baby dragon. She thought she was blending in.

She walked with quiet composure, focused entirely on the prince’s words and the path ahead.

Maelor noticed the looks as well.

"They think she’s with the prince," he murmured to Aeron.

"She’s walking next to him."

"She’s walking next to him diplomatically."

"The distinction is lost on the general public, Maelor."

The prince continued addressing his words to Serena, and she listened with attentive restraint, speaking far less than she was spoken to. At times she questioned him in return, though those behind her couldn’t be entirely certain.

She carried herself with the poise of a woman born to this, but Fin felt the truth through the matebond: the effort it cost her to maintain it. The dull throb of a headache pressed against the edges of her focus, the Morbian Vellum dialect pushing against her mind like a weight.

Fin longed to take her hand, to ground her with touch and pull some of the strain from her shoulders. He couldn’t. He understood that laying a finger on her in this place would undermine every careful piece of diplomacy she had constructed in that throne room. Instead, he pushed warmth through their matebond, a steady current meant to anchor her from within.

Dex also felt her exhaustion through his own matebond. The headache. His fingers twitched at his sides. He wanted to stop the procession, put her on his back, and walk the rest of this himself. Instead he kept pace and sent warmth through his matebond to match Fin’s.

Two currents. One woman pretending she didn’t notice either. Three people ignoring the geometry of what their relationship was with flying colors.

They entered a path that wound into the jungle, walking for nearly an hour beneath the heat-drenched canopy. At last the prince halted and turned to Serena, addressing her in his ancient tongue.

She sank into a graceful curtsey and offered what appeared to be a formal farewell.

The prince let his eyes travel over her in a manner that was far from appropriate, the appraisal lingering a moment too long.

Every man behind Serena registered it at the same time. The reactions varied in visibility. The intent behind them did not.

Dex’s expression didn’t change. His eyes did. Gold flickered once, brief and volcanic, before he buried it.

Fin stood perfectly still, radiating a silence so pointed it had its own gravitational field.

The prince inclined his head, expression unreadable, and departed without another word.

Nobody spoke. Every one of them understood there was a chance they remained under watch. They continued in silence for several minutes, the jungle humming around them.

Then Dex spoke first, his voice light, conversational, and carrying absolutely zero of the lightness it pretended to.

"That was a very long look."

"Dex," Serena said.

"I’m making an observation."

"Was it?"

"Yes." He paused. "Very long."

Elara leaned toward Hale. "He’s going to be like this for the rest of the day."

"Both of them," Hale said quietly.

"Both of them," she confirmed.

Fin said nothing about the prince. His restraint was more terrifying than Dex’s commentary. It was a choice. A deliberate, calculated, moment-by-moment choice that he was making with every fiber of discipline he possessed. He wanted credit for it. He would never ask for it.

In the back of the group, Hyran and Aeron, finally unleashed from diplomatic restraint, moved with unrestrained enthusiasm. The transformation was immediate. It was the fastest Gav had ever seen two grown men lose their dignity.

Their eyes gleamed each time they spotted a rune or fragment of old glyphwork etched into the stone.

Aeron pressed his face within inches of one.

"Hyran. Hyran, come look at this."

"I am looking at something."

"This is better."

"Nothing is better than what I am looking at."

"This is."

Hyran came to look. It was better. He said nothing.

Maelor had his own journal out now, writing with the focused intensity of a man racing against his own mortality.

"When we return," he said to Hyran, without looking up, "We are co-authoring a paper."

Hyran glanced at him. "I would rather co-author with the wall."

"The wall can’t write. I can. You need me."

"I have needed many things in my life. You have never been among them."

"I’m adding you as a second author regardless."

Hyran stopped mid-step. "Second."

Maelor kept walking. "Alphabetically, it makes sense."

"Alphabetically. By what metric would Maelor precede Hyran?"

"First name basis. M before... wait."

Aeron’s smile could have powered the city. Two master mages bickering over authorship credit in an undiscovered civilization was, apparently, his idea of paradise.

They walked in silence after that.

Then the trees parted, and the temple was there. Half-eaten by the jungle. Roots through the walls, vines through the columns, grass splitting the steps apart.

Entire sections of stone had caved inward, and grass grew through the shattered steps like the earth was trying to reclaim what had been built on top of it. It was ancient. It was ruined. And it was the first thing in this jungle that felt dangerous to everyone.