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The private box juts out over the stage, elevated just enough to look down on the crowd but close enough to make a statement.
We see everything. We are not hidden.
The usher—a woman with eyes like glass and a spine too straight to be human—opens the curtain with a reverent nod. “The Council thanks you for your attendance.”
Riven doesn’t acknowledge her.
Ambrose gives her a glance so cutting she lowers her gaze without a word.
Silas salutes her with two fingers like he’s the lead in a tragic comedy and she’s an extra who got lucky with a line.
Elias? Elias looks at me. Then immediately looks away like I’ve caught him doing something unspeakable.
“Nice box,” he says, voice pitching just high enough to be suggestive. “Private. Velvet. Intimate. You could do a lot in a box like this.”
“Don’t,” I mutter, stepping past him.
“I’m just saying—if they wanted to keep it professional, maybe skip the silk drapes and mirrored ceiling?”
“There isnomirrored ceiling,” Silas says, peeking upward. “Missed opportunity.”
Riven’s already inside. Standing, not sitting. Always ready. Alwayswatching.
I slip into the farthest seat, the one closest to the railing. My palms press against the carved wood edge, and I breathe in slowly. The theater below hums with magic. Power laced into the velvet curtains, into the candlelight that doesn’t flicker with flame but with pulse.
Every seat is full. Every being down there is waiting.
Not for the play.
Forme.
Forus.
We’re not the audience. We’re the spectacle.
And I feel it—that slow, creeping certainty that whatever this night becomes, it won’t end the way it started.
I look out over the theater.
And the theater looks back.
The door opens behind us with that whispery elegance that only comes with old magic. It doesn’t creak. It doesn’t groan. It sighs—like itknowsit’s letting in a storm.
Keira. And beside her, like a shadow cast in gold and frost, is Lorian.
My spine locks.
I keep my eyes on the stage, but every cell in my body shifts into high alert. Like it remembers the way her voice lingered in the room before I’d even met her. Like it knows she’s the kind of beautiful that cutson purpose.
She moves through the doorway like a queen who never abdicated. Her hair twisted back with thorns made of gold. A deep emerald gown that doesn’t just shimmer—it commands attention. And she walks in heels like they were forged for war.
Every detail on her is meticulous. Effortless. And cold enough to sear. The kind of woman people orbit. The kind men regret long after they’re done pretending they don’t.
And she’s the one who broke Ambrose. Shattered something ancient and intimate inside him and walked away like it was nothing more than a political maneuver.
I don’t know the full story. I don’tneedto. Because whatever she did, I felt the aftermath of it. I saw it in the way Ambrose looked after. Like I was a gamble he couldn’t afford to lose. Like he was already mourning what hadn’t even happened yet.
And now she’s here.