My breath caught. I nodded once.
Zander’s fingers moved carefully over the buckles of my armor, undoing them with precision. His touch was gentle, reverent, as he helped lift the weight from my shoulders and set each piece aside. The silence was… intimate. Not uncomfortable, just charged.
I stepped into the dress, the silk cool against my skin, and he moved behind me, fastening the corset in slow, practiced pulls.
When I turned to face the mirror, I barely recognized myself.
The silk clung to my frame like starlight. The crystals caught the light of the room and scattered it in soft glints. My scars, my strength, all wrapped in something impossibly soft. My hair had fallen loose from its braid, curling slightly around my shoulders.
I looked as if I belonged in a ballroom, not on a battlefield.
But my eyes?
Still mine. Still sharp.
Still ready for war.
Zander changed in silence, his fingers moving with smooth efficiency as he fastened the buttons of a deep-navy long jacket, the fabric embroidered with silver thread that caught the light like frost on steel. The cut was sharp—regal—highlighting the quiet power in his frame. He looked every inch the prince… and nothing like the soldier I trained beside each day.
When he turned to me, his eyes softened just enough to offer his arm. “Ready?”
I wasn’t.
But I nodded anyway.
He escorted me through the castle’s gilded corridors, past guards and marble archways that glittered with candlelight. The dining hall doors loomed ahead, open just enough to reveal a flickering chandelier and too many watching eyes.
The moment we stepped inside, silence rippled across the room like a dropped stone in still water.
Every head turned. Every eye fell on us.
On me.
Inderia, seated like a porcelain statue to the left of Theron, went stiff, her hand tightening around the stem of her goblet. Her gaze slid down my gown with all the warmth of a blade unsheathed. I felt her fury before she ever moved.
But it was Theron who stood with a smile too smooth to be real.
“Zander,” he said, voice echoing through the room with forced charm, “so good of you to support me this evening.”
His eyes found me next, drifting slowly over the crystals at my neckline, the curve of silk at my hips, the very air I dared to breathe beside his brother.
“Despite your… choice of companion.”
Zander didn’t respond.
I didn’t need him to.
We took our seats as Theron motioned, his eyes still raking over me like I was a curiosity instead of a threat.
He launched into a speech before anyone could even take a bite. Droning on about Warriath’s strength, the legacy of the crown, the importance of unity in these uncertain times.
Not once did he mention the riders.
Not the dragons.
Not the sects working against him.
Not the fractured guilds barely holding this continent together.
