{IRIS}
Lord Val continued, tone colder than winter steel. "I am calling only to remind you not to speak to me in public. Do not approach me. We don't know each other. Do not contact me unless it is very important. Is that understood?"
For a moment, I could not speak.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop. The moonlight felt harsher, colder, slicing down my arms like a reprimand.
"I… understand, Lord Val," I whispered at last, voice small, trembling at the edges.
Distance.
Formality.
Walls rebuilt in a heartbeat.
The call ended.
Silence pressed in from every corner of the room. Heavy. Suffocating.
It was the same cold hollowness I once felt when Lorcan rejected me—when he turned away with a dismissive tilt of his head, when my heart had caved inward like a ruined thing.
But this… this hurt differently.
Lord Val had been my shelter. My improbable protector. The one who shielded me from the world. My only ally.
