The city held its breath long after Selene left the balcony.
For hours, no one moved.
Merchants left their stalls half-packed. Nobles stood frozen in their carriages. Soldiers loosened their grips on spears, uncertain whether to salute or to draw blades.
Crimson snow still drifted from the sky, soft as silk but heavy with meaning.
In the Eastern capital, Evelyne Greymoor crushed a crystal goblet in her hand when the reports arrived.
She already knew the speech would be dangerous.
She hadn't expected it to be beautiful.
The difference mattered.
Beautiful rebellion sparked something far worse than violent revolt.
It invited sympathy.
And sympathy was poison.
Back in Aerthrial's royal city, the cracks appeared faster than anyone expected.
The first noble to defect was Lord Rennick of House Marrowind, a minor house, but with a critical position controlling half the city's water supply. By nightfall, his banner changed color—from Eastern silver to crimson and gold.
His message was simple.
"If loving freely is treason, then I choose treason."
The second defector was even more dangerous.
A captain of the royal guard named Serina Vale removed her crest in front of her entire battalion, kneeling beneath one of the new banners.
Her loyalty, she said, was not to any council.
It was to her conscience.
And her conscience had chosen Selene.
Inside the Valeburne estate, Selene read the reports one by one, her fingers steady but her mind racing. This wasn't just rebellion anymore.
It was momentum.
Dangerous, fragile, unstoppable momentum.
Lira watched her from the corner of the room, arms folded.
"Are you ready for what happens next?" she asked softly.
Selene looked up, crimson eyes gleaming.
"No," she whispered. "But I'll do it anyway."
Lucien met with Alaric in the underground tunnels that night, the ones beneath the old royal court.
"They're shifting faster than I expected," Lucien murmured, his fingers tracing the outline of an old Aurelian family crest carved into the wall.
Alaric's gray eyes narrowed. "That's not always good."
Lucien's golden gaze stayed fixed on the stone.
"I know."
Because the faster a rebellion grows, the faster it loses control.
Evelyne moved quickly.
Her spies captured three of Lira's messengers by midnight, dragging them into cold marble chambers for interrogation. Their screams didn't echo in the Eastern palace—not because of mercy, but because of silencing wards.
In the end, the messengers said nothing.
Even under torture.
They knew the stakes.
This was no longer about politics.
It was about love turned into defiance.
And some loyalties, once chosen, could not be undone.
By morning, more banners appeared across Aerthrial.
Crimson and gold.
On rooftops.
On merchant stalls.
Even secretly stitched into cloaks by quiet hands in dark corners.
A silent symbol whispered across the kingdom:
We choose them.
Selene stood at the window of her chambers, watching the snow drift.
She thought of Lucien. She thought of the way his eyes had burned in the shadows of the balcony crowd.
She thought of the cost.
And still, her lips curved softly.
"We're not alone anymore," she whispered.
For now, that was enough.