The Dragon's Heart: Unspoken Passion-Chapter 112: He Cares

Ilaria’s gaze drifted once more to the mark on her wrist. In the lamplight, the faint curves of the sigil warmed, cooled, then pulsed with a subtle glow she could not decide was real or imagined. She brushed her thumb over it, barely grazing the pattern.

Growing up in the holy temple meant her entire childhood was filled with superstition, omens, prophecies, and warnings wrapped in scripture. She had always been the first to look away from them. But now, with the echo of that dream still lingering behind her ribs, unease curled sharp and tight in her chest.

Because dreams were never just dreams. Not the ones that left marks.

Across from her, Lysander observed without comment, his scholarly focus so precise she could almost feel it skimming her skin. His eyes followed the movement of her wrist, the tension in her shoulders, the troubled way she chewed her bottom lip, fitting her into a thousand years of written and unwritten knowledge.

Ilaria lifted her head and meet his gaze. She knew how she must look, half worried, half frustrated, overwhelmed and prickling under his scrutiny. But instead of answering with dread or formality, her brows scrunched, lips pushing into a tiny, irritated pout.

"Don’t look at me like that," she muttered, though she had not spoken a word aloud. It was a silent protest. An automatic little spark of indignation to hide the tremor sitting far too close to her heart.

Lysander only lifted a brow, the kind of expression that was merely impossibly perceptive. It made her feel seen in a way she was not ready for. She dropped her gaze again, thumb brushing over the mark on her wrist and that strange, dark ripple under her skin.

The veins looked like faint threads of smoke caught beneath glass. Wrong. Out of place. Every superstition she had been raised with whispered different warnings in her ear.

"You do realize," Lysander said, tone gentler now, "that pouting at a sigil will not lessen its significance, Your Highness."

She glared at him, or tried to, but the edges wobbled, turning her expression into something more uncertain than defiant. "I’m thinking," she clarified. "That’s all."

"That much is obvious." He hummed. "And a little fear is not foolishness. It is preparation."

Her hand stilled. The room seemed smaller for a moment.

It feels like the air between them had shifted. It was less teasing, more solemn, but strangely warm. He was not pitying her nor was he alarmed. He was simply studying her with the calm weight of someone willing to carry part of the burden if she let him.

But beneath that steadiness was another flicker of an unspoken question he could not help asking himself.

How is she this calm?

Most people he had encountered who bore even a hint of a Blithe-touch either wept, panicked, or begged for reassurance. He had watched fully grown warriors crumble at the mere suspicion of having been marked. He had seen scholars lose sleep, priests break into frantic prayer, and mages seal themselves into isolation.

And yet here was the princess, soft-hearted, easily touched by stories, terrified of causing worry to the people she loved, sitting with a cursed sigil quietly blooming under her skin... and she had not cried once. She pouted more than she trembled. She fretted more about her husband than she did about the thing crawling into her dreams.

"Princess," he said amusedly, "you are handling this far better than most would."

His tone was not patronizing. If anything, it was lightly impressed, as if he were noting a rare phenomenon in his field study. His expression softened a little, something like reluctant admiration settling in the lines of his face.

"Far better," he added, almost to himself. "Most people scream."

She huffed. "That includes you?"

The corner of his mouth twitched. "I never said that."

Their gazes held and the silence that followed was not uncomfortable, it was clarity settling in. Then Lysander’s expression straightened, knowing that she has yet to do the most important thing.

"Still, I would advice that you tell your husband."

The statement landed with more certainty than his casual posture should have allowed. He said it like a verdict, like a truth he would not bend from.

"He can keep you safe."

Ilaria stared at the unwavering confidence in his voice, that calm, matter-of-fact certainty that her husband could keep her safe if she only told him. It settled over her like a warm cloak, reassuring yet painfully heavy.

Suddenly, her shoulders dropped. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"I... already worry him too much," she admitted, the words slipping out softer than intended as she was reminded of what happened the night before. She looked away, the pout lingering on her lips as she sniffled pitifully.

"Last night he... he got so upset because of me."

For the first time that morning, Lysander was the one who looked unmoored. He stopped fiddling with the book in his hand as the image of the prince came up in his mind.

Upset? Levan? The prince whose face might as well have been carved from an enchanted marble slab? The same man whose emotional range Lysander had previously assumed ran from "stoic" to "extremely displeased"?

She did not notice his incredulous blink, too caught up in finally voicing the knot lodged in her chest.

"I deserved it though," she continued, rubbing her thumb over the edge of her sleeve. "I kept things from him, and even though he always told me it’s fine, even though he keeps everything so controlled, I could tell he was actually hurt. And I don’t ever want to be the cause of that again."

"Upset, huh," he repeated, tasting the word as if it did not fit in his understanding of Levan at all. He squinted his eyes, fingers drumming on the book and asked, "That constipated, chronically rigid prince? Sulking?"

She gaped, surprised at the way Lysander addressed him until she remembered they were close friends. She sighed, still in her sorrowful mood. "Yes."

"Over you?"

"Yes."

"Frequently?"

Ilaria looked at him, confused as to why he would ask that as if it was something bizarre. But he still looked baffled, as if someone had told him stone statues cried when no one was watching. His entire worldview was cracking around the edges.

"I truly must see this myself," he murmured at last before a quiet huff of laughter escaped him. "It appears the universe has a far keener sense of irony than I ever credited it for."

Lysander’s amusement faded gradually, settling into something more attentive. The bafflement lingered, but only as an afterthought. Because as he looked at the princess, he was suddenly struck by a memory he had not summoned in years.

He had known Levan for most of his life, long before either of them had titles or duties or reputations carved into their spines. He could still recall the first day he had been brought to the palace, a boy trailing behind his father’s robes, wide-eyed at the obsidian halls and silver banners of Noctharis.

Everything had felt too large, too grand, and too heavy with expectation. Except for the Queen.

She had been the first warmth in a place built from moonstone and discipline. The late Queen of Noctharis, soft-voiced, luminous, a woman whose presence seemed to quiet even the restless air.

And always beside her stood Levan. A small version of the man he would one day become — straight-backed, solemn-eyed, watching everything with a carefulness that did not belong to children.

Lysander remembered that boy clearly. Ten years old, trying so fiercely to imitate a father he barely understood, while the gentle strength of his mother’s hand on his shoulder remained the only thing that allowed him to breathe.

The Queen had adored her son with a devotion that needed no words. And Levan had loved her with a reverence so profound it softened the shadows around him. He had followed her like a steadfast moon, absorbing every kindness she offered and guarding it as if the world might steal it away.

Everything tender in him revolved around her. As if she was the axis around which his small, careful world spun. And when she died... everything seemed to shift.

Not in the ways children usually break. Levan did not cry. He did not lash out. He did not crumble. But something in him dimmed, hidden like a candle placed behind stone. Lysander could never say precisely when he realized it. Only that one day, he looked at Levan and felt the subtle shift without knowing why.

Even now, years later, the man he had become held that same quiet devotion buried deep inside him.

Lysander lowered his gaze, the memory dissolving like mist as he returned to the present. He knew Levan’s heart as well as he knew the palace corridors, hidden and fortified... but loyal in a way that bordered on painful.

Which was why he spoke with such certainty now.

"Keeping him out of this will not spare him worry. It will only delay the moment he learns something is wrong. And while I’ve never been a fan of involving myself in another man’s affairs, I strongly suggest you tell him before he discovers it on his own," Lysander said, his tone firm but not unkind.

"Your husband is difficult to read," he paused, then added. "To most people, anyway. But he is not apathetic. He is—" his mouth twitched, searching for a word that was not insulting, "—intensely loyal. Intensely protective. And from what I have seen, intensely aware of you."

She flushed.

"Which means," Lysander continued calmly, "the more you hide, the more he will search for what he’s missing. Not because he distrusts you, but because he knows when something hurts the people he cares for."

Ilaria listened tentatively. Well, at least, she tried to. But the rest of the sentence vanished into white noise, because all she heard, with the force of a struck bell, was: he cares.

Her breath hitched. "He... cares for me?"

She said it so softly, so sincerely, so astonished that it caught Lysander mid-gesture.

Of all the parts of his explanation she could have latched onto, that was the one that wrapped itself around her like a revelation. Her eyes went wide and shiny, lips parted in an innocent bewilderment that made her look like someone had just handed her the sun.

Lysander stared at her. Then he huffed with the long-suffering exhale of a man who had absolutely no business witnessing marital obliviousness this severe.

"Good Gods," he muttered under his breath, "this truly is happening."

She frowned at his reaction, clearly flustered. "W-what? Why are you looking at me like that?"

He gave her the most incredulous stare he had offered anyone in months. "Princess. You are married to a man who follows you around with the expression of a storm trapped in human form. He looks at you like someone stole the world from him and only you returned it. And you’re asking me if he cares?"

Ilaria shrank a little, cheeks warming, but she still whispered defensively, "Well... he doesn’t say it."

"The prince doesn’t say many things. But that does not mean he doesn’t feel them. If anything, his silence is usually the loudest thing in the room."

Her eyes widened even more like a kitten scolded by surprise.

Lysander sighed again, as if the combined weight of her innocence and Levan’s emotional constipation had personally attacked him.

"He cares for you. Deeply. Painfully. Obviously if you hadn’t noticed," he said, sounding every bit like the only bystander watching two oblivious lovebirds trip over their own emotions. "Trust me, if he cared any louder, the palace walls would vibrate."

Ilaria made a small "oh," her hands curling in her lap and her shoulders hunching shyly.