(Klaine's POV)
The manor had returned to its usual rhythm within days.
Repairs were completed. Damage reports were filed. The orchard showed no visible sign of the storm that had torn through it.
Only memory remained.
Klaine stood at the balcony overlooking the grounds, his attention fixed on the place where the wooden frame had nearly fallen.
The air was clear now.
Peaceful.
But he remembered the weight in it.
Not the sky.
Not the storm.
Her mana.
It had not resembled the Gate itself — the cold fracture in reality that split the horizon when it opened.
It had resembled what came through it.
The monsters.
Dense. Dark. Pressing against the senses with a presence that felt alive and wrong at once.
The knights' reaction had been rational.
They were trained to recognize threat.
And for a brief moment, they had seen something familiar in her power.
What stayed with him was not their fear.
It was her response to it.
She had noticed immediately.
Not the beam she was holding. Not the storm.
Them.
Their silence.
The way their hands shifted toward their weapons.
The way their stance changed.
And instead of defending herself, she had lowered her presence.
She had apologized.
Not for saving the squire.
For frightening them.
That distinction was important.
She understood what her power looked like.
She simply refused to let it define her behavior.
Later, he had considered another moment more carefully.
Her voice when she thanked him.
"For not stepping back."
She had expected distance.
Not accusation.
Distance.
He had not considered retreating.
The possibility had not entered his calculation.
That realization lingered longer than expected.
Why had he not stepped back?
Her power was formidable.
Visually ominous.
Similar in texture and pressure to the creatures that emerged from the Gate.
And yet she had never once used it without precision.
She corrected her own enchantments openly.
She admitted fault when her calibration was wrong.
She adjusted her tone when others were uncomfortable.
She made efforts no one required of her.
That was not carelessness.
That was deliberate restraint.
He exhaled slowly.
When she said she liked him again, there had been no dramatics.
No hesitation.
Just a statement.
"I still like you."
Direct.
Uncomplicated.
Her honesty did not corner him.
It clarified the space between them.
He replayed the moment she asked to hold his hand more than once that evening, though he would not describe the action as dwelling on it.
She had smiled when she said it — not shy, not uncertain, and not testing him — but steady, as though the request itself required no embarrassment and carried no hidden meaning beyond what was spoken.
There had been no tremor in her voice.
No hesitation in her eyes.
She had simply wanted to close the small space between them and had chosen to say so plainly.
That directness continued to unsettle him in subtle ways.
Most people calculated before they approached him.
They assessed power, position, consequence.
She did not.
She observed him the way she observed spell patterns — closely, openly, and without fear of the result.
When he agreed and took her hand first, it had not felt like indulgence.
It had felt correct.
Natural.
The alignment of a decision that required no adjustment afterward.
That detail stayed with him longer than he expected.
He did not love her.
He examined the word carefully and discarded it for now.
Love implied certainty of permanence, and he was not yet prepared to define anything in such absolute terms.
But indifference was no longer possible.
He noticed when she entered a room before he consciously turned his head.
He identified the shift in atmosphere when her mana settled near his own.
He found that conversations felt shorter when she was absent and strangely lighter when she was present, even when the topic was practical or severe.
More concerning was the subtle recalibration of his thinking.
When reports mentioned risk, he assessed it partly through the question of whether she would involve herself.
When discussions of future deployments arose, he calculated the impact on her schedule before considering his own.
He had never integrated another person into his decision-making framework in such an unspoken way.
It was efficient.
But it was also personal.
He rested one hand against the balcony railing and allowed himself a rare moment of honesty.
He preferred when she stood beside him.
The preference was quiet but consistent.
He appreciated the way she challenged him without aggression.
The way she corrected errors in front of knights without protecting her pride.
The way she smiled after saying something serious, as if the weight of it did not frighten her.
And when she said she wanted to be his wife, she had not framed it as a dream.
She had framed it as intention.
That, more than the words themselves, lingered.
He did not feel pressured.
He felt considered.
That distinction mattered.
Below in the courtyard, she lifted a small strand of dark mana between her fingers, shaping it into a harmless ribbon to demonstrate control, her expression focused yet relaxed.
The knights watched carefully.
No one reached for their weapons.
No one shifted uneasily.
Trust had not been given to her easily.
She had built it piece by piece, with restraint and consistency.
He watched the way she tilted her head when a knight asked a question, the way she answered without condescension, the way she allowed them to see her think.
Not love.
He would not name it that yet.
But something steady was forming in the space where distance had once existed.
And for the first time in years, he found that he did not wish to maintain that distance purely out of discipline.
He did not feel the need to withdraw.
He did not feel the need to correct the direction.
He simply stood there and acknowledged the truth quietly to himself—
He was beginning to want her near him, not because it was logical, not because it was advantageous, but because her presence had started to feel like something he would miss if it were gone.