-Darius- Travelling back with so many men and having to stop at each place to make sure they came home all right again took longer than expected. I wanted to write back to Katherine, but I was so focused on getting home. It was all I could think about. All that was on my mind was to get back to my wife. I needed to hold her again and make sure nothing bad could ever harm her. I needed to make sure she truly came out of the incident all right. I needed to see it with my own eyes, or I wouldn’t believe it. I barely slept. I barely did anything else but think about Katherine and how she was. I was pacing my tent all night and riding hard during the day. I couldn’t leave the army, though, or I would have been home much faster. When she finally appeared, though, it was like a dream come true. It was like I saw her again for the first time when she appeared here at the capitol, ready to marry my brother. Or in this life, me. She ran to me, jumping into my arms and shaking like a leaf in th

-Katherine- I was unsure what to make of the scene in front of me. Did Darius need me? Was Acan the one in danger? I noticed the gloves on the table soon after I stepped in, and I was surprised to see them lying there. Darius didn’t wear his gloves when he was with me. He could touch me without any problems, but he rarely took them off if we were with other people, and now that he had them off his hands, I noticed something about his skin. Dark veins crawled up his hands and disappeared beneath his clothes. I had never seen anything like it before. I had noticed there was something different in Darius’s eyes. There was something swirling in there that I had not seen before. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on but that I couldn’t deny was there. Maybe something dark. Something a little wrong. I couldn’t quite put it into words, but my husband had definitely changed. I shouldn’t expect anything less considering where he had just come home from, but I did feel worried. I was uns

-Darius- I understood Katherine wanted to stay. I heard everything she was saying, but I simply needed her away from the court. I wanted her to be safe, and I didn’t think she could ever be safe here. I wished I could make her see that, but Katherine was still holding onto her wish for revenge. It wasn't that I didn’t get that, and I wanted to punish my brother as well. I wanted to hurt him and Silver, but there had been so much blood. I was tired of blood, and when I was finally allowed to meet our son, all I could think about was getting him and my wife somewhere safe. Somewhere, they would never feel like they were wrong for being who they were, and no one would want to come after them and hurt them. I needed to feel safe too. I needed to feel calm again and like I didn’t have to look over my shoulder all the time. I was getting so tired of it. I had barely slept for so long, and now that I was home, I didn’t even feel very relaxed because of what had almost happened to Katherine.

-Katherine- Darius was not lying when he said he found it hard to sleep. In the middle of the night, I found him standing by the window, the fireplace behind him burning and casting a beautiful light on him. He was half dressed, wearing only pants, but I could see the worried expression on his face. I could see the way he looked out of the window, as if something might come running towards the house and attack us. I sat up a little, watching Darius, seeing the pain in him and how tight his body had gotten as he held himself in a defensive position. He sipped a little from a wine cup, and I felt my heart ache at the sight of him. I knew there wasn’t much I could do for him. My father had been a fighter too, and my mother did tell me sometimes he could act "funny" when he got home. I never truly understood why until I grew older. Or maybe now was when I truly understood it. Now I saw it. I saw how much it changed you and how dark it made you. I felt so bad for Darius because I didn’t k

-Katherine- Darius and I went riding today. We had been at the estate for a while now, and I could see the changes that were happening in us. Good changes. The ones I had hoped I would get to experience at some point. I had begun to lose myself as well. I had done things I never thought I could do. I had lost myself in ways I hadn’t realized until Darius and I began becoming our old selves. We began playing around, laughing, and enjoying our time, and our son slowly felt at ease too. I hadn’t noticed I was stressing him out as well. He was so tiny, and I had thought he didn’t want to sleep a lot, but after coming to this place and settling down, he suddenly slept a lot. He had felt on edge too. After all, he had saved my life by letting me borrow his powers, and he knew there were dangers out there. He might not be able to speak yet, but he knew there were dangers. He knew letting down his guard was not something he could do in the castle. But out here? Out here, he felt good. He fel