Adrian's POV
Adrian wakes to sunlight stabbing through the windows like knives.
His whole body aches. Not from falling. From the binding magic that burned through his hands and never finished the ceremony properly. The incomplete magic crawls under his skin like something alive and angry, trying to complete the bond on its own. It makes his heart skip and stutter. Makes his bones feel like they might splinter.
He lies there for a long time just staring at the ceiling.
Yesterday happened. He did not dream it. The cathedral was real. The crowd was real. Lucien catching him was real. And the moment after, standing up with Lucien's hand in his, that was real too.
But so is the shame.
Adrian rolls over and sees his breakfast tray abandoned on the side table. He does not remember it arriving. His attendants must have brought it while he slept and left as quickly as possible. He notices they did not make eye contact when they left it. Did not say good morning like they normally do.
They are embarrassed to serve him now.
Captain Elias enters without knocking. The older guard has protected Adrian since childhood, back when Adrian was just the third son who was never supposed to matter. Elias knows Adrian better than almost anyone. But this morning his weathered face looks grim.
"You should see this," Elias says quietly, placing the morning newspapers on Adrian's bed.
Adrian does not want to. He knows exactly what they say. But he forces himself to look anyway because hiding will not change the truth.
The first newspaper headline hits like a punch.
"THE WEAK PRINCE FAINTS AT HIS OWN CEREMONY"
Underneath is an illustration of Adrian unconscious on the cathedral floor. His body limp. His face peaceful like death. Lucien's arms around him. The image is spread across the front page so large that everyone in Solmere will see it today.
Adrian picks up the next newspaper.
"CAN SOLMERE SURVIVE WITH THIS HEIR?"
The article is brutal. It questions whether a prince with a weak heart can possibly rule a kingdom. It suggests the treaty marriage to Valtoria might be the kingdom's last hope since Adrian clearly cannot be trusted with real power. It compares him to his older brothers who died in the border skirmish two years ago. Heroes. Warriors. Everything Adrian is not.
One sentence sticks in his throat. "Perhaps the gods showed mercy by taking the stronger princes and leaving us with this one."
The third newspaper.
"VALTORIA'S PRINCE DESERVES BETTER THAN THIS DISGRACE"
Adrian stops reading after the headline. He cannot handle more. His hands shake as he sets the newspapers down. The binding magic under his skin flares up, responding to his emotions. His heart pounds too fast. Too hard. Too wrong.
He should call the physician. Should do something to calm down. Instead he just lies there while his body betrays him.
A servant knocks softly on the door. Adrian expects food or medicine. Instead his stepmother's maid arrives with a sealed letter. Adrian recognizes his stepmother's elegant handwriting immediately.
He opens it and reads three sentences.
"I am too embarrassed to face court today because of what happened at the ceremony. I will not be attending meals until this scandal passes. Please do not look for me."
She is hiding from court because of his failure. His stepmother, the queen, is hiding because having Adrian as a stepson has become an embarrassment.
Adrian sets the letter down very carefully so he does not rip it apart.
His father does not visit.
Adrian waits all morning and afternoon. Keeps expecting King Aldric to arrive, to rage at him about the humiliation, to threaten him with consequences. Waiting for anger feels better than waiting for nothing.
By evening, Adrian realizes his father is not coming at all.
The silence is worse than any rage could be. It means King Aldric has decided Adrian is not worth his anger. Not worth his attention. Not worth anything at all.
Adrian has spent his entire life trying to earn his father's approval. Trying to prove he is worth keeping around despite his weak heart and his fragile body. And this morning, with one fainting spell, he proved what his father always suspected.
That he is a disappointment.
That he always was.
Adrian does not eat the dinner brought to his chambers. Does not leave his bed. Just lies there while the sun moves across the sky and the binding magic under his skin keeps trying to complete itself, keeps making his heart stutter and skip like it might stop altogether.
He thinks about Lucien's silver eyes in the cathedral. Cold. Assessing. Disappointed. Lucien was supposed to marry a princess. Instead he got Adrian. Instead he got a prince who fainted like a child.
Lucien must hate him.
The thought sits in Adrian's chest like a stone.
Adrian stares out the window at the palace gardens going dark as evening falls. He wonders if anyone is thinking about him right now. If anyone cares that he is alone in these chambers, drowning in his own failure.
Probably not.
His door opens without knocking.
Adrian sits up quickly, wincing as the movement makes his weak heart skip a beat. He expects a servant or maybe Captain Elias checking on him again.
Instead Lucien stands in the doorway.
Adrian's breath catches.
Lucien wears formal evening clothes. Dark jacket with the Valtoria crest embroidered in silver. His midnight-black hair is perfectly styled. His silver eyes are sharp and unreadable. He looks every inch the warrior prince, the weapon, the perfect son his father trained him to be.
He looks nothing like the man who caught Adrian in the cathedral.
"Good evening, husband," Lucien says quietly. His voice carries no warmth. No sympathy. Just fact.
Adrian cannot move. Cannot speak. The binding magic under his skin flares up at Lucien's presence, recognizing something in him. Adrian feels it pull toward Lucien like a rope tied around his heart.
"I trust you have read the newspapers," Lucien continues, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. "I trust you have heard from your father. I trust you understand that we are in complete disaster."
Adrian nods miserably. He cannot even apologize because what is there to say. He failed at the most important moment of his life.
Lucien walks closer. His silver eyes move over Adrian's face, studying the dark circles under his eyes, the way Adrian is still trembling from the incomplete binding magic.
"We have a treaty dinner tonight," Lucien says flatly. "Both kingdoms will be present. Every noble will be watching to see if this marriage survives its first day."
Adrian's stomach twists. "I cannot go. I cannot face them."
Lucien's jaw tightens slightly. "You will go."
"I cannot," Adrian whispers. "They are already calling me weak. Already deciding I am worthless. I cannot stand in front of them tonight."
Lucien stops walking. He stands beside Adrian's bed and looks down at him with an expression so intense that Adrian cannot look away.
"Then let me be very clear," Lucien says quietly. His voice is sharp as a knife. "If you hide in this room tonight, the story becomes that the weak prince was too broken to face consequences. By morning, your father will use your cowardice as reason to dissolve the treaty. My father will use it as reason to send armies. And everything you failed at today will actually destroy two kingdoms."
Adrian feels his breath stop.
"But if you stand up tonight and face them," Lucien continues, stepping even closer, "then the story changes. The story becomes that you are fighting through your fear. That you are stronger than your illness. That this marriage might actually be worth something."
Lucien extends his hand.
"You have one hour to get dressed. We have a dinner to attend and you are going to walk in on my arm like you own that room. You are going to speak when spoken to and you are going to prove that yesterday was not the end of you."
Adrian stares at Lucien's extended hand.
His husband is not offering sympathy. Not offering comfort. Lucien is offering him a choice and a challenge and a way forward that does not involve drowning.
Adrian takes his hand.
"That is what I thought," Lucien says, and something shifts in his silver eyes. Something almost like respect.