The kiss Alexander gave him at the end of the night wasn't the kind meant to distract.
It was the kind meant to anchor.
Even hours later, while Lucien sat at the small writing desk in their sitting room, he could still feel it in his bones the slow, deliberate way Alexander had pressed certainty into his mouth like a vow.
Yes, they'll come for you.
No, they won't win.
Lucien dipped his quill into ink and forced himself to focus. His notes from the road were spread before him in a thin folder his own handwriting, his own observations, not filtered through ministers or council channels.
This was what he trusted now.
On the edge of the desk lay a sealed packet Alexander had delivered earlier "safe documents," he'd called them. Verified by Alexander's people. Pulled from routes that didn't pass through Aldren's hands.
Lucien had argued less this time when Alexander told him.
It wasn't surrender.
It was strategy.
