By now the moon had climbed high over the banquet hall, where laughter and music floated upward without cease.
The clear, crystalline ring of a fork struck against a glass cut through the noise, and every head in the room turned as one.
“Your attention, please! The hour has come for a toast — to celebrate the blessed union of His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince and his beloved bride!”
The Marquis d’Anmari smoothed the oily crease of his brow and cleared his throat with great ceremony. The Crown Prince and his new princess watched him from their seats, their faces warm with contentment.
“Ah-hem. Allow me to begin — “
He had barely drawn breath to launch into what would certainly have been an extravagant flood of flattery when someone reached past him and lifted the crystal glass from his hand with easy, unhurried confidence.
“I believe it was agreed that I would give the first toast.”
Standing tall, looking down at the marquis with a calm that left no room for argument, was Leon Aranias — magnificent, composed, unmistakable.
Something about him seemed to glow with a quiet authority that went beyond mere presence. The marquis blinked and took a small, unconscious step back.
“His Imperial Highness said — that you appeared fatigued — “
“There’s no need for concern. I’m perfectly well.”
Leon said it simply, and glanced around the room with a tranquil, unhurried expression. The nobles nearest him exchanged puzzled looks.
Isn’t he… entirely different from earlier?
The exhausted pallor and the dangerous edge that had clung to him during the ceremony had vanished. In the short span between then and now, Leon seemed to have become a different person altogether. His complexion was clear, his bearing composed — a controlled, commanding presence that gave nothing away. The gaze with which he surveyed the room was sharp and steady.
His eyes found the Crown Prince.
“With your permission, Your Imperial Highness — and yours, Your Imperial Highness the Crown Princess?”
They had already been watching him, both of them. Princess Jasmine, glittering tiara catching the light, glanced sideways at her husband’s expression, then gave her answer in a tone that was formal, if not warm.
“As you wish.”
Leon inclined his head slightly in thanks. Then he turned to the room, and when he spoke his voice was measured and clear.
“Today is a day of joy. His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince — the true and rightful heir of the House of Aranias — has found himself a perfect companion.”
A faint smile remained on the Crown Prince’s lips as he listened. His expression as he regarded his suddenly recovered cousin was difficult to read — something between affection and private amusement, perhaps, or something that resembled both without quite being either.
Their eyes, similar in shade, met briefly across the air between them.
“As a loyal subject of His Imperial Highness — I give thanks, from the depths of my heart, that the Aranias Empire has been given a worthy and righteous heir, one who may walk without shame before the eyes of God. To the conscience of the great House of Aranias!”
To the conscience of Aranias!
The hall echoed with the chorus that answered his words. And then, slowly, the sound settled — drifting down over each head in the room as the thoughts that moved beneath them went quietly, privately on their separate ways.
***
“Ah — ah — “
“Nngh — “
Two bodies, tangled and heaving, shuddered to a trembling halt and went still.
Odette Tyrot swept the sweat-damp hair from her face and regulated her breathing with an expression of cheerful satisfaction.
Hah. Hah.
Simon, catching his own breath across from her, offered her a slightly bewildered smile at the compliment she had just paid him, and shifted away.
“Quite useful.” That’s what she said — after a night in bed together.
It was absurd. But one did not voice such complaints to the daughter of the Tyrot Ducal House.
Odette summoned a servant with a languid gesture — the man had been standing discreetly beside the bedroom door the entire time — and Simon watched her from the corner of his eye.
Lady Tyrot was, in many respects, a remarkable woman.
Inviting a man she had met for the first time at the Crown Prince’s reception directly to her bedchamber. Conducting herself with perfect shamelessness in front of a male servant who had been present throughout. The rumors of her conduct, he now understood, had not been exaggerated.
So the stories were true after all.
But even as he quietly judged her, another part of Simon’s mind was busy calculating what advantage this unexpected development might yield him.
The truth was, when he had witnessed Kasha and Leon’s intimate encounter earlier that evening, he had felt the ground collapse beneath his feet.
She actually betrayed me. Kasha actually betrayed me.
Since the events Kasha had set in motion at the hunting tournament, Simon had not been in his right mind.
She had stood before the entire nobility of the capital and publicly unveiled a completed, lethal magical device. He still could not fully absorb it.
The image of Kasha standing on that platform and declaring herself the weapon’s creator had been almost unrecognizable to him — like looking at a stranger wearing a familiar face.
And then she had gone further still. She had made a public declaration of affection to Archduke Leon — openly, in front of everyone.
And when Leon had gone to one knee in return, when he had answered her — Simon had very nearly lost the use of his legs.
Since that day, he had spent every waking hour in a controlled panic, exhausting himself searching for any path forward.
But no matter how he turned it over, there was only one solution visible to him: he had to win Kasha back. That was the only way he survived.
If Kasha truly chose to monopolize the magical device technology — if she cut him out entirely — the one Simon privately called that person would not hesitate. They would erase not only Kasha but Simon himself, without a moment’s pause.
How could she change so completely, so fast? She was never this person.
Someone must be behind it. Someone must be guiding her.
Leon. Is it him?
That encounter in the Imperial Library — there had been something off about him from the very beginning.
He must have caught the scent of Kasha’s ability to create magical devices. He must have.
I won’t allow it. Years of effort — I won’t let that man take everything I built.
That was why Simon had spent the entire wedding searching for Kasha with desperate focus.
And when he finally found her, she was in the arms of Leon Aranias, flushed and breathless and unmistakably intimate.
The look on her face — tilted against Leon’s chest, eyes lowered as she gathered herself — had been something Simon had never expected to see. A warmth in it. A softness. Something faintly, undeniably sensual.
He had been so blindsided that he had lost his composure entirely — to the point of shouting in front of Leon like a man coming apart at the seams.
The rosy flush of her cheeks. The haze of want across her eyes.
Even now, lying in Odette’s bed, the image surfaced unbidden, and he was annoyed to find it stirred something in him.
“Would you like a drink?”
Odette’s voice broke into his thoughts.
She was gesturing toward a silver tray a servant held extended — a glass resting on its surface.
“Ah — yes. Thank you.”
Simon had been with no small number of women, but even now, after everything, he could not quite bring himself to drop his formal manner with Odette. She carried herself with a kind of worn, impenetrable authority that made it difficult. This — he thought — must be the true face of the queen of society, usually hidden behind layers of exquisite artifice.
He sipped the drink, Kasha’s face still circling behind his eyes, vaguely unsettled.
And then Odette spoke, as though she had been reading his thoughts all along.
“What exactly is your relationship with Kasha Rüschino?”
Simon nearly choked.
“Pardon?”
“Drop the act. From what I saw earlier, you two aren’t strangers.”
“…”
He said nothing. Earlier he had been too shaken to remember that others were within earshot, and he had said things he should not have said. He still could not tell what Odette was after by bringing her up now.
“Did you court her? The two of you?”
“Ah — no. Nothing like that.”
He denied it first, on instinct. But Odette watched him with the patient, unconvinced expression of a woman who had never yet been fooled by a man.
She shifted on the bed — unhurried, perfectly composed — and leaned toward him, her gaze fixed and unblinking, with the particular quality of a snake moving steadily toward its prey.
“No need for games. Tell me everything you know about that woman. I’ll make it worth your while — I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
Her eyes gleamed, cool and purposeful, in the dim light.
“There’s honestly nothing much to tell. We’ve seen each other in passing — our families had some acquaintance. She showed a certain interest in me, so I was polite enough to oblige her on occasion.”
“Is that so.”
“Yes. And she came to me a few times seeking guidance on matters of magical devices — I obliged that as well. She rather overstayed her welcome after a while, so I cooled things off somewhat. I suppose she took offense. She’s been chilly ever since. Ha.”
Simon covered the lie with a careless laugh. Odette didn’t seem particularly concerned with whether it was true or not.
“Right. Be that as it may — you have some connection to her. That much is clear.”
“More or less, yes.”
“Then — would you be willing to do something for me?”
“Pardon?”
“You’re aware, I presume, that there were discussions of a marriage arrangement between Archduke Leon and myself?”
“I’d heard something to that effect, yes.”
The social world had no secrets. Especially not for someone like Simon, who staked his survival on staying informed.
“And then that woman appeared from nowhere and made things rather difficult for me. I’d like to see her removed from the picture. Quietly.”
Odette picked at a loose edge of a fingernail as she said it, with the easy tone of someone describing a minor inconvenience.
Simon blinked. “Removed. You mean — “
“Exactly what I said. If you can provide me with something damaging to use against her, that would be ideal. The execution would be mine to handle.”
He didn’t know what execution meant in her vocabulary. But the look in her eyes made it clear this was not a light scheme.
Simon’s head began to ache.
Had coming here been a mistake?
At the reception, in the depths of his panic, her approach had felt like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man. He had seized it without thinking.
But now Kasha’s name had surfaced again here too.
Kasha Rüschino’s reach had grown far beyond what he had imagined — that much was becoming undeniable. That even the formidable Odette Tyrot felt the need to neutralize her was evidence enough.
Wait. If Kasha is our common obstacle — does that make this an opportunity?
Or was the lifeline he had grabbed with his own hands about to coil around his throat?
Simon’s opportunistic mind began to turn in earnest.
“If the information side of things feels too sensitive, you’re welcome to simply act on your own. Either way — separate her from Leon, and I’ll compensate you generously. Or I can speak to my father about creating an administrative position for you, if you’d prefer something more lasting.”
Odette watched his face carefully as she laid out the second offer, checking to see whether the bait would land.
Simon hesitated — or appeared to. He had no reason to rush. Whatever she needed, he held.
There might be a way out of this after all.
He turned it over quietly.
With the right handling, it might be possible to win Kasha back, extract a handsome reward from Odette, and do neither in a way that earned him the wrath of that person.
