Cassian doesn't remember the journey home.
One moment he's standing in the Kael garden watching Adeline walk away—spine straight, shoulders back, every inch the picture of composed rejection. The next he's in his study at the Vere estate, Daniel hovering in the doorway with obvious concern.
"Your Grace? The reports from the western garrison arrived while you were—"
"Leave them on the desk." Cassian's voice sounds strange even to his own ears. Flat. Strained.
Daniel doesn't move. "How did the meeting go?"
"She refused." Two words. Simple statement of fact. "The engagement is over."
"I see." A pause. "Are you... alright?"
Alright. What a meaningless question. Cassian is always alright. Alright requires feeling something beyond alright, and he doesn't feel. He can't.
Except there's a tightness in his chest that's been building since Adeline asked him if he could love her. A pressure behind his eyes that intensified when she looked at him like he was something broken beyond repair.
The curse. It has to be the curse, responding to some emotion trying to surface.
He breathes carefully, deliberately, pushing down whatever threatens to emerge. Control. He has perfect control.
"I'm fine," he says. "The arrangement was always contingent on mutual agreement. She disagreed. It's resolved."
"That's very rational." Daniel's tone suggests he doesn't believe a word of it. "So you're not at all bothered by being refused by a woman who two months ago could barely string words together in your presence?"
Cassian looks up sharply. "What are you implying?"
"That you're human?" Daniel moves into the room, settling into his usual chair uninvited. "That having someone look you in the eye and tell you that you'd destroy them might actually affect you?"
*Would you love me?*
*No. I don't think I could love anyone.*
The memory of his own words makes the pressure worse. Truth—he'd told her the truth because lying seemed pointless. And she'd thanked him for it like he'd confirmed her worst suspicions.
Like he'd proven himself the monster she already believed him to be.
"It doesn't affect me," Cassian says. "She made a choice. I respect it."
"Do you." Daniel leans forward. "Then why have you been standing at your window staring at nothing for the past twenty minutes?"
Had he? Cassian glances toward the window—dusk is falling, which means more time has passed than he realized. He'd left the Kael estate in mid-afternoon.
Hours. He's lost hours to... what? Thought? Memory? Replaying the conversation trying to identify where it went wrong?
"I was thinking," he says.
"About?"
*I woke up and realized the fantasy I'd built was just that—fantasy. The real you, the real marriage we'd have, would destroy me slowly.*
"It doesn't matter."
"Cassian." Daniel's voice softens. "Talk to me. What happened at that meeting?"
What happened? Cassian had gone expecting a young woman with cold feet, easily reassured. Perhaps a few concerns about moving away from her family or taking on duchess responsibilities. Normal, manageable anxieties.
Instead he'd found someone completely different from the girl he remembered. Adeline had been... sharp. Direct. She'd challenged him, questioned him, refused to accept his carefully constructed answers. And when he'd tried to explain his vision of their marriage—a perfectly reasonable partnership—she'd looked at him like he'd proposed something obscene.
*You want a competent household manager and a vessel for heirs, not a wife.*
Was she wrong? Cassian examines the accusation from every angle. That was what he'd envisioned—a practical arrangement where both parties fulfilled their roles efficiently. What else was marriage supposed to be?
But the way she'd said it, the contempt in her voice when she'd called it a business contract...
"She thinks I'm incapable of seeing her as human," Cassian says aloud. "That I'd treat her like valuable furniture."
Daniel winces. "Did she actually say that?"
"More or less." Cassian stands, pacing to the window. The gardens below are dark now, shadows pooling between hedges. "She asked what I knew about her beyond political considerations. I couldn't answer."
"You've barely spoken to her."
"Exactly what I said. But she..." Cassian stops, trying to articulate something he doesn't fully understand. "She acted like she'd already lived our marriage and found it wanting. Like she knew exactly how it would unfold and had decided it was unacceptable."
"Maybe she's just smart." Daniel's voice is carefully neutral. "Smart enough to recognize that marrying a man who openly admits he can't love anyone might not lead to happiness."
The words land like a blow. "You think I should have lied?"
"I think you could have shown some interest in trying." Daniel stands, moving to stand beside Cassian at the window. "You went into that meeting treating it like a negotiation. She wanted... I don't know. Something human."
"I was honest with her. I told her exactly what I could offer—"
"A partnership. Respect. Separate spheres of influence." Daniel's tone is almost gentle. "Cassian, that's what you'd offer a business associate, not a wife."
"What else is there?" The frustration breaks through Cassian's control, sharp and unfamiliar. "I can't give her romance or love or whatever fairy tale she's imagining. The curse—"
"The curse doesn't make you emotionless. It makes strong emotions painful." Daniel turns to face him. "There's a difference. You've just spent so long avoiding feeling anything that you've convinced yourself you can't."
Cassian's hands clench at his sides. The tightness in his chest intensifies—definite pain now, the curse responding to whatever he's failing to suppress.
"It doesn't matter," he forces out. "She refused. It's over."
"Is it?" Daniel asks quietly. "Because you've spent the last several hours obsessing over a conversation with a woman you claim not to care about."
"I'm not obsessing. I'm analyzing what went wrong—"
"You're disturbed." Daniel's eyes are too knowing. "I've known you for fifteen years, Cassian. I've seen you completely unmoved by military defeats, political betrayals, even your own father's death. But a twenty-year-old girl tells you no and you lose hours staring into nothing."
"That's not—" Cassian stops. Because it is what happened. Exactly what happened.
Why?
Lady Adeline Kael should be irrelevant now. A failed arrangement, nothing more. He should be mentally composing lists of alternative marriage prospects, considering which family alliance to pursue next.
Instead he keeps hearing her voice. Keeps seeing the way she'd looked at him—not with the eager admiration he remembered, but with something harder. Sadness, maybe. Or pity.
*We'd make each other miserable.*
The certainty in her voice had been absolute. Like she wasn't guessing or assuming, but stating known fact.
"There was something strange about her," Cassian says slowly. "The way she spoke. She seemed... older somehow. More certain."
"People change."
"Not that much in two months." Cassian turns from the window, pacing again. "When I last saw her, she could barely maintain eye contact. She giggled nervously and agreed with everything I said. Today she looked me in the eye and told me I was incapable of seeing her as human."
"Maybe she was nervous before and relaxed now that she's decided to refuse you."
That doesn't explain it. Doesn't explain the steel in her spine or the way she'd challenged his every word. Doesn't explain how she'd somehow known exactly what buttons to push to disturb his equilibrium.
*Tell me something real. Something true about yourself.*
He hadn't been able to answer. Had stood there like an idiot trying to think of a single personal truth to share and finding nothing. Because everything about him was constructed—carefully controlled layers designed to protect against the curse and maintain his position.
What was real underneath? He didn't know anymore.
"I need to work." Cassian moves to his desk, reaching for the garrison reports. "Was there anything urgent?"
Daniel sighs. "The usual. Border skirmishes, supply issues, two nobles feuding over land rights. Nothing that requires immediate attention."
"Good. I'll review them tonight."
"Cassian—"
"That's all, Daniel. Thank you."
For a moment it looks like Daniel might argue. Then he bows slightly—a gesture that's more mockery than respect between friends—and leaves.
Alone finally, Cassian tries to focus on the reports. Words swim on the page. Supply shortages. Troop movements. Completely meaningless.
He keeps seeing Adeline's face when she'd asked if he could love her. The moment of hope before he'd answered—did he imagine that? And then the resignation afterward, like she'd expected his answer but hoped to be wrong.
*I don't think I could love anyone.*
It was true. The curse made deep emotion physically agonizing. Better to feel nothing than to endure that pain. He'd learned that lesson young.
But the way Adeline had looked at him after he'd said it...
Like he'd confirmed something terrible.
Like he'd proven himself exactly the monster she'd believed him to be.
Cassian pushes back from the desk abruptly. The chair scrapes against floor with a harsh sound. He's on his feet again, pacing, unable to settle.
This is ridiculous. He doesn't pace. Doesn't lose focus. Doesn't waste hours replaying conversations with insignificant nobles.
Except Adeline hadn't seemed insignificant today. She'd seemed like the most real thing he'd encountered in years.
The thought stops him cold.
Real. That's what had been different. Every other woman he'd spoken to—potential brides, political allies, even his own mother—had a quality of performance to them. Playing roles, saying expected things, carefully managing their images.
Adeline had been raw. Honest to the point of brutal. She'd stripped away all pretense and spoken truth—her truth—without apparent concern for how it might offend him.
When had anyone last done that?
*You can't even imagine a woman having ambitions beyond marriage.*
He'd deserved that accusation. The surprise in his voice when she'd mentioned wanting a life of her own had been genuine and, in retrospect, embarrassing. Of course women had ambitions. He knew that intellectually. But to have one state it so baldly, with such conviction...
What were her ambitions? He'd never thought to ask.
What made her happy? What did she care about beyond appropriate noble accomplishments?
He didn't know. And the not-knowing suddenly feels like a failure.
Cassian returns to the window, staring out at darkness. Somewhere out there, Adeline is probably relieved. Celebrating her escape from a marriage she'd called destructive. She'd made her position painfully clear—she wanted nothing to do with him.
He should accept that. Move on. Find a different bride who'd be content with the practical arrangement he could offer.
So why does the thought feel wrong?
Why does accepting her refusal feel like losing something he didn't know he wanted until it was taken away?
The curse tightens around his chest—definite pain now, responding to the confusion and frustration swirling in his mind. He breathes through it with practice ease, forcing his pulse to slow, his thoughts to still.
Control. He has control.
But for the first time in years, Cassian wonders if perfect control might actually be the problem rather than the solution.
---
The knock comes after midnight.
Cassian is still in his study, reports abandoned, staring at nothing. Again. He's beginning to understand why Daniel had been concerned.
"Enter."
His mother sweeps in, still impeccably dressed despite the late hour. Duchess Helena Vere doesn't sleep so much as temporarily cease being conscious between the hours of two and six in the morning.
"I heard the engagement is off," she says without preamble. "Is this true?"
"Yes."
"And you accepted this? Simply let that girl refuse you without consequence?"
Cassian looks at his mother—really looks at her. Sees the calculation in her eyes, the cold fury barely masked by composure. To Helena, Adeline's refusal isn't a personal rejection but a political insult.
"I respected her choice," he says. "As I told Marquis Kael I would."
"Her choice." Helena's laugh is sharp. "Since when do we care about the choices of twenty-year-old girls?"
"Since I gave my word not to force an unwilling bride."
"How noble." She moves to his desk, fingers trailing over the abandoned reports. "And how foolish. The Kael alliance was important, Cassian. That territory borders three other major houses. We needed that connection."
"We'll find another."
"Will we?" Helena faces him fully. "News travels fast. By tomorrow, every eligible woman in the empire will know that Lady Adeline Kael refused the great Duke Vere. Do you understand what that does to your position?"
He hadn't thought about that. Should have, but his mind has been elsewhere.
"It shows that House Vere respects consent," he says. "Hardly a political weakness."
"It shows that you can be refused. That you're not the inevitable choice you should be." Helena's voice drops, dangerous. "Power, my son, is partly perception. And you've just let a minor marquis's daughter perceive herself as having power over you."
The words strike something deep. Adeline had said similar—that she held the power in their interaction because she was the one choosing.
At the time, he'd been too focused on understanding her refusal to consider the broader implications.
"What would you have me do?" he asks. "Force her into marriage against her will? That would make us look far worse."
"Of course not. Force is crude." Helena sits in Daniel's usual chair, arranging her skirts with precise movements. "But there are other approaches. Social pressure. Economic incentives. Making it clear that refusing you has consequences for her family."
"No." The word comes out harder than intended. "I gave my word, Mother. I won't retaliate against her for making a choice I explicitly said she could make."
Helena's eyes narrow. "Why do you care? She's nothing—a minor noble with delusions of importance. Find another bride, make the Kael family irrelevant, and move on."
Why does he care? That's the question, isn't it?
"I don't," Cassian says. But the lie tastes wrong in his mouth.
"Then prove it." Helena stands. "Tomorrow you'll attend Lady Carmichael's garden party. Her daughter Vivienne is suitable—good bloodline, appropriate age, far more biddable than Lady Adeline apparently is."
"Mother—"
"This isn't a request." Her voice turns cold. "You need a wife, Cassian. For the succession, for political stability, for appearances. Stop fixating on the girl who refused you and find one who won't."
After she leaves, Cassian sits in silence.
Fixating. Is that what he's doing?
He closes his eyes, trying to summon an image of Lady Vivienne Carmichael. Blonde? Brunette? He's met her at least a dozen times and can barely picture her face.
But he can see Adeline perfectly. The anger in her amber eyes. The set of her jaw when she'd challenged him. The way she'd looked when he'd admitted he couldn't love her—like he'd confirmed her saddest suspicions.
He's not fixating.
He's just... disturbed. Off-balance. Unused to rejection.
Tomorrow he'll attend the garden party. He'll be charming to Lady Vivienne. He'll begin the process of finding a suitable alternative.
And he'll stop thinking about the woman who looked at him and saw something broken.
The resolution sits in his mind, logical and clear.
So why does it feel like the biggest lie he's ever told himself?