"—for suspicion of demon pact."
The ballroom didn't just go quiet. It went empty.
Like the air itself fled the moment those words were spoken.
I felt every gaze turn sharp and hungry. A demon pact accusation didn't mean scandal. It meant permission. Permission to strip me, search me, torture me—while calling it "purification."
Prince Adrian's smile cut clean through the crowd. He hadn't expected me to run to Duke Kael. But he'd expected me to panic. He'd expected this word to land like a collar.
He stepped forward, voice smooth. "Duke Rivenhart, I'm sure you understand. This is a church matter. Lady Seraphina must be detained at once."
The lead guard held the scroll out like it was holy.
I kept my face still, but my skin crawled. In my last life, this accusation didn't appear until later—after they'd isolated me, after my father was pressured into "cooperating," after my friends stopped answering my letters.
Now Adrian was pushing it forward, right here, in front of everyone.
Because I'd changed the script.
Duke Kael didn't look at the scroll.
He looked at me.
Winter-river eyes. Flat, assessing. Like he was deciding whether I was worth the trouble I'd just dragged to his feet.
My throat tightened. I forced myself to hold his gaze.
Don't flinch. Don't beg. Don't look weak.
I'd begged once.
I'd died for it.
Kael finally spoke, voice low enough that the guard nearest him stiffened. "Who wrote the order?"
The lead guard straightened. "His Highness—"
Kael's head tilted a fraction. "I didn't ask who sealed it. I asked who wrote it."
A pause.
The guard's eyes flickered, just once, toward the cluster of white-robed clergy near the dais.
The High Inquisitor wasn't here tonight. But one of his men was—a thin-faced priest with a polished ring and a pious expression.
Kael's gaze followed the guard's, then returned to the scroll as if it offended him by existing.
He reached out.
For one heartbeat, I thought he meant to take it.
He didn't.
He pinched the seal between two gloved fingers and crushed it.
Wax cracked. The scroll slipped in the guard's hands like it had been slapped.
A collective inhale rippled through the nobles.
Prince Adrian's face tightened. "Duke Kael."
Kael didn't even look at him. "You're out of your depth, Your Highness."
My pulse kicked.
Adrian's tone sharpened. "You will not interfere with the church."
Kael's eyes finally slid toward the prince. "You will not hide behind it."
The words weren't loud. They didn't need to be. They carried the weight of execution orders and sealed graves.
The guard hesitated, torn between royal authority and the man known for killing traitors without trembling.
My stomach twisted. This was the edge of a blade. One wrong step and Kael would cut me loose to avoid being dragged into the mess.
So I stepped forward first.
"Detained for what?" I asked, letting my voice ring. "A demon pact requires proof. Present it."
The thin-faced priest gave a thin smile. "Proof will be discovered upon proper examination. Lady Vale's behavior tonight alone is… unstable. Violent. Erratic."
Liora, still holding her cheek, let out a soft sob on cue.
The crowd murmured again, reshaping the story in real time: hysterical woman, jealous sister, corrupted soul.
I turned my head just enough to catch Liora's eyes.
Her tears were perfect.
Her gaze wasn't.
It was bright with triumph.
Because she believed she'd cornered me. If I fought, I'd look guilty. If I submitted, I'd be dragged away.
In my last life, I submitted.
Not again.
I lifted my stained skirt an inch and stepped closer to Kael, close enough that I could feel the cold radiating off his armor.
Then I spoke softly, only for him. "If they take me tonight, I won't leave the church alive."
His eyes didn't change.
But his attention sharpened, like a knife turning in a hand.
I swallowed. "You can walk away. I know. But if you do, Prince Adrian will use my 'confession' to ruin whoever you're truly watching."
I didn't know if it was true.
But Kael was here for a reason. Men like him didn't attend academy balls for entertainment.
Kael's gaze held mine for a long, cutting second.
Then he turned back to the lead guard.
"She's under my protection," he said.
The room exploded.
Not with sound—no one dared shout—but with shock moving through bodies: heads turning, fans snapping open, mouths pressed into scandalized lines.
Adrian took a sharp step forward. "You can't claim her on a whim."
Kael's voice was calm. "It isn't a whim."
He extended his hand toward me.
Not tender. Not gentle.
A command.
I placed my hand in his glove.
His fingers closed around mine, firm enough to remind me he could crush bones if he wanted to.
Then he raised our joined hands slightly, a public gesture.
Possession.
Protection.
A trap, maybe.
But it was mine now.
Kael addressed the crowd without raising his voice. "Lady Seraphina Vale has requested my hand. I accept."
Liora's breath hitched.
Adrian's smile vanished completely.
"And as my intended," Kael continued, "she will not be hauled away based on a prince's panic and a priest's appetite."
The thin-faced priest bristled. "Duke Rivenhart, you insult the sacred—"
Kael looked at him.
Just looked.
The priest's voice died in his throat.
Kael turned back to the guard. "Return to your master. Tell him if he wants Lady Vale, he can file a formal accusation with the imperial court. With evidence. In daylight."
Adrian's eyes were hard as steel. "You're challenging the crown."
Kael's mouth curved, not quite a smile. "No. I'm reminding it of its limits."
I should've felt relief.
Instead, dread crawled deeper.
Because I knew Adrian.
He didn't lose in public without making someone bleed for it later.
The crowd parted as Kael began to move, pulling me with him like I weighed nothing. His guards flowed around us, a black tide.
I kept my chin high, even as whispers slithered behind me.
"Did you see her slap Lady Liora—?"
"She's insane—"
"The Black Duke—why would he—?"
"Maybe she truly is—"
"Or maybe the prince is frightened—"
The last whisper made me almost stumble.
Because for the first time tonight, the story wasn't perfectly under Adrian's control.
Kael steered me through a side corridor lined with mirrors and white marble. The music faded. The laughter turned into distant noise.
A palace attendant tried to step into our path. Kael didn't slow. The attendant flattened himself against the wall as if gravity changed.
We reached a private antechamber. Kael pushed the doors open and pulled me inside.
The room smelled like wax and winter flowers. A place for nobles to fix their hair and pretend they didn't sweat.
The doors shut.
Silence snapped tight.
Kael released my hand.
I flexed my fingers as if circulation had been cut off.
He studied me with the same expression I'd seen on his face in the execution chamber—professional, unreadable.
"You used my name like a shield," he said.
I didn't pretend innocence. "Yes."
"And you baited the crown prince in front of witnesses."
"Yes."
Kael's eyes narrowed slightly. "Why?"
My mouth went dry.
Because I died.
Because I saw my father kneel.
Because I tasted holy poison.
I couldn't say it like that. Not yet.
So I gave him something true enough to bite.
"Because Prince Adrian intends to destroy me," I said. "And because he's already begun. Demon pact accusations don't appear from nowhere. Someone planted the idea, the paperwork, the priest."
Kael's gaze flicked to my stained bodice. "You chose the messiest place possible."
I let out a short, humorless breath. "He chose it first. I'm just refusing to drown quietly."
Kael was silent for a moment.
Then he stepped closer.
Too close.
He didn't touch me, but his presence filled the air until my lungs felt small.
"You understand what you offered?" he asked. "My protection is not charity."
"I'm not asking for charity," I said. My heart hammered, but I made my voice sharp. "I'm asking for a deal."
Kael's eyes skimmed my face, like he was reading the spaces between my words.
"What do you have," he said, "that makes you worth the trouble of crossing the crown and the church on the same night?"
I forced myself not to flinch.
In my last life, my value had been my obedience.
This time, it would be my mind.
"I have information," I said carefully. "About the people who will move against you."
Kael's gaze sharpened. "Against me?"
I held his eyes. "Against anyone who threatens Prince Adrian's path to power."
A pause.
Then Kael's voice dropped. "Prove it."
I swallowed. "Give me three days."
Kael's mouth didn't move, but something in the air shifted like a door closing.
"You don't have three days," he said. "You have tonight."
My blood chilled. "What do you mean?"
He turned slightly, angling his body toward the door as if he could hear the corridor itself breathing.
"Once a demon pact accusation is spoken in public," Kael said, "it becomes a leash. The church will pull it. The crown will pretend it's not their hand. And you will be dragged until you break."
He looked back at me.
"So if you want my protection," he continued, "you take my terms now."
My pulse thudded in my ears. "Your terms."
Kael reached into his coat and pulled out a folded document, already sealed in black wax.
A contract.
Of course it was ready.
My stomach sank. He'd anticipated using someone tonight. Or he'd decided I was useful the moment I walked toward him.
He held it out.
"Betrothal contract," he said. "Binding."
My fingers hovered over it.
A binding betrothal with the Black Duke wasn't a romance. It was a sentence.
But I'd already died once.
I took the contract.
The seal bore a crest—black wolf, silver crown.
Rivenhart.
Kael watched my face as I skimmed the first lines.
Protection. Legal shelter from church detention without imperial warrant. Access to Rivenhart household resources.
In exchange—
I felt the trap before I reached it.
I kept reading anyway.
In exchange: public loyalty. Residence under his roof. Compliance with "security measures." And a clause that made my stomach tighten:
If Lady Vale is proven to have lied to Duke Rivenhart or endangered House Rivenhart, Duke Rivenhart reserves the right to enact immediate judgment.
Immediate judgment.
My tongue tasted like metal.
"You want the right to kill me," I said.
Kael's voice was even. "I want the right to end a threat. If you're innocent, it won't matter."
"If I'm innocent," I snapped, "I wouldn't need you."
His eyes flicked, amused for a heartbeat, then cold again. "And yet here you are."
I hated that he was right.
I pressed my nails into the paper until it bent.
"I'll sign," I said.
Kael's gaze didn't soften. "Not with ink."
He lifted his gloved hand and pulled the glove off, finger by finger. Pale skin. Scarred knuckles.
Then he produced a small blade. Black handle, silver edge.
He held it out to me.
"Blood," he said. "Your vow needs teeth."
My breath caught.
This was the kind of thing people whispered about him. The old magic of contracts. The kind that didn't care about pleading later.
I stared at the blade.
In the mirror across the room, I saw myself: wine-stained dress, bruised pride, eyes too bright. A girl everyone expected to break.
I took the blade.
The metal was cold enough to hurt.
Kael's voice was quiet. "Last chance to walk away."
I met his gaze.
"I walked away once," I said softly. "And I died."
Then I turned the blade toward my palm.
The edge kissed skin.
I pressed.
Pain flared sharp and clean.
Blood welled.
Kael didn't move. He simply held the contract open, waiting.
I hovered my bleeding hand over the paper.
And as my blood dripped toward the seal, the door to the antechamber slammed open—
"Lady Seraphina Vale!"
A man in white church robes stood there, flanked by armed temple knights.
His eyes locked on my bleeding palm.
Then his mouth curled.
"In the name of purification," he announced, "you are to be seized now."
Kael's hand closed around my wrist.
And the temple knights drew their swords.