Katerina felt the breath knocked out of her. She shook her head once, then harder, as though she could physically shake the words from existence.
"No. No. I... that's not... " Her fingers flew to the bracelet, as if its weight alone could defend her, as if his gift could contradict the accusation.
Her mother stared at her, devastated. "Katerina," she whispered. "Tell us this is untrue."
Katerina opened her mouth. Nothing came. Her lungs refused to work.
The ambassadors watched her silence with thin, satisfied patience. "Her reaction speaks clearly," one remarked.
"No," she whispered, the word torn from her.
She should have spoken with composure. She knew that. Panic clawed at her ribs, but she forced herself upright. This was bigger than humiliation. This was her future, her kingdom at stake. She had to be precise.
"It was Maximilian," she said. "He was the one~"
A sharp crack sliced through her words.
The ambassador's fan snapped shut, the sound cold, practiced, and theatrical. The throne room fell into instant silence. Katerina's breath stalled in her throat.
"Your Highness," the ambassador said, his voice so smooth it felt polished. "We are all aware that you never favored His Royal Highness the Second Prince. This was, after all… a political arrangement."
His tone made "political" feel like "transactional." Disposable.
"I would not be unkind enough to blame you for a lapse of discipline." A faint smile touched his lips. "But circumstances require clarity."
He turned toward her. Slowly. Deliberately. And bowed. Not the deep bow owed to Dravencourt's future princess, but a shallow, indifferent tilt of the head; the bow reserved for a clerk, a servant, a mistake.
Katerina felt her chest constrict.
Then, lifting his voice just enough to carry, the ambassador said, "For the avoidance of doubt, I will reveal to the court that one of the three witnesses who observed this man entering Her Highness's private chambers was…" a slight pause, "…His Royal Highness, Prince Maximilian of Dravencourt."
Gasps cracked across the hall like shattered glass.
Her father staggered against the throne as if struck. Her mother swayed, gripping the armrest.
Katerina did not move. She could not.
What could she say when the same man who entered her bath chambers last night and promised her that he would marry her no matter what, now accused her of inviting another man into her room?
What could she say?
Her lips parted, but the ambassador continued smoothly, slicing across her breath before sound could form. "This concludes it."
Her pulse roared in her ears.
This concludes it.
The truth pierced through her confusion.
Maximilian had shown her what she had refused to see: in his heart, she was expendable. His visit last night was not reassurance. It was a plan. He made her trust him, made her open her heart, only to break her apart.
Not just her. Her kingdom.
Elyndra lacked military strength. They relied on this alliance to protect themselves from Velmont's threat.
Maximilian would walk away untouched. He was a prince. A man. He would be praised for being "honorable," for refusing to let an "undisciplined" and "wanton" bride tarnish his name.
But she…
She would not survive this.
For her, this was not a bruise to her reputation. It was a political death sentence. The crown princess of Elyndra had failed her people. Her kingdom. Her duty.
All because she trusted one man. One wrong man.
Maximilian.
All her life, she had believed certain things were immutable. That betrothal meant safety. That familiarity meant immunity. That love, however restrained, meant protection.
All of it shattered in a single sentence. And as the pieces fell around her in the echoing stillness of the throne room, Katerina understood at last: this was not a betrayal of fidelity.
It was a betrayal of trust. Of shelter. Of everything she had been taught to rely on.
"Why... Maximilian would never... he..."
He promised.
Her knees buckled. She caught herself on the dais, fingers digging into the carved edge, trying to steady her breathing.
"He loves me," she whispered. It came out small. Naïve.
How could he throw me to the wolves? There must be something more. He wouldn't have betrayed me…
Her father's face had gone ashen. Her mother covered her mouth.
Dravencourt's envoy bowed again. Servants carried forward the returned dowry and placed it almost carelessly before the thrones.
"The dissolution is final," the ambassador announced. Then they turned and left.
Something cracked inside Katerina. A clean, devastating break.
Maximilian's promise… his kiss… his touch… his whispered vow that nothing would divide them…
All of it curdled into poison under her tongue.
Why?
Why would he do this to me?
"Dravencourt was our only hope against Velmont!"
"What are we supposed to do now?"
"The Princess acted recklessly."
"She never cared for the kingdom's stability. Had she behaved as expected, had she treated the Prince with respect, none of this would have happened."
"We will be slaves to the Brute of Velmont! Our women will be r@ped, and villages pillaged!"
Ministers erupted. Voices collided.
Katerina heard none of it. Her heart had broken too loudly.
Around her, the ministers had splintered into frantic knots, whispering fiercely, then shouting at her father. Chaos cracked open the throne room. Factions revealed themselves. They dared to raise their voices at the King and Queen, emboldened because her parents had always loved her, trusted her.
And where had she led that trust?
To destruction.
A loud, confident voice cut through the chaos.
"If Dravencourt finds the princess unbefitting, then we simply offer another. The alliance proceeds; only the participant changes."
Unbefitting. After thinking of him as my husband for eighteen years, I'm now unbefitting for him.
She turned to see who had dared humiliate her further. Her lips curled in a small, sharp smirk.
Grand Duke Schwerin. Lady Charlotte's father.
The ambassador's cold words echoed in her mind: A political arrangement… Political…
The memory struck her then.
She was fourteen. Maximilian, seventeen. After the yearly winter games, she heard he had meant to give the Vow-Ribbon to Lady Charlotte, but she had snatched it first, thinking that if he were not giving it to her, she would pluck it from him. The ribbon slipped into the lake, and he had dived in after it, searching desperately.
When he returned, dripping and furious, his face twisted with emotions he had not yet learned to hide.
"You...!" He reached toward her with a strangled gesture, his lips trembling, his brows drawn tight. "One day," he muttered, voice shaking, "I'll ruin you when you least expect it."
Is that why?
Because I kept you from giving that ribbon to Lady Charlotte?
You never loved me. Everything these past years… was it all a ploy to get back at me?
Is that it, Maximilian?
Her eyes burned.
That is right. If Maximilian wanted to end their engagement because of the political climate, he could have used a hundred other avenues. He did not need this spectacle.
But he wanted this.
This humiliation.
This abandonment.
This betrayal.
He came to her last night to give her hope, knowing exactly what he planned to do.
All for… Lady Charlotte?
Heh.
You really ruined me, Maximilian.
You won.
Katerina swallowed her tears.
"My daughter… my poor daughter… what of her future?" The Queen clutched her chest as she spoke, her voice breaking with a despair Katerina had never once heard from her.
*Thump*
Katerina turned toward the dais.
Her mother, her gentle and protective mother, the woman who had taught her to be kind and trusting, to believe in the goodness that people carried, had collapsed to the floor.
The Royal Physician arrived. He checked the Queen's pulse. His head lowered. With a reverent sorrow, he spoke.
"The Queen has passed."
Katerina's father dropped beside her at once and gathered her into his arms, his face folding into a mixture of shock and unraveling grief, as if the ground itself had slipped away beneath him.
"Mother…" Katerina fell over her mother's lifeless body. "Do not leave me, Mother… not now… I need you…"
What am I supposed to do now? My reputation lies in ruins, our kingdom stands on the verge of collapse. Whose counsel will I seek now? Why must my gentle mother be the one to leave? Why could it not have been me?
Her mother had been the one most excited about the marriage alliance. The Queen of Dravencourt had been her closest friend, and together they had dreamed of their children one day marrying. The moment Katerina was born, the Queen of Dravencourt had declared the engagement.
And now, with her mother gone, the alliance truly had ended.
In a single day, Princess Katerina's world had turned upside down.
All because she placed her trust in the wrong man.
She looked at the bracelet that the man who ruined her had given her. The stones gleamed innocently, as though they were mocking her.
She tore it off. The clasp snapped against her skin, leaving a thin red line. She did not feel it.
Her world was already bleeding. The bracelet fell to the floor beside the throne, a quiet, merciless echo of how her trust had shattered and how it had thrown her kingdom into instability.