CHAPTER 780: THE TECHNO TEMPTATION (1)

The air inside the royal tent was still warm, holding onto the last traces of night like a secret.

The mage-lamps had dimmed themselves to a soft amber glow, barely lighting the heavy folds of dark blue canopy above the bed. Shadows pooled in the corners, gentle and unmoving. Outside, the camp was quiet, but in here the world felt even smaller—shrunk down to breath, skin, and the slow drizzle of exhaustion after too much feeling at once.

Elowen slept quietly beside him.

Her silver hair lay scattered over the pillows like spilled moonlight, some strands sticking to her cheek, some tangled around his fingers from earlier when she’d pulled his hand into her hair and refused to let go. The blankets had slipped a little down her shoulder, revealing the pale curve of her collarbone and the faint reddish marks along her throat and chest—evidence of how desperately she had needed him.

Marks only he would ever see.

Mikhailis lay on his side, propped on one elbow, just... watching.

Not as a man admiring a beautiful woman—though that was definitely part of it—but as someone trying to memorize something he knew he didn’t deserve to keep.

Her face looked softer now, almost younger. The hard, sharp lines she wore in the daylight—queen, commander, ruler of Silvarion Thalor—were gone. Her lips were relaxed. Her brows were not drawn in thought. Even her breathing was different, deeper, without the little tension she always carried in her shoulders when she was awake.

He lifted his hand and gently brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek, careful not to wake her.

She looks like someone who’s never allowed to rest. And now she finally can. At least for a little while.

His chest tightened.

Tonight had been... a lot. Not just physical. Emotionally, it had felt like standing at the edge of a cliff together, and instead of stepping back, they had chosen to jump and trust the other not to let them fall alone. Elowen had clung to him like he was the last solid thing in a collapsing world. Her hands, normally steady and commanding, had trembled when they touched his face. Her voice had broken when she said his name.

She had not been Queen Elowen Nyphara.

She had just been Elowen.

And he had given her everything he could—his body, his warmth, his hands, his silent promises in the dark. For those hours, the war stayed outside the tent. For those hours, she wasn’t a symbol. Just a woman who was tired of carrying an entire kingdom alone.

But even while watching her sleep now, he knew the truth waiting for him.

He was going to walk out soon.

Not away from her. Never away from her. The idea itself made something cold and ugly rise in his throat.

But he was going to walk into danger.

Into a lie.

Into something that, if it went wrong, might one day be too heavy to explain, even to her.

You really know how to pick your hobbies, Mikhailis, he thought dryly. Insects, magic, and high-risk emotional damage.

He let out a slow breath and leaned down. His lips brushed her temple, a soft, lingering kiss that carried more apology than he would ever admit out loud.

Elowen shifted slightly, a faint sound leaving her lips.

"...Mikha..."

He froze.

Her fingers flexed once against the blanket, almost reaching for him, then relaxed again. She settled back into sleep, breath steady, lashes resting against her cheeks.

For a moment, he just stayed there, staring at her.

If I stay, I won’t leave at all.

"I’ll bring you something better than these stolen nights," he whispered, the words barely shaping in the air. "Just wait for me."

He didn’t know if he was promising her peace, victory, or just the ability to sleep like this without needing to burn herself out first. Maybe he didn’t know himself. But the promise left his mouth anyway.

Carefully, he tugged the blankets back up over her bare shoulder, tucking them around her as if fabric could stand against kings and technomancers and S-ranked dungeons. He smoothed the corner near her neck, making sure no cold air would slip in.

Then he pulled away.

His joints complained in small, sharp ways when he sat up; the night hadn’t exactly been gentle on either of them. His muscles ached, but not in a bad way—more like the tiredness after a long training session, except this one happened to involve royalty and less clothing.

He reached for his clothes in the half-dark.

Undershirt first, pulled quietly over his head.

Trousers next, the fabric rougher than the sheets against his still-warm skin.

Outer coat—black, familiar, smelling faintly of ink, metal, and the forest.

He left his boots for last, slipping his feet into them but not stamping them fully down yet, letting the heels hang a little so they wouldn’t make noise on the floorboards.

He looked back once.

Elowen lay on her side now, one hand near the spot where he had been. Her lips parted slightly with each breath. The mage-lamp glow painted her skin gold and silver at the same time.

If anyone enters right now and sees her like this, I’ll have to kill them. Politely. As a responsible consort, of course.

He smiled faintly at his own thought, then let his expression fall back into something more serious. One last time, he pulled the fur blanket higher, almost up to her chin.

"Sleep, your Majesty," he murmured, too soft for her to hear. "I’ll go do something stupid on your behalf."

Then he moved.

He adjusted his glasses, pushed hair away from his face, and slipped toward the tent flap.

He moved like a shadow, every step placed carefully, controlled. The carpets inside the tent muffled his footsteps. The only sound was the soft rustle of cloth and the faint creak of leather as he shifted his weight.

He lifted the flap just enough to slide out.

The fabric fell back behind him with barely a whisper.

The cold pre-dawn air hit him instantly, sharp and clean, clearing the last fog of warmth from his mind. His breath puffed out as a small cloud in front of him, dissolving quickly into the gray-blue dark.

The camp was quieter than he usually saw it.

The sky was still a deep, dark shade, but the horizon had a faint line of lighter blue—the kind that said, The sun isn’t here yet, but it already sent a message.

Most of the fires had burned down to low, glowing embers. A few soldiers wrapped in cloaks sat hunched near them, eyes half-closed, faces lined with exhaustion. Somewhere, a kettle clinked softly. The smell of smoke, boiled grain, and cold iron hung in the air.

A sentry turned his head and spotted Mikhailis.

The man straightened a little and nodded respectfully.

"Lord Consort," he said in a low voice. "Couldn’t sleep?"

Mikhailis gave him a small, tired half-smile.

"Sleep and I had a disagreement," he replied. "I decided to get some air."

The sentry snorted quietly. "Happens to the best of us."

His gaze flicked briefly toward the royal tent behind Mikhailis, then away again, careful not to linger. He was smart enough not to ask anything.

Mikhailis inclined his head in thanks and walked on.

He passed two more sentries at different points. One gave him a curt nod; the other just shifted his spear to the other hand and pretended not to notice the consort walking through camp in the kind of posture that said "I’m fine" and "I’m thinking about five dangerous things" at the same time.

Nobody stopped him.

Nobody asked where he was going.

To them, this was normal: the queen’s strange consort walking alone in the pre-dawn, coat closed tight, mind obviously chewing on something. People had long given up trying to understand when exactly Mikhailis Volkov slept, ate, or decided to wander off.

The chimera ants stirred faintly at the edge of his awareness, that familiar hive-buzz in the back of his consciousness. Not loud. Not demanding. Just... present. Resting, but ready. The nest was under the castle, far from here, but the link was always there like a silent thread.

Not now, he thought gently toward them. You’ll have your turn soon enough.

Their presence settled.

He kept walking until the last tent rows thinned out and the ground turned more uneven. Ahead, the line of dark trees waited—silent, tall, and patient. The forest at the edge of the war camp wasn’t as thick or ancient as the Elder Tree’s domain in Silvarion, but it still had that quiet presence that made people instinctively lower their voices.

He stepped past the last watch line.

One of the outer sentries glanced at him, then away, assuming—as the others did—that the consort was just clearing his head before dawn strategy talks.

Technically not a lie, he thought.

He moved into the treeline, and the camp’s faint orange glow disappeared behind him one patch of shadow at a time.

Dead leaves crunched softly under his boots, but he adjusted his steps, shifting his weight to the edges of his soles, and even that sound faded. The forest floor here was a mix of roots, stones, and frost-hardened earth. His breath fogged a little stronger; the cold felt different under the branches, sharper, as if the trees had caught and kept it.

The smell changed too. Less smoke. More earth, sap, and old moss.

Rodion’s voice slid into his mind with perfect timing.

Ah, post-coital morning walks. Classic coping mechanism, Mikhailis.