Marienne Lysford did not remember the carriage ride home.
Only the heat behind her eyes. The relentless pounding in her skull. The sour, metallic taste of humiliation creeping up her throat like bile.
The moment the doors of the Lysford estate slammed shut behind her, something inside her finally broke.
"GET OUT!"
Her scream ripped through the entrance hall.
A porcelain vase vanished from its pedestal and shattered against the far wall, fragments skidding across polished marble.
"ALL OF YOU—GET OUT!"
Servants scattered. Footsteps fled. No one dared meet her eyes.
Marienne tore off her gloves and flung them aside, chest heaving, hands shaking violently.
"She did it," she snarled, pacing like a caged animal. "She planned this—"
A maid hesitated at the edge of the hall.
"My lady, please—"
The silver tray left Marienne's hands before the maid finished the sentence.
The impact was brutal. Bone met metal. A cry tore free as the maid crumpled to the floor, blood staining the marble.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Marienne screamed. "DON'T LOOK AT ME!"
Silence fell. Thick. Terrified.
Marienne laughed—a sharp, fractured sound that barely sounded human.
"Of course," she whispered hoarsely. "Of course it was her."
She crossed the room in a storm, knocking over chairs, ripping a framed portrait from the wall—their engagement portrait—and crushing the glass beneath her heel.
"I knew it," she breathed, trembling. "I always knew."
Seraphine Arden. That name burned.
The woman who never raised her voice. Who never fought openly. Who smiled softly while taking everything.
Marienne clawed at her hair, breath coming fast and wild.
No matter what I do. No matter how perfect I am—
It was always her.
Seraphine with her quiet devotion. Seraphine with her endless patience. Seraphine who never had to beg for what Cassian gave freely, even when he didn't realize he was giving it.
Seraphine. Seraphine. Seraphine—
Marienne screamed.
She had seen it long before tonight. In banquet halls. At court. In the way Cassian's gaze lingered half a second too long. In the way his voice softened once—and only once—in a room full of nobles.
She laughed again, broken and bitter.
"So you win," she whispered. "You always win."
Her vision blurred. Tears threatened.
Then, slowly, her spine straightened.
"No," she said aloud, voice shaking but iron beneath it. "No. I will never admit that."
You may have his heart, she thought viciously, but I have his future.
Seraphine could haunt his dreams, warm his bed, break him in moments of weakness. But Marienne possessed something Seraphine never would.
The Empire.
This engagement was not love. It was command.
The Emperor had decreed it. To sever it would be to strip Cassian Vale of his command, his army, his identity.
Cassian was a soldier before he was a man.
And Marienne smiled—slow, cold—even as tears burned behind her eyes.
"You can never take that from me," she whispered. "You can seduce him. Destroy him." Her voice dropped, venomous. "But he will stand beside me. He will wear my name. He will bow with me at the Emperor's feet."
Her laugh was brittle. Furious.
"And when you finally ruin yourself chasing what cannot be taken," she murmured, "I will still be standing."
She clenched her jaw. "I will never give him up."
Not to Seraphine. Not to love. Not even to the truth she refused to name.
Marienne Lysford stood amid the wreckage, breathing hard, eyes blazing.
Let Seraphine play her games. Because in the end, the Empire always won.
And so did she.
---
Cassian Vale accepted his engagement the way he accepted every order that shaped his life.
Without ceremony. Without protest. Without illusion.
He stood alone in the audience chamber as the decree echoed through stone older than memory. Courtiers watched his face for cracks—fear, ambition, resistance.
They found none.
Cassian knelt. Not out of gratitude. Not out of pride. But because obedience had long since replaced choice.
"To serve is my duty."
Nothing more.
There was no romance in his acceptance. No secret hope buried beneath discipline. He had learned too early—on blood-soaked fields and burning borders—that the Empire did not survive on happiness.
It survived on sacrifice.
Love was a luxury. And luxuries were the first things abandoned in war.
So when the Emperor spoke of unity and stability, of marriage as strategy, Cassian listened as he always did.
He did not ask why. He did not ask what it would cost. He already knew.
His heart had never been part of the equation.
The Empire had raised him. Armed him. Bled him dry. In return, it demanded his future.
And he gave it.
Not because he believed in destiny. Not because he imagined happiness could grow from duty. But because millions outweighed one man's desires.
He had sent soldiers into battle knowing they would die. Signed orders that erased entire companies. Stood over mass graves and called it necessary.
Compared to that, surrendering his own future was simple.
When the ring was placed in his palm, his fingers closed without trembling.
He did not imagine warmth. Or peace. Or children. He imagined borders. Supply lines. Enemies held at bay.
He took his heart—her—and buried it with the same discipline he used for fallen men.
Wrapped it tight. Locked it away. Told himself it was already dead.
That was how Cassian survived.
Obedience was not devotion. It was allegiance.
And the Empire did not ask to be loved. Only obeyed.