Sylvia's Pov
I have learned that power rarely announces itself.
It settles. It watches. It waits.
I sit by the window long after the messenger leaves, my fingers curled loosely around a goblet I have not touched. The wine smells too sweet. Everything in this palace does, sweetness layered over decay. Below, the gardens glow blue beneath the moon, lanterns brushing marble paths I know by heart. Paths I have walked for years, always close to the throne, never seated upon it.
Cassian has not come to me.
"That alone should frighten me," I think. "Yet it only sharpens me."
I rise slowly, smoothing my skirts, allowing the silence to stretch. Absence has always spoken more clearly than confession. When a man who has relied on you withdraws, it is not because he no longer needs you. It is because something else has begun to matter.
"A wife," I think, and the word burns.
I remember the first day Cassian truly saw me. Not as decoration. Not as convenience. As mind. I spoke when others smiled. I questioned when others flattered. I did not tremble when he was cruel. I did not beg when he was distant. He liked that. He liked that I understood restraint and consequence. I was not chosen by treaty or crown. I was chosen because I understood him.
"And now," I think bitterly, "a girl with gentle eyes and shaking hands wears his ring."
I press my fingertips to the glass, studying my reflection. I am still beautiful. More than beautiful. I am precise. Polished by survival. Elowen does not yet understand that silence can wound deeper than words.
The court already whispers. I hear it in pauses, in softened voices, in the way servants avoid my gaze. Women who once envied me now offer false sympathy.
"They believe marriage has ended me," I think calmly. "They are wrong."
Cassian is unraveling. I sensed it before anyone dared name it.
Rowan's disappearance has cracked something inside him. He has always believed himself in control, even when his hands were bloodied. Now war presses at the borders and the king's disappointment weighs heavier than steel.
"A wife does not ease that," I think. "A liability does."
I let the feeling come then. The jealousy. The heat behind my eyes. I do not pretend I am above it. I loved him in the only way women like me are permitted to love powerful men. Carefully. Strategically. Completely.
"But love does not survive when power shifts," I remind myself.
Elowen is not as harmless as she appears. That unsettles me more than beauty ever could. Fragile women shatter. Intelligent ones endure.
"Endurance, however," I think, "does not mean belonging."
I will not confront her. Not yet. That would be crude. Instead, I let the court do what it excels at.
I speak lightly to Lady Verenne about how queens from poorer houses often struggle with Solcar's expectations. I murmur to a councillor's wife that the new princess seems overwhelmed, perhaps unsuited to wartime pressures. I never accuse. I never insist.
"I allow doubt to grow without my hand visible," I think.
As for Cassian, I give him distance. That is the sharpest blade I possess. When he comes, and he will, I will not rush to fill the quiet. I will let him feel the absence of the one woman who never demanded softness from him.
My handmaid enters, hesitant.
"He did not summon you tonight," she says.
"I know," I reply evenly.
"There are rumors," she adds.
"There are always rumors," I say.
She lowers her voice. "They say Prince Rowan's guards were bribed. That someone close to the throne knew."
I smile slowly.
"Rumors," I think, "are lessons in where people are allowed to look."
"And the princess?" she asks.
I turn back to the window. Somewhere beyond these walls, armies stir. Somewhere nearer, a girl sleeps beside a man who frightens her and believes fear makes her weak.
"It is unfortunate," I say softly, "to enter a marriage without understanding the forces already at play."
She falls silent.
I allow myself one indulgence. One truth I rarely permit space.
"I know something Elowen does not."
I know how Cassian secured his position when blood stood in his path. I know who opened the gate the night Rowan vanished. I know which secret, spoken at the correct moment, could fracture this marriage beyond repair.
"But not yet," I think. "Not until the girl believes herself safe."
"Not until Cassian believes he has chosen her."
Power does not rush.
"And neither do I."