No one spoke.
Silverware lay arranged with meticulous precision, catching the chandelier's light like rows of unsheathed blades. The long table—polished, imposing, ceremonial—felt more like a battlefield than a place meant for breaking bread.
Servants moved along the walls in near silence, pouring wine, adjusting plates, their eyes downcast as though the air itself might strike them if disturbed.
Aurelia sat perfectly still.
Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, fingers relaxed despite the storm thrumming beneath her skin. Her spine was straight, her chin lifted, her expression composed—queenly, controlled, unyielding. She had learned long ago that composure was not merely courtesy. It was armor.
Inside her chest, her heart raced. Not out of excitement, but of dear. Toward one person in the room, whom she got to know as unpredictable. And an unpredictable person Is a very dangerous person.
