Chapter 15

The palace did not feel like a home.

It felt like a display case.

Light poured through vaulted crystal panes and fractured into a thousand polite colors—soft gold on velvet, blue fire on polished marble, a faint rainbow that slid across every jeweled throat and embroidered sleeve. Music floated from a raised dais—strings and breath and the careful precision of a court orchestra that knew how to keep its volume beneath conversation.

Everything here was tuned for appearance.

Alliyanna moved through it like a blade in a sheath.

Her gown was pale—too pale, chosen to make her look delicate, chosen to make her look agreeable. Madame Levinia had overseen every stitch, every clasp, every detail that said new bride without letting anyone forget the cage beneath it.

“Shoulders back,” Levinia had instructed earlier, fingers pinching fabric into shape. “You are a Duke’s betrothed now. You are not a fugitive.”

Alliyanna had smiled then, and she smiled now, and the smile meant nothing.

She kept her hands calm, her posture elegant, her breathing steady.

Inside, she counted.

Exits. Sightlines. Guard rotations. Locations of cameras, scanners, biometric panels. The estate staff moved like currents through the ballroom and surrounding galleries—servers in dark uniforms, couriers in gray, stewards with tablets clipped to their wrists.

And then there were Birsha’s men.

They wore the colors of the House—black edged in red, gleaming insignias, weapons concealed but never truly hidden. Their eyes did not drift like the guests’ did. They did not admire chandeliers or gossip. They watched for movement and threat.

They watched her.

Duke Birsha crossed the room as if the space belonged to him by natural law. He wore formal black, a high collar and a sash threaded with medals that meant less than the fear his name carried. His smile was practiced and shallow. His hand found the small of her back and rested there with the casual ownership of a man who believed paperwork was the same thing as consent.

“My duchess-to-be,” he murmured, loud enough to be heard by those nearest, soft enough to sound intimate. “You’re doing beautifully.”

Alliyanna met his eyes and gave him exactly what he expected.

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

It cost her nothing to say. It cost her everything not to spit.

Birsha turned them slightly, as if he were guiding her into a better light. He liked the way people watched him. He liked the way they watched her with him. He liked how the room arranged itself around his presence like gravity.

Madame Levinia waited near a pillar—thin-lipped, perfectly composed, her gaze sharp as a scalpel. She nodded once to Alliyanna as they passed, approval and warning combined in the smallest movement.