“Why? The edges aren’t even deep,” Morgan whined.

“If I let you dip your feet there, those shameless fish are going to lick and suck on your toes!” Burn snapped, like this was the battlefield of dignity itself.

Morgan burst into laughter, clearly unaware of just how wildly lustful animals could be for her. The stallion with the boner? The birds putting on operas just to get noticed? And himself?

The fish were no different. Same depravity, just wetter.

That day, Burn dragged her all around the estate like a man determined to burn through every ounce of joy before fate came collecting. They shared stories, jokes with just enough filth to make aristocrats faint, and a whole lot of borderline criminal laughter.

By sunset, Morgan gasped when he led her to the balcony with the best view in the land. Letting her become one with the world she loved so.

When night fell, Burn took her beyond the palace gates, straight into the streets of Camlann—a place that might as well have had his teenage fingerprints all over it. Just like Camelot, but colder. Probably because it had less royal nonsense and more sharp wind.

Naturally, Morgan, strolling through the streets like some divine being on casual leave, drew glances like moths to flame. But given how absurdly out-of-this-world beautiful she was, only men with absolutely zero grip on reality would dare make a move.

So when she pointed at a street stall selling lamb wraps with a line long enough to qualify as a pilgrimage, Burn gave her the answer of a man who had long lost patience for her antics.

“You want to queue? Go alone then. I’m not standing in that mess with you.”

Momo barely contained her glee. “Who asked you to follow me? Sit there and wait like a good boy.”

She shoved him and disappeared into the crowd, not even sparing him a backwards glance. And Burn? He sat. Like the obedient creature he was—for her and no one else.

On the bench, a drunkard who’d been there first gave him a side-eye. The man clocked his floating-on-air grin, the twitchy fingers fidgeting with the locket he kept opening and closing like a nervous schoolboy—revealing a picture of that woman.

The drunk snorted at the absurd level of euphoric delusion in front of him. “What drugs are you on, man?”

Burn didn’t even blink. Still watching the crowd where she vanished, he replied like a man confessing to the most potent addiction known to mankind:

“Morgan Le Fay.”

Burn, realizing Morgan had actually queued properly, immediately turned heel and bolted in the opposite direction—at a sharp enough angle that she wouldn’t even catch his absence if she squinted.

Yesterday, they’d strolled this very street, hand-in-hand. But along the way, Burn's Force-trained eyes had locked onto something behind a jewelry store glass.

He hadn’t acted then—too obvious, too soon. Morgan had the awareness of a goddess and the nosiness of a cat. No way she wouldn’t notice. But now? Now she was busy playing mortal in a lamb wrap line.

He sprinted. Not walked, not strolled—sprinted. Weaving through pedestrians like a predator through brush, he reached the store in under a minute. Door open, bootstep sharp.

Burn had hardly left Morgan’s side since the first battle broke out and they’d met under less-than-romantic circumstances. When he was away, it was empire or war, war or empire. No time for small things like buying a proposal ring—though, small things with Morgan were never small.

He didn’t want some court lackey choosing a ring, and definitely not one from the imperial treasury. He wanted his eyes to choose. His fingers to pick.

Yesterday, he saw the ring.

And now he was here to steal time back.

The store owner, a woman who vaguely remembered seeing him years ago as a scowling, absurdly handsome teen with no patience and too many titles, nearly passed out when she recognized him again—now sharper, taller, and crowned.

Burn didn't waste time. “That one. Wrap it. Velvet box in gold.”

He'd kept this entire plan mentally barricaded from Morgan’s mind-reading spell—no easy feat—but now he was on borrowed time. He dropped his brooch with the imperial insignia on the counter like it was a royal decree.

“Send the bill to the palace,” he muttered, already halfway toward the exit before—

“Wait,” he stopped cold. “She’ll notice I lost my brooch.”

Of course she would. She noticed when he changed cologne by half a note. The moment she saw him without that brooch, he’d be interrogated with the intensity of a witch trial.

The store owner blinked, then brightened, catching on. She’d seen the woman with him last night—the one who looked like a living myth and had Burn smiling like a lunatic. So that was what this was about.

“My lord,” she said gently, “please… just take the ring.”

Burn squinted at her as if suspicious of kindness, but she held her nervous smile.

“It’s an honor, sir.”

He scowled at himself more than her. How did he become a man so ill-prepared for his own proposal? But he hadn’t expected to be this in love. And now, here he was—covert, breathless, wildly late to the party, but utterly sure.

The ring was everything he never thought he’d find. He’d already pictured it on her finger.

“You’re the Imperial Jeweler now,” Burn declared, grabbing the velvet box and vanishing like smoke before the woman could even say “thank you.”

Only when the door chimed closed did the store owner finally slump back into her chair, blinking, breathless—and then laughed.

Now that was a story worth telling forever.

Burn ran. His heartbeat pounded against his ribs, an unrelenting thrum. A smile began to pull at his lips—

She was close. His Momo. Just a few more steps.

He saw the stall.

But not her.

Instead: a circle. A crowd. A tight wall of people frozen in that distinct, terrible silence.

His heart sank.

No.

He shoved through them—ruthless, unthinking. Then he saw her. On the ground. Gasping. Blood in her throat. Eyes fading. Breathing ragged and final.

“What would happen if you couldn’t endure the price of the loops?” He’d asked her once, after another impossible discussion about her soul.

“I might have to abandon this body. Be reborn again. The loops won’t stop, but… as you know, I’d need time. Months. To grow in the womb again. And if it happens before I’m born—another loop. My mother would miscarry. I’d reset, if a new vessel exists.”

The golden velvet box slipped from his hand and landed on the stained pavement. It hit the corner. The ring leapt from its cradle. And lay there.

Abandoned.