The banquet ended with polite applause.
No blades drawn.
No voices raised.
But beneath the silken diplomacy, something had broken.
Selene and Lucien left the hall in silence, cloaks brushing against marble as nobles parted like shadows.
No one stopped them.
No one dared.
Once inside their private chamber at the Neutral Citadel, Selene pulled the gold pins from her hair, letting crimson strands fall around her shoulders.
Lucien closed the door softly behind them, his golden eyes sharp even in exhaustion.
"They won't forgive that speech," he murmured.
Selene stared at her reflection in the frost-touched mirror.
"They weren't supposed to."
Outside, snow whispered against the windows.
Inside, the real work began.
Lira arrived at midnight, her cloak damp from frost. She placed new scrolls on the table between them, eyes dark with tension.
"The foreign emissaries are panicking," she whispered.
"They came here to manipulate you, not to be exposed in front of the entire continent."
Selene's crimson gaze didn't waver.
"What will they do next?"
Lira hesitated.
"Some will try to kill you."
Lucien's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
Lira continued, voice lower.
"Some will try to join you, hoping to rewrite history from the inside."
Selene leaned over the scrolls, fingers tracing the sigils of new alliances.
"I'll take the second group."
Lucien's golden gaze flicked to her. "And the first?"
Selene's lips curved into something between a smile and a scar.
"I'm counting on them."
Because Selene knew how this game worked.
Assassins would come.
Propagandists would twist her words.
Foreign kings would send gifts wrapped in threats.
But each attempt to control her would only make the myth stronger.
In the Eastern courts, nobles whispered:
"She defied the banquet."
"She refused the puppet crown."
"She might be mad."
Or worse—
"She might be right."
By dawn, Aerthrial's citizens lit candles in her name—not as queen, but as proof that power no longer belonged only to those who inherited it.
Back in the citadel, Selene sat by the window, watching crimson snow drift past the glass.
Lucien wrapped his cloak around her shoulders, his golden eyes soft now—just for her.
"You changed something tonight," he whispered.
Selene leaned into his warmth, eyes half-closed.
"I know."
But change came with consequences.
And somewhere in the shadows of the Neutral Citadel, blades were already being sharpened.
For love.
For rebellion.
For the dangerous idea that both could exist together.
Crimson snow kept falling.
Unstoppable.