Flashback — Wedding Night
The room holds its breath.
Silas sits on the bed, his eyes scanning the room slowly, deliberately—taking in every detail. White roses everywhere.
Clustered in crystal vases so tall they seem to scrape the ceiling. Spilling from urns in the corners like frozen waterfalls.
Petals litter the marble. Thousands of them. Soft and fragrant, pale as fresh snow, scattered by hands that cared too much about appearances and too little about the two people who would lie here tonight.
A perfect wedding chamber.
Beautiful. Cold. Waiting.
His hands rest on his lap, one folded over the other, fingers tapping lightly against his own skin.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
His gaze shifts to the empty space beside him. The white sheets are covered with more petals—hundreds more, delicate and trembling, arranged with obsessive precision by servants too afraid to fail.
