for a wedding, but they loved discomfort almost as much.
“My daughter by guardianship is now yours,” Duke Orlan said, his voice soft enough to seem tender and loud enough for the first rows to hear. “Treat her gently, Your Highness. She has endured more than most women could bear.”
The masked bride’s shoulders tightened.
Cassian saw it.
It was not grief.
It was fear.
He turned toward her, lowering his voice so only she could hear.
“Lady Mira,” he whispered, “are you afraid?”
No answer came.
The mask reflected candlelight. It revealed nothing.
Cassian leaned closer. “You do not have to speak loudly. Just tell me yes or no.”
Still nothing.
Then one tear slipped from beneath the lower edge of the mask, curved along the pale skin of her throat, and disappeared into the lace at her collar.
Cassian’s chest tightened.
He had entered this chapel angry at his own powerlessness. Angry at debts, treaties, advisers, and the old families who could trap a prince as easily as a servant. But the woman beside him was not powerful. Whatever this marriage meant for House Vale, she stood inside it like a prisoner.
His gaze dropped to the black ribbon beneath her chin.
He reached for it.
Duke Orlan’s cane struck the marble with a crack that made three candles sputter.
“Leave it,” the duke said.
The chapel went very still.
Cassian’s hand paused halfway to the ribbon.
The archbishop blinked. One of the ladies in the second pew lowered her fan. A young lord near the aisle smiled as if scenting scandal.
Cassian looked at Orlan. “She is my wife now.”
“And fragile,” Orlan replied. “You would not make a spectacle of her pain before the entire kingdom.”
A reasonable sentence.
A poisonous one.
The bride’s fingers curled tighter.
Cassian saw the movement. He also saw the faint red mark above her right glove, half hidden by lace, shaped almost like the end of a cane.
His decision arrived quietly.
Not like courage in songs. No swelling certainty. No bright noble fire. Only a cold refusal settling in his bones.
He pulled the ribbon loose.
Several people inhaled at once.
The mask tilted forward.
Before it fell, something slipped from inside its rim: a small folded paper, tucked where no one would see unless the mask was removed.
Cassian caught it against his palm.
Duke Orlan took one step forward.
“Your Highness,” he said, smile still fixed in place, “that is a private matter.”
Cassian opened the paper.
The writing inside was cramped and desperate, as if formed in darkness with shaking hands.
I AM NOT MIRA.
For a moment, the chapel vanished.
Cassian heard only rain, his own heartbeat, and the quiet, broken breathing of the woman beside him.
He read the second line.
MIRA IS UNDER THE EAST TOWER. HE WILL KILL HER AFTER THE VOWS.
His fingers closed around the note.
Duke Orlan was beside him now, his cane angled like a weapon hidden inside courtesy.
“Return it,” he murmured.
Cassian lifted his eyes. “Who is under the east tower?”
The duke’s expression did not change, but something behind his eyes moved fast.
“An old servant’s joke, perhaps. My household is full of foolish girls.”
The masked bride shook her head.
It was only once.
