Maximilian fell silent, his thoughts folding inward, pulled into a place he rarely allowed himself to revisit.
He remembered, not as fragments. Not as something distant or blurred by time, but as something alive.
He had watched her die in his arms.
Not peacefully. Not gently. There had been nothing merciful about her death. Regret had clung to her like a second skin, raw and suffocating, and the pain…God, the pain had been carved into every breath she struggled to take.
He hadn't been able to look at her fully. Not at the blood, not at the way her body trembled, not at how fragile she had become in those final moments.
Only her eyes. Those green eyes that were warm beyond measures…
Those eyes had held him captive.
Even when her voice failed her, even when her body could no longer keep up with the weight of her own suffering, her eyes had spoken.
They had said everything.
