The backstage area smelled like perfume, panic, and poor life choices. I was currently practicing the art of not throwing up into a potted fern.
"Mira," I whispered, clutching her arm. "Check my pulse. Am I alive, or is this just advanced stage fright?"
"Your pulse is… enthusiastic, my lady."
"That's a nice way of saying my heart is trying to escape through my ears."
I peeked through the velvet curtain.
The Ivory Court's charity musicale was in full, horrifying swing. The audience was a sea of jewels and judgmental eyebrows. And there, sitting with the other Ash Council members, was Cassian. Looking calm. Collected. Like a man about to witness a peaceful sunset, not a vocal massacre.
He's here.
He's going to hear me murder music in front of the entire empire. I could fake a seizure. A sudden, tragic loss of all motor functions. Valeria would kill me, but at least I'd die quietly.
Valeria materialized beside me, a vision of icy perfection in midnight blue. "Stop hyperventilating. You're steaming up my sleeve."
"I can't do this. My vocal cords are preparing a mutiny."
"Your only job is to be a tragic footnote. Now, look." She pointed subtly. Seraphina was taking the stage, a vision in white and gold, smiling like she'd never had a single dark thought. She sat at her harp, and the first notes floated out—sweet, pristine, and boring enough to cure insomnia.
The audience clapped politely. A few dukes nodded off.
"See?" Valeria whispered, a predatory gleam in her eye. "Polite perfection. We're about to give them a heart attack. It's a public service."
—
Our turn.
The announcer called our names. "Lady Valeria Noctyra and Lady Liriel Noctyra, performing 'The Knight's Silent Vow.'"
The walk to the center of the stage was the longest march of my life. I could feel hundreds of eyes on me. Don't trip. Don't trip. If you're going to humiliate yourself, at least do it standing up.
The pianist began.
Valeria took a breath, and her voice filled the hall—clear, sharp, and so beautiful it hurt. She sang of silent love and lonely sacrifice, and every word felt like a direct hit to my soul. She's singing his story. And he's right there.
Then my cue came.
I opened my mouth.
What came out wasn't a note. It was a sound. A guttural, choked squeak that echoed in the sudden silence like a stepped-on mouse.
A few nobles in the front row flinched. Someone's teacup rattled.
What came out wasn't a note. It was a sound. A guttural, choked squeak.
A teacup rattled. Someone gasped.
My eyes locked with Cassian's. He looked… intrigued. Like I was a new puzzle.
You know what? FINE.
I stopped trying to sing. I started trying to SCREAM THE TRUTH.
I grabbed the microphone (in my mind) and let loose:
"HE WALKS IN SHADOWS, BUT HIS HEART'S NOT COLD!
HE'S JUST A GOOD GUY STUCK IN A STUPID PLOT, I'M TOLD!
HE BRINGS HER TEA, HE SAVES HER DAY,
AND WHAT DOES SHE DO? SHE LOOKS THE OTHER WAY!"
The audience froze. Valeria missed her next line, staring at me like I'd sprouted a second head.
I was on a roll. My voice cracked, soared, and plunged into depths unknown:
"SHE'S LIKE 'OH PRINCE, YOUR HAIR IS BRIGHT!'
AND HE'S LIKE 'I'LL JUST STAND HERE IN THE NIGHT…
PROTECTING YOU WITH ALL MY MIGHT…
ALONE… TONIGHT… IT'S FINE… I'M FINE…"
I was now doing jazz hands. JAZZ HANDS. In a medieval fantasy court.
A baron in the third row spat out his wine. A countess clutched her pearls.
But from the back—a snort. A giggle. Then, someone started stomping their feet to the rhythm.
I became a one-woman rock opera. I pointed at random nobles as I sang:
"YOU! YOU GET IT! THE PAIN!
THE FRIENDZONE IS A RAIN IN SPAIN!
AND IT FALLS MAINLY ON THE BRAIN!"
Valeria, goddess of composure, finally rejoined, her voice wrapping around my chaos like a silk noose:
"…His vow is silent, his love unseen…"
I harmonized (badly):
"BECAUSE SHE'S OBSESSED WITH THE GUY WHO'S MEAN!
THE PRINCE IS A JERK WITH A SPARKLY CROWN!
AND MY BOY'S HEART IS JUST DROWNING, GOING DOWN DOWN DOWN!"
I ended with a power stance, one hand on my heart, the other flung toward the ceiling, voice breaking on the final, emotional whisper:
"…He dies… off-page… in chapter three-fiiiiiiiive…"
Silence.
Then—explosive applause. People were on their feet, not just clapping, but cheering. They'd been bored to tears all night, and we'd given them a spectacle.
Seraphina's gentle harp song was dead and buried.
Backstage, I was a sweaty, triumphant mess. Valeria grabbed my shoulders. "You rewrote the lyrics."
"I spoke from the soul!"
"Your soul is a drunk bard at a tavern."
Mage Silas appeared, fascinated. "Fascinating. You bypassed traditional melodic structure entirely and accessed raw id. Was it a conscious deconstruction of noble performance aesthetics?"
"I just really felt the lyrics," I wheezed.
Ronan smiled. "You sang with the passion of a honey badger defending its nest. It was moving."
But my eyes found Cassian, hovering at the edge of the crowd. He wasn't clapping. He was just… staring. His face was unreadable.
Oh no. Oh no. I went too far. I basically screamed "I LOVE YOU, YOU IDIOT" in metaphor.
He turned and walked away.
My heart plummeted.
—
I escaped to a balcony, my heart still trying to beat its way out of my ribcage.
"Gerald," I whispered to the air, "I think I just reinvented music. Or committed a crime against it. The line is blurry."
"Lady Liriel."
I whirled around. Cassian stood in the doorway, backlit by the ballroom lights.
"Viscount. Here to file a noise complaint?"
"I came to ask," he said, stepping onto the balcony, his voice soft, "if the knight in the song ever got his happy ending."
Night air felt suddenly very still.
"In the original story?" I said, my own voice quiet. "No. He dies alone, protecting someone who never saw him."
"And in your version?"
I looked at him, the moonlight tracing the line of his jaw, the quiet intensity in his amber eyes. "In my version," I said, the words feeling like a vow, "someone sees him. Long before the end."
He was quiet for a long moment, his gaze holding mine. Then he took one step closer. Just one. "That," he said, so softly I almost didn't hear it over the distant music, "would be a version worth hearing."
My breath caught. The space between us felt charged, alive.
"Liriel!" Valeria's voice, sharp and sudden, cut through the moment from inside. "We're leaving. Now."
Cassian stepped back, the moment dissolving like mist. He gave me one last, lingering look—a look that held the echo of his smile and the promise of a conversation not yet finished—before turning to leave.
"Until next time, Lady Liriel," he said over his shoulder.
_
In the carriage ride home, Valeria was unusually quiet.
"You're angry," I said. "I stole your thunder."
"You exploded the thunder and made it rain chaos," she corrected, but she didn't sound angry. She sounded… thoughtful. "Adrian approached me. He said it was the most strategically unpredictable thing he's ever seen. He looked at me like I was a puzzle he couldn't solve." She sighed, a mix of irritation and something else. "It's annoyingly attractive."
"So the plan worked?"
"The plan was a disaster. But we won anyway."
—
The next morning, the package arrived.
No note.
Inside: a music box. I wound it.
It played a simple, sweet, slightly off-key tune. Not the original ballad. Not my chaotic screed.
It played my version.
The "He walks in shadows but his heart's not cold" part. In delicate, tinkling music-box notes.
I laughed until I cried.
He'd heard every word. And he'd kept it.
I placed the music box on the vanity between Gerald and Tick-Tock.
"Well, boys," I whispered. "Looks like the quietest room in the house just got a soundtrack."
~🫶