Her pulse beat in time with his steps. Her breath matched the cadence of his movements. She was attuned to him in a way that should have unsettled her, but instead, it felt inevitable.
As they spun in a slow rotation, his face passed so close to hers that she could see the faint golden flecks in his brown eyes. For a flicker of a moment, something flashed behind her eyes.
His lifeless gaze, the blood, the silver thread.
The final sequence approached, the most intricate part of the waltz, requiring perfect synchronization. She moved without thinking, responding to his guidance as if it were instinct.A strand of tension stretched between them, binding them together in a way she had not expected, had not prepared for. She closed her eyes with a sigh.
And then, for the briefest moment, she forgot.
Forgot that this was an arrangement. Forgot that she was supposed to keep her distance. Forgot about the sigil carved in the dark, the murders buried under silence, the secrets and lies stitched into every vow she’d ever taken. Forgot about duty.
Something pulled tight behind her ribs, sharp and aching, before loosening into an unfamiliar swell that made her chest feel too full. She exhaled, and the breath left her like frost in the air.
The moment the music ceased, Evelyne felt the loss acutely, as though warmth itself had been pulled away.
Her eyes fluttered open. Alaric looked at her like he was trying to read straight through her skin—past bone, past breath, into the place where her secrets lived. He regarded her for a moment longer before a dimple appeared in his cheek, deep and mischievous.
“I was worried I’d step on your toes, princess,” he murmured just loud enough for her to hear. “But I think I did rather well.”
The sheer audacity of his tone caught her off guard, and a breathless laugh escaped her before she could think to stifle it. The sound startled her, unfamiliar in its lightness, and yet it felt… freeing.
Alaric’s eyes brightened as if he had won some great victory. “Now that,” he murmured, “was worth learning an entire dance for.”
Her lips curved despite herself, but she did not feel exposed.
It felt right. As though for a single moment, her laughter had belonged only to her. As though she were not just a pawn performing a role, but a force far more dangerous.
Something alive.
Applause hadn’t yet started. For one suspended heartbeat, the room held its breath—then the note cracked. rhythmic strains slipping into discordance before collapsing into silence. The chandeliers flickered unnaturally, though she didn’t feel a wind brushing against her cheek.
One of the musicians He crumpled on the marble—young, perhaps seventeen. His eyes wide, veins pulsing with black beneath the skin.
Evelyne’s breath caught before sound reached her. The world seemed to narrow to the boy’s collapsing form, the bow of his instrument rolling from his hand, the terrible stillness that followed. A rush of cold spread through her chest, sharp and consuming. Her fingers dug into the fold of her gown. She couldn’t draw air.Not again.
Gasps broke out, chairs scraped, crystal clinked to the floor.
Someone screamed.
Nobles surged back from the disturbance in a slow, confused wave. A cluster of guards pressed forward, hands instinctively dropping to hilts. The music, halfway through its second stanza, died in a discordant hush.
Alaric stepped slightly in front of Evelyne. The look he cast across the room was sharp and cool, taking stock of exits, guards, angles.
A sudden weight collided with her arm. A noblewoman in too-high heels had slipped on spilled wine and flailing fabric. Evelyne caught her elbow before she could fall, steadying her with a firm grip.
The woman curtsied once in breathless thanks, gathered her satin skirts, and tottered off without looking back.
Evelyne’s eyes darted through the moving figures, searching frantically for a familiar head of tousled brown hair—Thalen. Where was—
Control. Calm. Focus.
There.
Near the far side of the hall, by the royal dais. He was with his mother, half-shielded behind her skirts, his face pale but unshaken. Relief struck her like a slap.
It wasn’t the first time this had happened. She remembered the trade summit in Calveran two years ago, when a singer had erupted into light in the middle of a banquet. And before that, the artist from the The Artisanal Circle that made her father’s royal portrait, collapsed mid-stroke. Each time it had been labeled “reaction to stress.” But the looks on the Celestial Assembly’s faces were never casual.
And neither was this.
