Four hundred years is too long to remember someone's face.

But Rin never forgot.

Once, before everything shattered, the world felt different in his hands.

Lord Rin Itoshi — noble knight of the Astellion Kingdom, a man born with a sword in his hand and the sky in his eyes.

But inside their chamber, far from the cheering crowds and war banners, he was only a husband sitting at the edge of a bed with his palm resting over his wife's stomach — waiting for the small kick that, every time it came, filled his chest with something that had no name.

You laughed back then.

"He kicks hard tonight," you said, tightening your hold on his hand. "Like his father."

Rin didn't answer. He only looked at you the way that always made you wonder why—like a man trying to memorize something that already knew it would be lost.

Now he understood why.

The Vaelmor Empire came like a fire that had long been waiting beyond the hills.

Rin left when the fog still hung low over the castle courtyard. You stood on the steps in a white robe with hair not yet combed — you always hated farewells that were too neat, too formal, as though if it looked ordinary then his leaving wasn't real.

"I will return," he said. Both palms cupped your face, his thumbs sweeping your cheekbone once — twice — as though counting. "Whole. I promise."

you press the back of your hand to his lips. Said nothing.

That was the last touch he ever felt as a human.

Astellion lost.

Rin survived — the cruelest irony the universe had ever given him. He returned with cracked armor, passed through castle gates reduced to ash, called your name through corridors that only echoed his own voice back.

He found you in their chamber.

You lay there... your life was swallowed by the earth. Never to return. With the baby in your womb... someone you both dreamed of growing and raising until you both grew old together is now gone.

There. Still. With wounds that should never have existed on the body of someone he was supposed to protect.

Rin knelt on the cold stone floor. His hands trembled — the first time in his life his hands had ever trembled. He did not cry. Something inside his chest was too destroyed to produce tears.

What came out was only sound — not prayer, not plea.

A curse.

"If heaven allowed this to happen," his voice broke between stone walls, "then I want no part of that heaven. Give me eternity. Give me enough time to find her again. And I will pay whatever price you ask."

The sky did not answer with light.

The sky answered with darkness — creeping in through the gaps in the windows, filling his lungs, turning something inside his blood cold.

Permanent.

Eighteen thousand nights.

Rin counted every one — not because he wanted to, but because eternity forced him to understand that time kept moving while he did not. Faces around him changed with each generation. Kingdoms rose and fell. Languages changed. Maps changed.

The only thing that never changed was what he carried inside a chest that no longer beat.

And tonight, amid the splendor of the Grand Masquerade Ball of Eldenmoor Kingdom — between golden candles, silk gowns, and the laughter of people who knew nothing of eternal loss — Rin stood at the edge of a balcony with a glass of wine he never touched.

The scent of roses and candle wax filled the air. Against his skin, the fragrance didn't settle. It only passed through — like all things that had long stopped reaching him.

A white mask covered half his face. A black coat fell perfectly across his shoulders. To everyone in this room, he was Prince Itoshi from a country that appeared on no map — cold, majestic, untouchable.

Inside, something he had spent four centuries building with extraordinary care was cracking along every edge.

Because then — at the grand doorway across the ballroom — you walked in.

A deep blue gown. Hair swept to one side. Chin lifted half an inch higher than necessary because you never wanted to look unprepared.

Exactly.

Exactly the same.

Rin's heart did not beat. It never had again, not since four hundred years ago. But inside the hollow of his chest, there was something that felt like a heartbeat — something painful, like a dead organ being forced back to life.

His fingers gripped the balcony railing.

The metal dented.

His eyes — a pair of teal green irises he had spent four centuries concealing behind a human illusion, forcing himself to appear ordinary, appear mortal — flickered for one second to deep crimson before he forced them back. His jaw locked tight, the muscle along his face tensing, holding back something older than anyone in this room.

He descended from the balcony.

His steps were slow. Every step measured, controlled — because four centuries had taught him that some things must not be rushed, and some things, if you move too quickly, will shatter in your hands.

People stepped aside without knowing why. Perhaps the way he walked. Perhaps something in his eyes that looked too old for such a young face.

Rin stopped directly in front of you.

Close enough to see that your eyes were exactly the same color. Close enough to hear your heartbeat — alive, real, here, after eighteen thousand nights without that sound.

His hand rose. Slowly, he removed his right glove — one finger at a time — then extended his bare hand toward you. Cold as marble. Cold as the night beyond the windows. Cold as four hundred years that were never warm enough without you.

"One dance," he said. His voice did not tremble. It never did.

But when you extended your hand — hesitant, like someone who hadn't yet decided — his fingers closed over the back of your hand with extraordinary care, like holding something that had shattered once before. He bent slowly. His lips touched your knuckles — cold, soundless, lasting too long for the mere greeting of a foreign prince.

One second. Two.

As though he were saying something that no longer had words.

When he looked up, his eyes — teal green behind the white mask — regarded you in a way no stranger should.

"Have you ever," he said quietly, almost a whisper, like a question he had kept for far too long, "felt as though you had lost something — but could not remember what?"

Your hand was still inside his.

He had not let go.