They call it a celebration — a feast of unity, Eiran’s own words. But everyone here knows what this is. 

A tightening of the noose beneath garlands and gold. 

Kaelis walks a half-step behind me. 

Not beside me. 

That detail wasn’t up for discussion. 

Not here. 

Not tonight. 

And that’s what tells me I’m walking into something meant to bury us both. 

The doors open. 

Music greets us — soft, polished strings and a harp that sounds too perfect to be real. I scan the room: nobles from Valenor as a whole, my kingdom, Arathen and Evasia, advisors draped in polite tension, and Eiran near the center of it all. 

He’s in white. 

Of course he is. 

Hair like gold silk twisted back with pearls to expose the soft masculine beauty of his face. His smile blooms when he sees me, wide enough to feed the crowd, and he doesn’t wait — he glides forward. People part for him like water around stone. 

“My princess,” he says, offering his arm. 

I take it. 

I have to. 

He leans in, brushing his cheek lightly against mine. It’s not a kiss. But it’s close enough to spark a thousand whispers. 

“You look so well-rested,” he murmurs against my ear. “I was worried your loyalties might be… dividing your attention.” 

I don’t flinch. 

“Unity suits you,” I reply, voice quiet but sharp. “Though I wonder who you plan to stand with when this room burns.” 

His fingers twitch faintly on my forearm. 

He lets go. 

We move to the head table together, the crowd watching every step. 

Kaelis fades into the perimeter. 

I hate that more than I can say.

The meal begins with toasts — meaningless phrases about alliances and peace, about the future we’re all expected to smile toward. 

Eiran raises his glass. “Let this night remind us that devotion to crown and country must never be clouded by personal attachment.” 

I feel the words land like frost across the table. 

I don’t raise my glass. 

Neither does Kaelis. 

Eiran’s smile doesn’t break.

Later, I catch movement near the edge of the banquet hall. A figure — cloaked in gray, blending into the shadows of the stone arch. 

He’s not a servant. 

He’s not from my court. 

But he’s watching Kaelis. 

Not me. 

Kaelis notices. 

I see it in the way he shifts his stance, subtly adjusting the line of sight between me and the unknown figure. Always watching the angles. 

Always shielding me first. 

A server passes between them and the man is gone. 

Vanished like a whisper never spoken. 

I feel my stomach twist — not with fear, but with certainty. 

This is the signal. 

This is the first move. 

And it’s not mine.

I find Kaelis near the second archway, posted like a statue just out of reach. 

No one approaches him. 

They never do — not when he’s like this, folded into watchfulness, every inch of him sharp with restraint. 

I slip through the crowd and stop beside him. 

We don’t speak at first. 

Not because there’s nothing to say, but because everything that matters feels too big for this room. 

“He’s baiting you,” Kaelis murmurs. 

I don’t pretend otherwise. “He wants me to react. To stumble.” 

“Then don’t.” 

I glance up at him. “Even you can’t hold back forever.”

Kaelis exhales slowly. “I can, when it’s for you.” 

That nearly undoes me — the quiet way he says it, not as devotion, not as martyrdom, just as truth. 

I lean closer, keeping my voice low. “There was a man watching you earlier. Not from my side of court.” 

“I saw him,” Kaelis replies. 

“You think it’s a warning?” 

He doesn’t answer. 

That is the answer. 

I want to reach for him. 

Instead, I fold my hands on my stomach like I’m just studying the crowd. “I’m going to need you closer,” I say. “I’m not leaving.” 

“I know.” 

Then— A sound. 

Subtle. 

Too soft to be panic. 

Just a shift in the crowd near the northern doors. 

Like breath caught too sharply. 

I turn. 

Eiran’s attendants are circling one of the musicians — a flutist — who has collapsed mid-piece. No scream. Just quiet concern. Someone calls for wine and salts and waves their hands as if performing grief. But the timing is too clean. The conversation dies around the hall. 

Kaelis steps subtly in front of me — not obviously, not enough to draw notice, but enough that I feel the shape of him become a shield. 

I scan the nobles. Several avert their eyes. Maelis is already pushing back her chair. 

I speak low, only for Kaelis. “Tell me that wasn’t him.” 

Kaelis doesn’t move. “He’s sending a message,” he says. 

“What kind?” 

He glances toward the scene again. “The kind you don’t survive twice.” 

The court doesn’t breathe. It reacts. Softly. Elegantly. Predictably. Chairs scrape back. Servants rush forward. Someone lays the flutist flat on a cushion and murmurs about overexertion, heat, wine. Too much wine, surely. It’s a performance — every gesture rehearsed. But the message is unmistakable. This wasn’t about him. It was about us. About what happens when order is disrupted. When a princess wanders too far from expectation. 

And then he speaks. 

Eiran. 

His voice doesn’t tremble. 

It never does. 

“My friends,” he says, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, the very picture of poised concern. “It seems the strain of recent tensions weighs heavier than we knew. We forget how fragile peace can be.” 

Eyes turn toward him. 

Then toward me. 

He lets them. 

“I propose,” he continues, “that we bring this evening to a gentle close. Let it not be remembered for one’s sudden collapse, but for the unity we’ve all gathered here to protect.” He doesn’t look at me when he says that last word. He looks at everyone else. 

He’s already winning.

The crowd begins to move — not in panic, but in calm retreat. Like well-trained hounds called back from the edge. I feel Kaelis at my shoulder. 

“They’ll spin this,” I say. 

“They already are.” 

I look up at him. “What would you do?” 

“If this were a battlefield?” 

“Yes.” 

“I’d say we’re in a killing field surrounded by nobles with too much lace and not enough honesty. And I’d say we don’t leave through the front.” 

I nod once. 

But I don’t move. 

Eiran is still standing at the head of the room, receiving whispered condolences as if he orchestrated a funeral instead of a feast. 

He catches my gaze across the hall. 

And he smiles. 

Not cruel. 

Not victorious. 

But knowing. 

Like he just cut the first rope, and I haven’t yet heard it snap.