The silence after Dorian's proposal stretched like a tight stitch on the verge of snapping.
Sloane stared at the ring. Every instinct in her screamed to reject it. But this wasn't just a man offering marriage — this was the Empire offering her a seat at the table she had spent her life fighting to destroy.
Behind her, Cassien's voice was tight. "Tell him no."
Dorian turned slightly, addressing him without looking. "She doesn't need your permission. Or your bitterness."
"Neither of you are the point right now," Sloane snapped. "This isn't a love triangle. It's a war."
She stepped forward and closed the box.
"I haven't survived this long to trade a gilded cage for a jeweled one."
But Dorian didn't flinch.
"You're thinking like a rebel. I'm asking you to think like a ruler."
He reached into his coat and withdrew a slim file. Laid it on the railing.
"What is that?" she asked.
"Evidence of a purge order," he said. "The Council wants to eliminate every name on your runway tonight. Including Cassien. Including Ari. Including the twins who sewed the music into their sleeves."
He paused.
"Including your mother's name from the archives. One more revision to history, and she'll never have existed."
Sloane's fingers hovered above the file, shaking.
"Sign the contract," Dorian said gently. "Join me. Save them."
---
Cassien slammed a fist into the wall backstage. The steel cracked.
"Why is she even considering it?" Ari asked, her voice tight.
"Because she cares," he muttered. "Because Dorian's trap is perfect."
"She won't choose him," Ari said.
But Cassien wasn't so sure.
---
That night, the Velvet Rebellion compound buzzed with paranoia. No one knew who had leaked the location of their broadcast. No one knew how much time they had left.
Some prepared to flee. Others prepped backup servers.
Sloane stayed in the old opera's sewing room. Alone. The same place she had first stitched power into glamour.
She opened the file Dorian had left.
Photos. Council orders. Surveillance logs. A kill list. All real.
And a postscript note:
> I am not your enemy. Not anymore.
— D.
For the first time in months, Sloane felt powerless.
---
Hours later, Cassien found her there.
"I'm not asking what you'll do," he said. "I know it's not that simple."
She looked up. Her eyes were rimmed red.
"But I need you to know… If you marry him, I won't stay."
Sloane rose. "Cassien…"
"I'll never compete with safety. With status. With a throne," he said. "But I love you, Sloane. I have, since the day you burned your first dress just to make the hem sharper."
He stepped closer, voice trembling.
"If you walk away, I'll still fight your war. But I won't be your shadow anymore."
A pause.
"Choose."
---
The next day, Sloane called a press event.
The room was packed — journalists from every fashion house, stylists, rogue designers, even councilplants pretending to be curious.
Dorian arrived first. In the same suit. Same calm.
She didn't look at him.
Instead, she walked to the podium in a design no one had ever seen — a half-marriage dress, split down the center. One side was silk empire-white, stitched with council glyphs. The other: jagged black, raw-threaded, soaked in resistance dye.
"Today, I stand at a crossroad," she said. "The Empire offers me legitimacy. But only if I silence the revolution that gave me voice."
She turned slightly. Looked Dorian in the eye.
"I accept your ring," she said.
The room gasped.
Dorian allowed a flicker of relief to pass across his perfect face.
"But—"
Her eyes narrowed.
"I will not marry into silence."
She drew a blade — thin and glowing — from her sleeve. With one sharp motion, she sliced the gown in half, letting both sides fall away.
Beneath it, she wore a bodysuit of stitched contradiction: past and present threads, rebel tech fused with empire polish. An entirely new look — neither side's, and both.
"I will lead," she said. "But not by their terms. Not by his."
She dropped the ring to the floor. Stepped on it.
"I reject the Proposal Line."
---
The crowd erupted — in cheers, in chaos, in panic.
Security surged forward. Dorian didn't move.
And Cassien, watching from the back, let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Later that night, as Sloane walked back through the now-iconic opera house, Cassien found her again.
"You picked your own thread."
She looked at him. "I always was the designer."
He took her hand. "So what now?"
She smiled.
"We make the next collection."