Lucas stood there for a moment, his mouth slightly open but no words forming. His mind scrambled for something appropriate, something respectful, something that would not sound shallow or foolish, yet all that finally slipped past his lips was a quiet almost breathless sorry. It was not dramatic and it was not eloquent, but it carried a sincerity so raw that it seemed to linger in the silent air between them.
The empress did not flinch at the word and she did not recoil as others often did when confronted by her scar. Instead she looked straight into his eyes, searching for the mockery or the hidden fear she had grown so accustomed to seeing. She found neither. What she saw instead was a young man who appeared genuinely wounded on her behalf, as though her pain had somehow become his. For a woman who had spent years masking her emotions and building a fortress around her heart, that single expression from him was strangely disarming.
