The academy courtyard had become a theater, and the tea party invitations were the opening act.
At noon, the central quadrangle bustled with students transitioning between lectures. The sun was high, casting sharp shadows that felt like stage lights. Seraphina, with her unerring sense for spectacle, chose her moment perfectly.
I was crossing from History of Magic to Advanced Linguistics, taking my now-habitual peripheral route along the colonnade, when her voice, bright as a bell, cut through the hum of conversation.
"Rosalind! Oh, wait, please!"
A hush fell in patches around her, then spread like a ripple. I stopped, every instinct screaming to keep walking. But to flee now would be a confession of weakness. I turned.
She stood in the courtyard's center, a vision in spring green silk, surrounded by her usual court. In her hands, she held a stack of envelopes sealed with crimson wax—the prince's emblem. The invitations.
"I've been looking everywhere for you," she said, gliding forward, her expression a masterpiece of concerned friendship. "His Highness entrusted me with distributing these. I saved yours for a special delivery." She extended a gilded envelope toward me with both hands, a ceremonial gesture. Every eye in the courtyard was upon us.
This was the trap, sprung in public. The loving friend, publicly including the reclusive, heartbroken girl. Refusing here would be a brutal social slap, an admission of instability, or, worse, treasonous disrespect toward the Crown Prince. Accepting meant walking into the poisoned parlor.
The parchment felt heavy as a tombstone as I took it. The red wax seal seemed to pulse like a wound. I could feel the weight of hundreds of stares.
"Thank you, Lady Seraphina," I said, my voice clear and carrying just enough. "How thoughtful of His Highness."
She beamed, playing her part. "You will come, won't you? We've all missed you at social events. It would do you such good to be among friends again." Her tone was dripping with benevolent pity. Look at me, trying to save the poor, broken thing.
I looked from the invitation in my hand to her face, to the eager, gossip-hungry crowd. This was the crux. The original Rosalind would have wept with grateful joy. Selene, the saint, might have attended out of duty to avoid slighting royalty.
But I was neither.
I offered a small, regretful smile, one I had practiced in my mirror that morning. It was polite, firm, and utterly final. "Alas, I must regretfully decline. A prior family obligation requires my presence elsewhere that day. Please convey my deepest apologies and gratitude to His Highness for the kind invitation."
The silence that followed was absolute. You could have heard a pin drop on velvet.
Seraphina's smile didn't falter—it petrified. Her eyes, those lovely green pools, turned to chips of ice. She hadn't considered this. She'd anticipated a tearful acceptance or perhaps a flustered, hesitant one she could steamroll. A polite, pre-planned refusal citing family obligation was a move from a different game entirely. It was unassailable. It was noble. It was a declaration that Rosalind Thorne had priorities that superseded the Crown Prince's social calendar.
"A… family obligation?" "She repeated the words stiffly."
"Indeed. My father has arranged a long-overdue consultation with our estate stewards. The timing is unfortunate, but duty to one's house must come first." I invoked Duke Thorne, a man distant but powerful. Let them think he'd commanded it. It added a layer of unarguable authority.
Murmurs broke out. "She's refusing the prince?" "Duke Thorne's orders, perhaps?" "How bold…" "Or how foolish."
"I see," Seraphina said, her voice regaining some of its melodic quality, though it was now edged with frost. "How dutiful of you. His Highness will be… disappointed."
"I'm sure the event will be splendid regardless," I said, handing the unopened invitation back to her. The gesture was subtle but devastating—I wasn't just declining; I was refusing to even take the summons. "I would not dream of depriving you of your moment to shine as his hostess, Lady Seraphina. I'm certain you'll grace the occasion beautifully."
A direct hit. I'd named her ambition in front of everyone, framed it as a compliment, and removed myself from her narrative in one stroke.
A flush, real and angry, crept up her neck. The mask was cracking. Before she could formulate a response, a new voice cut through the tension.
"How unfortunate. I was excited for your perspective on the new vintage of Sunleaf tea, Lady Thorne. They say it has… clarifying properties."
Cassian.
He stood at the top of the courtyard steps, having appeared as if summoned by the drama. He was smiling, but it didn't touch his eyes. They were fixed on me, that same analytical, cold blue. He'd seen it all.
The crowd parted like the sea before a deity. He descended the steps slowly, his gaze never leaving mine. The system's words echoed in my mind: [Anomaly Detected]. Was he seeing it now? The variance in his script?
"Your Highness." I curtsied deeper, buying a second to school my expression into one of respectful regret.
"Rise." He stopped before me, close enough that I caught his citrus-sandalwood scent. It was suffocating. "A family obligation, you say? How commendably filial. Your father's dedication to his lands is well-known." His tone was light and conversational, but each word felt like a probe. "Though I must confess, I'm curious what estate matter could be so pressing it outweighs the opportunity to celebrate the season's turn with your peers."
A challenge, wrapped in royal concern. He was giving me a chance to recant, to provide a flimsy excuse he could publicly forgive, pulling me back into the fold.
I met his gaze. This is the man who will kill you. The memory steadied me. "The stewardship of the Thorne March, Your Highness. The spring thaw has revealed significant erosion in the vital Silverrun River tributaries that feed our northern valleys. If the dikes and irrigation channels aren't mapped and repaired before the summer rains, several villages face crop failure." I recited the dry, technical details I'd memorized from actual estate reports I'd read in the library. It was specific, boring, and undeniably important. "My father believes my presence, as his heir, is required to understand the scope of the crisis and the needs of our people."
It was the perfect defense: dull, dutiful, and utterly about the well-being of the empire's subjects—a virtue even a prince couldn't publicly disparage.
Cassian's smile tightened imperceptibly at the corners. He'd been outmaneuvered with bureaucracy. "The plight of your people is, of course, paramount. Your dedication does you credit." He paused, letting the silence stretch. "We shall miss your company. The party will feel… incomplete."
The subtext was a lash: You are making an enemy.
"You are too kind, Your Highness," I murmured, looking down as if modestly accepting a compliment, breaking the intensity of his stare.
He held the silence a moment longer, then turned his dazzling, public smile on Seraphina, seamlessly redirecting the crowd's attention. "Lady Seraphina, I rely on you to ensure our gathering is a memorable one for all who are able to attend."
Seraphina, still holding the rejected invitation, recovered with impressive speed, dipping into a deep, graceful curtsy. "It will be my honor and pleasure, Your Highness."
The moment was over. The prince moved on, his retinue swirling around him, the crowd's attention shifting back to the sunlit spectacle of royalty. But as he turned, his eyes found mine one last time. There was no anger there. Only a sharp, intrigued curiosity, the look of a collector who has found a specimen that refuses to be neatly pinned.
I stood alone in the suddenly empty space around me. The social snub was complete, monumental. I had publicly, politely, and irrevocably severed myself from the central event of the season. The rumor mill would explode, but with a new narrative: Rosalind Thorne, the dutiful heir, not the heartbroken fool.
But as I walked away, my limbs trembling with adrenaline, I felt no triumph. Only the cold certainty of a new danger.
I had avoided the poisoned cup. But in doing so, I had stepped directly into the spotlight. I had changed the script, and the lead actor had noticed.
From a shadowed archway across the courtyard, Prince Lucian watched the entire exchange. He gave me the faintest nod, a ghost of approval, before melting back into the darkness.
But another pair of eyes watched from a high, latticed window in the administration tower. Kaelen Frost stood with his vice-captain, Damien, having been reviewing maps with the headmaster. The commotion in the courtyard had drawn his gaze.
"Interesting," Damien murmured, crossing his arms. "The Thorne girl just refused the Crown Prince. Bold."
Kaelen didn't answer. He was watching the silver-haired girl walk away, her back straight, head high. He saw the way the prince had looked at her—not with affection, but with assessment. He saw the way she had held her ground, her rebuttal not fiery but solid, immovable as bedrock. It was the bearing of a soldier holding a defensive line, not a noblewoman at a social event.
A fragment of his dream from the night before—a flash of silver hair haloed in desperate, golden light—flared behind his eyes. A strange, protective ache, utterly foreign and completely certain, tightened in his chest.
"She's not what she seems," he said quietly, his voice rough.
Damien raised an eyebrow. "Who is in this snake pit?"
Kaelen's silver-gray eyes tracked Rosalind until she disappeared. "No," he said, more to himself than to his knight. "This is different."
He turned from the window, the paperwork on the headmaster's desk forgotten. "Damien, get me the full dossier on House Thorne. And the service records of any knights or retainers they've sent to the Northern front in the past five years."
"Sir?" Damien asked, surprised by the sudden shift.
"Just do it."
As Kaelen strode from the room, the thread of fate—silver-blue and still fragile—that stretched from his chest gave a single, resonant pull toward the path Rosalind had taken.
The refusal was over. But the consequences, for everyone, had just begun