POV: Seraphine Vale
The guards appear so quickly that Seraphine does not even see them coming.
One moment she is standing alone with Captain Renn, and the next moment there are two soldiers flanking her on either side. Not rough. Not threatening. But absolutely present. The kind of presence that says: you will not move without our permission.
Across the ballroom, her father has gone very still.
More guards have surrounded him. They are not arresting him — not yet — but the message is clear. The Viscount Vale is now the crown's prisoner. His face has drained of all color. He looks like a ghost of himself, a man watching his entire world collapse in real time.
Seraphine's stomach twists.
She did this. By running. By spilling champagne on the king. By daring to defy. She brought this down on her father. And even knowing what he was planning to do to her, even understanding that he was selling her to foreign powers, the weight of it settles on her chest like a stone.
The king has turned away from her now.
He speaks quietly to the tall man beside him — Captain Renn Solace, though she did not hear him introduced. The captain listens, nods, and then walks directly toward her with the kind of purpose that comes from years of following a king's orders without question.
"Lady Seraphine Vale," he says, and his voice is respectful. Formal. Not the voice of a man who is arresting her. "The king asks that you come to the palace tonight. As a guest of the crown."
A guest of the crown.
Not a prisoner. Not under arrest. A guest. The words are careful. They are chosen. And Seraphine — standing between two guards in a ballroom full of thousands — understands exactly what they mean.
She is not being punished for her defiance.
She is being kept.
There is a difference. A crucial one. And it is far more terrifying than arrest would be.
"Of course, Captain," she says quietly. Her voice is steady even though her hands want to shake. "I am honored by the king's invitation."
The lie tastes like copper on her tongue. But she has learned to lie well. She has learned to perform. She has learned to survive by giving people what they expect to hear rather than what she actually thinks.
Captain Renn nods once, then gestures toward the ballroom exits. The guards move with her, their presence absolute, and Seraphine is escorted through the crowd like a prize being removed from display. She can feel every eye on her. She can feel the whispers starting, the speculation, the fear that anyone connected to her might now be considered suspicious.
Her father does not try to call out to her. He simply watches her disappear into the night with the kind of desperation of a man who has lost everything.
The carriage waits outside.
It is royal black with gold trim and soft velvet seats inside. The door locks from the outside. Seraphine notices this immediately. She sits on the bench and keeps her breathing steady and even as the door closes with a soft click that sounds like a cage slamming shut.
Understand the lock before you do anything else.
The carriage moves through the dark city, and Seraphine uses the time to think. To observe. To plan. The streets are empty at this hour — it is well past midnight. The city sleeps beneath a starless sky. And through the small window, she can see guards on horseback flanking the carriage on both sides.
Not imprisonment, then. Captivity dressed as protection.
The distinction matters.
If this were arrest, she would be in chains. If this were arrest, she would be in a dungeon. But the king has chosen something different. He has chosen to keep her close, to bring her to his palace, to treat her as a guest while making absolutely clear that she has no choice in the matter.
The question is: why?
She is a woman with no power. No title that matters. No allies in the palace. She is the daughter of a traitor who was caught dealing with foreign powers. By every logic of power, she should be killed. Or at least forgotten in a cell somewhere.
But the king looked at her like she was the most interesting thing he had ever seen.
And he chose to keep her anyway.
The carriage climbs toward the palace, and Seraphine's breath catches in her throat. She has seen the palace from a distance before, but never like this. Never at night. Never approaching directly. It rises above the city like something out of a dream — stone and light and impossible grandeur. Towers reach toward the sky. Windows glow with lamplight. And the walls are so high that Seraphine has to crane her neck to see the top.
This is where kings live. This is where power lives.
This is where she is about to become a prisoner.
The carriage stops at a side entrance. Captain Renn opens the door himself and offers his hand to help her down. She takes it, because refusing would be foolish, and she is no longer in a position to afford foolishness.
A woman in a severe black dress and a small white cap meets them in the corridor. She introduces herself as Mrs. Thorne, the head housekeeper. Her smile does not reach her eyes.
"Your suite is ready, my lady," she says. "The king thought you might wish to rest after your journey. Dinner is available if you are hungry."
Seraphine is led through halls that seem to go on forever. Up a staircase. Through a corridor. Past doors that open onto rooms larger than her entire family estate. Until finally they stop in front of a door painted white and gold.
"Here we are," Mrs. Thorne says, unlocking the door. "You should find everything you need. The bell pull will summon a servant if you require anything."
Seraphine steps inside and sees a room that is undeniably beautiful. A four-poster bed with white silk sheets. A window overlooking the palace gardens. A wardrobe filled with clothes in her size. Everything calculated to make her feel comfortable. Everything designed to make her forget she is trapped.
The door closes behind her.
She hears the sound of a key turning in the lock.
The click is soft, but it echoes through the room like a death sentence. Seraphine walks to the door and tries the handle. It does not budge. She is locked in. Locked in a room with velvet curtains and soft carpets and everything a lady could possibly want, but locked in nonetheless.
She sits on the edge of the bed and forces herself to breathe slowly. She has survived worse than this. She has survived her father's cruelty. She has survived the knowledge that she was about to be sold. She has survived meeting a king who should have had her executed.
She will survive this too.
Then she hears it.
A sound from somewhere far down the hall. Muffled by distance and stone walls, but unmistakable once she hears it. It is crying. Deep, anguished crying. The kind of sound a person makes when they have lost everything. The kind of sound that comes from absolute despair.
And underneath the crying, she hears something else.
Screaming.
Not frantic screaming. Not panicked. But the sound of a person in agony. The sound of someone being hurt in the darkness of this palace while she sits in a golden room and tries to understand what kind of danger she has walked into.
Seraphine's blood turns to ice.
The sound fades. The hall returns to silence. And she lies back on the bed in her locked room, understanding with perfect clarity that King Darian Ashvael keeps secrets in this palace.
Terrible secrets.
And she is now locked inside with them.