The ballroom was gold.
Not the soft, forgiving gold of candlelight, but the hard metallic gleam that demanded to be seen — polished floors, gilded mirrors, chandeliers like captured suns.
Every corner seemed designed to reflect power back upon itself.
Serena had been in this room many times before, when her title still shielded her and her name commanded reverence.
Now it was different.
Now, every reflection seemed to whisper what she had lost.
The air was thick with perfume and politics, a sweetness that burned if you breathed too deeply. The laughter was brittle, rehearsed, echoing off marble and pride. Beneath the violins and polite applause, she could almost hear the machinery of ambition turning — a thousand glittering masks, each smiling just enough to hide the hunger underneath.
Christopher Cross walked beside her, steady, unhurried, the living embodiment of composure. He didn't need to command attention; he absorbed it simply by existing.
