The garden was a hollow thing now, a stage where the actors had fled, leaving only the scent of crushed frost flowers and the fading silver of a moon that didn't belong to this world. Orrian stood alone in the center of the patch, his luminous form the only thing casting a shadow in a space that had suddenly become very quiet.
He watched her run.
He watched the small, determined figure of Eris as she grew smaller against the massive, looming stone of the palace. She ran with a desperate, uncoordinated grace, her nightclothes snapping behind her like a banner of surrender to a force she had spent her whole life fighting: love. She was running toward the sound of that trumpet, toward the one man who had managed to unmake the wildfire she was supposed to be.
Whatever expression Orrian wore, he wore it only for himself now. There was no audience to perform for, no character to manipulate.
