{Third Person}
Amara felt her vision blur for a second, but she forced herself to stay grounded.
She couldn’t break here. Not in front of him. Not where people could still see.
"You should be grateful," Torin added, his lips curving faintly. "At least now, you’ve ended up sowhere that suits you. A political bride. A quiet life. That’s... more your pace, isn’t it?"
Her chest tightened painfully. For a mont, she couldn’t even breathe properly. Still, she held everything in.
Her voice ca out lower this ti. "So... this is all you have to say to ?" she asked. "After everything? After you claid you loved ?"
Torin scoffed lightly, shaking his head as if she had said sothing ridiculous. "Are you even listening to yourself?" he said, his tone turning colder. "You’re standing here, asking about love, when you’re already married."
Amara froze, then let out a painful scoff as her eyes reddened.
"Or what?" he continued, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Were you planning to keep clinging to while living under another man’s roof? Don’t you feel ashad of yourself?"
The words hit their mark hard. Disgust twisted in her chest, but this ti, it was turning inward.
"You’re a political bride now," he added, his voice firm, almost lecturing. "Act like one and stop embarrassing yourself."
Amara felt sothing inside her crack quietly. Then Torin sighed, as if tired of the conversation altogether.
"If you’re so desperate to know," he said, his tone flattening, "Lila and I have been together for eight months."
Eight months.
The world tilted, and Amara took a step back before she even realized it.
’Eight months?’ she repeated in her head. ’That ans, before I even left, before everything...’
Torin looked at her, completely unmoved. "Now that you know the truth," he added calmly, "I hope you sleep better at night."
At this exact mont, sothing in Amara snapped. Without thinking, without holding back, she spat in his face.
The action was so sudden that Torin didn’t even react in ti.
Silence settled around them. Her chest heaved quickly as she looked at him, her eyes burning.
"I curse the day I t you," she said, her voice trembling but fierce. "May the pain you made feel co back to you a hundredfold. You will never find peace—"
Her voice dropped, colder, sharper. "—even in your death."
For a split second, the air around them seed to tighten. A faint, almost imperceptible chill swept through the space, brushing against the skin like a fleeting whisper.
The nearby torch flas flickered—not wildly or enough to draw attention—but just enough to waver unnaturally before steadying again.
Amara felt a sudden coldness within her. It spread from her chest outward, sharp and unfamiliar, stealing her breath for a mont. Her fingers trembled slightly. Then it was gone just like that.
Amara didn’t understand it, and she didn’t stop to question it. She simply turned and walked away.
---
Amara did not rember how she left. Everything after that mont with Torin blurred together into fragnts she could not piece together into a whole.
She did not rember walking away from him, nor did she recall making her way out of the banquet grounds. Even the ride back felt like sothing that happened to soone else.
She did not even notice that Alexander had already left ahead of her and had not joined her in the carriage.
She did not notice when she entered the carriage, and she did not notice when it arrived at the residence.
It was only when the carriage door opened and Mrs. Woods’ voice gently called her that she blinked, as if waking from a daze.
The older woman reached for her imdiately, concern evident in her eyes as she guided her out carefully.
"Lady Amara... watch your step."
Amara obeyed without question, her movents slow, chanical. Her gaze remained unfocused, her mind still trapped sowhere between anger and heartbreak.
Mrs. Woods did not ask anything. She simply held her arm and led her inside, her expression soft with pity.
—
On the other side of the residence, Alexander sat calmly in his living area, his posture relaxed against the sofa as though the events of the night had left no mark on him. Yet his mind was anything but still.
The encounter with Lila replayed itself over and over again, her words, her tone, her intentions. Each detail lingered, refusing to fade, weaving into thoughts he did not particularly care to entertain.
And yet, they stayed.
His thoughts drifted, uninvited, to Amara. To the revelation that she had a past lover. To the implication that she had not fully moved on from him.
Then, a faint scoff escaped his lips as if it did not matter. As if none of it concerned him in the slightest.
He shifted slightly against the sofa, his expression hardening as he muttered under his breath, "Gullible."
The word sat heavily with disdain.
"I knew she was naive," he continued quietly, almost to himself, "but I didn’t think she was this foolish."
His gaze darkened slightly. "To choose soone like that... a man who would turn around and involve himself with her own sister the mont she was gone."
There was sothing distasteful about it. Sothing that did not sit right.
His thoughts shifted again, this ti toward the dynamic between the two sisters, and a faint frown ford on his face.
"How does that even work..." he murmured.
A sister plotting against her own blood—It felt... off, even unnatural.
Just then, a soft knock sounded before Jasper entered, carrying a tray with a bowl of dicine. He approached quietly and placed it on the table in front of Alexander.
Alexander’s gaze flickered to it briefly, but his thoughts were still elsewhere. Without looking at Jasper, he spoke.
"Is it possible for soone to sche against their own sibling?" he asked calmly.
Jasper paused for a mont, then replied, "If Your Highness is referring to Lord Zarek, then—"
Alexander’s eyes flicked to him instantly, sharp and unimpressed as if to ask, ’Is there sothing wrong with you?’
Jasper stopped mid-sentence, seeing that he had got the situation wrong.
"I ant full-blood siblings. Sa father. Sa mother," Alexandr explained flatly.
Jasper straightened slightly, understanding now. "My apologies, Your Highness," he said quickly. "In that case... yes. It is possible. Rare, but not unheard of. There is nothing new under the sun."
Alexander held his gaze for a mont, then nodded faintly.
He reached for the bowl of dicine without another word and drank it down in one go, his expression unchanged as he set the empty bowl aside.
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