This was babysitting.

He had served King Dax through blood politics, border disputes, assassination attempts, and one memorable diplomatic dinner where the king had smiled for three hours while silently deciding how many men in the room needed to disappear. He had served Queen Christopher through the years after Saha learned what it meant to have a consort who looked gentle and made dangerous people reconsider their survival choices. Hale had seen royal madness in its mature forms.

Nero was not mature royal madness. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Nero was royal madness with excellent hair and insufficient fear of consequences.

"Back," Hale said.

Nero sighed with theatrical disappointment but obeyed. Mostly.

He walked back through the scorched trench line, stepping over blackened bodies and patches of baked mud with the loose grace of someone returning from a stroll rather than from being the center of a localized inferno. The flames shrank as he pulled his pheromones back, not vanishing entirely but losing that unnatural intensity until the burn team could move in safely.

The moment Nero crossed the marked line, Hale snapped two fingers.

"Burn team, seal the trench. Field techs, check soil temperature before anyone steps in his footprints. Medical, scan the nearby unit for heat exposure."

Nero blinked. "My footprints?"

"The mud baked around you."

"That sounds poetic."

"That sounds like paperwork."

Nero’s smile widened. "My favorite genre."

"Your favorite genre is chaos."

"Also true."

A burn-team captain approached with a thermal tablet, took one look at the glowing red readings beyond the line, and slowly turned toward Nero.

"Your Highness," she said, tone very careful, "the trench mouth is clean."

"You’re welcome."

"It is also hotter than our standard burn protocol."

"You’re very welcome."

Hale said, "Do not thank him. It feeds him."

Nero placed a hand over his chest. "I am wounded by the lack of appreciation."

"You are never wounded when it would be convenient."

"That is because I am excellent."

Hale stared at him.

Nero smiled back.

Then the long-range comm crackled again.

"South," Hendrik said. "Clarify thermal spike. Central command registered uncontrolled combustion beyond your line."

Hale looked at Nero.

Nero pointed delicately at himself and mouthed, ’me?,’ and looked delighted.

Hale keyed the comm. "Combustion was controlled."

There was a pause.

Hendrik’s silence had personality.

"By whom?" he asked.

Hale did not look away from Nero. "That depends on how flexible command is willing to be with the word controlled."

Nero laughed.

Hendrik exhaled over the comm like a man aging in real time. "Put Nero on."

"No," Hale said immediately.

Nero’s eyes brightened. "Yes."

"No."

"Hale."

"I am not handing you a communication channel to central command while you are standing beside your own arson."

"It was battlefield purification."

"It was you being bored."

"It was both."

Hendrik’s voice cut through again, drier now. "I can still hear you."

Nero leaned toward Hale’s shoulder, clearly aiming for the comm. "Hello, Hendrik."

Hale physically put a hand on Nero’s face and pushed him back.

Every Sahan soldier nearby went still.

Nero froze too, not out of offense but because something delighted and vicious sparked in his eyes.

"Hale," he said, muffled against the glove, "I knew you loved me more than my parents."

Hale removed his hand from Nero’s face with the expression of a man regretting every decision that had led him to this battlefield.

Nero’s grin widened.

"Would you be my chief of security?" he asked, with the tone another man might have used to propose marriage beneath moonlight.

A Sahan infantryman made the mistake of looking over.

Hale’s gaze shifted.

The infantryman immediately found the smoking trench fascinating.

"No," Hale said.

Nero put a hand over his chest. "So fast."

"I am chief of security to Queen Christopher."

"Technically."

"Legally. Professionally. Actively."

"Yes, but Chris likes sharing when properly motivated."

Hale stared at him.

Nero smiled, bright and terrible, soot on his cheek and blood on his sleeve. "I already asked him."

For the first time that morning, Hale’s expression changed.

"You what?"

"I asked Chris."

"When?"

"Before we left Saha."

Hale looked at him with the controlled horror of a man discovering an ambush after walking into it perfectly.

Nero’s smile became unbearable. "He said if you wanted it, he would allow it."

A long silence followed.

Behind them, burn teams worked very hard to pretend they had not just heard the Crown Prince of Saha offer career abduction in the middle of a beast line.

Hale’s jaw tightened. "Queen Christopher said that."

"Yes."

"Those exact words?"

"Something close."

"Nero."

"He said," Nero began, adopting a softer and deeply unflattering impression of Chris’s calm voice, "’Hale is not a possession, Nero. If he wants to take that post, I will not stop him.’"

Hale closed his eyes.

Nero added, "Then he said, ’But if you torment him into it, I will know.’"

Hale opened his eyes. "Good."

"I am not tormenting you. I am courting you professionally."

"That is worse."

"It sounds elegant."

"It sounds like a threat with stationery."

Nero beamed. "See? You understand me."

Hale turned away and checked the ridge, because the alternative was answering too honestly in front of soldiers who would absolutely gossip in disciplined Sahan fashion, which meant quietly, efficiently, and with terrifying accuracy.

Nero stepped with him, entirely too pleased. "You should consider it."

"I am considering whether to recommend someone else to suffer."

"You wouldn’t."

"I would."

"You like me."

"I understand you."

"In Saha, that is nearly marriage."

Hale gave him a flat look. "Do not use that tone with me."

"What tone?"

"The one you use when you think charming someone is the same as winning."

Nero’s smile sharpened. "Is it working?"

"No."

"Then you are the perfect candidate."

Hale inhaled slowly through his nose.

The southern ridge smoked around them. Beasts burned in black heaps beyond the line. The battlefield smelled of ash, fungal rot, wet mud, and Nero’s lingering brimstone. It was absurdly fitting, Hale thought, that Nero would make a life-altering staffing request while surrounded by the evidence of why he needed supervision.

"You want a chief of security," Hale said, "or do you want someone shielding people like Sebastian from you?"

Nero’s grin did not vanish.

That would have been too simple.

Instead, it sharpened first, bright and cutting, as if the question had struck metal and produced sparks before it found skin.

A few meters away, one of the Sahan soldiers suddenly became fascinated by the safety lock on his rifle. The burn-team captain turned her back with the precision of a woman choosing longevity over curiosity.

Nero’s purple eyes stayed on Hale.

"Careful," he said softly. "That almost sounded like an insult."

"It was a job description."

"Mine or yours?"

Hale did not blink. "Both."