The cold air hit Iris like a baptism.
Sharp. Honest. Unforgiving.
She stood on the grand balcony, marble beneath her heels, the velvet of the gala melting away behind her. The stars above blinked in quiet indifference. The moon spilled itself across the stone railing, casting her in a light far too gentle for the storm in her chest.
She didn't cry.
She didn't dare.
Instead, she exhaled — shaky, uneven. Like letting go of a secret no one had asked her to keep.
The air smelled of roses, salt, and ash. Everything beautiful and everything broken.
Her hands gripped the railing like she needed something to keep her tethered.
"It wasn't just the dance," she whispered to the wind. "It was the way he looked at me. Like I was his beginning. And that's terrifying."
Her phone buzzed in her clutch.
Isabella, no doubt.
She didn't answer.
Instead, her eyes flicked to the sky, searching for answers in constellations that had seen too much.
Back inside, the music had changed again — grand, orchestral, faceless. But Aldrin didn't hear any of it.
He stood alone at the edge of the dance floor, the fire of their dance still in his blood, but her absence loud in his bones.
Marek and Ainsworth watched him from across the room, their banter silenced now by the look in his eyes.
He had returned to himself — the Chairman, the untouchable man in black — but something in him had shifted. The cool command had cracked at the edges.
He could still feel her hand in his. Still see her mouth parting as if to say something she couldn't.
He turned toward the balcony instinctively.
Not to follow.
Just to know she was still near.
But the emptiness there made his jaw tense.
"Go after her," Marek said, voice low, measured now.
"And say what?" Aldrin replied, his tone hollow.
"The truth. Or whatever's left of it."
Ainsworth sipped his drink, eyes narrowing slightly.
"You may be able to command empires, Aldrin. But if you don't fight for this… it'll haunt you more than any war ever could."
Aldrin didn't respond. He simply nodded once, barely visible, and walked — not quickly, not slowly — out of the ballroom.
Iris didn't hear him approach.
She only noticed when the shadows behind her changed.
"Looking for constellations to tell you what your heart already knows?"
His voice was velvet soaked in dusk.
Warm, but cautious.
She turned, only halfway, her hands still on the railing.
"No. I was hoping for silence. But the stars seem to like company tonight."
He stepped closer, leaving enough space not to cage her, but enough to say he wasn't going anywhere.
"You disappeared," he said simply.
She looked at him now — really looked.
The black suit, still impeccable.
But his eyes... those weren't the Chairman's.
Those were the eyes of the man who held her like she was something more than a chapter in his story.
"I had to." Her voice cracked slightly. "I didn't want to say something I'd regret."
Aldrin tilted his head slightly.
"And now?"
She smiled, bitter and soft.
"Now I want to say everything. But I don't know if it's the fire… or the smoke talking."
He stepped beside her, shoulder brushing just near hers.
"Then let's stay quiet a little longer," he murmured. "We'll wait until the smoke clears."
They stood in silence.
Not awkward. Not unsure.
Just together.
Two souls tethered by moments too fragile to name.
Two storms quietly hoping the other wouldn't pass.
And inside, under the chandeliers and music, the night spun on.
But out here, beneath the stars, a truth was blooming — wordless, waiting, and far too real to ignore.
From her place just inside the ballroom's gilded archway, Princess Rayna of Elhira stood still — too still.
Her navy gown shimmered with each breath, like the midnight sea before a storm. It clung to her form with deliberate elegance, tailored to perfection, meant to draw every gaze. But none of those gazes mattered anymore. Not the diplomats'. Not the collectors'.
Only his.
Through the thick glass doors leading to the balcony, she saw him. Aldrin. Standing too close to Iris.
There was nothing flamboyant in his posture. No grand gesture. But there was intimacy in the stillness between them — the way their conversation slowed time, the way her presence softened his. That kind of stillness didn't belong to men who were entertaining other women.
That was the stillness of a man who'd already chosen.
Rayna's fingers curled subtly at her side, her painted nails biting into her palm.
A small motion — invisible to most — and two members of her security detail began to move toward the doors. Their orders needed no words. This wasn't jealousy. This was protection. This was preservation. Whatever was happening out there… it couldn't be allowed to deepen.
But they didn't get far.
"Don't," said a voice, smooth as smoke and twice as commanding.
The guards froze.
Isabella stepped into their path.
She wore a black dress — sleek, velvet-dark, with a slit that promised elegance and danger in equal measure. Her hair was pinned back in a crown of coiled braids, a nod to tradition but styled like war. Her expression was unreadable — calm, almost kind, but resolute.
The kind of calm found in storms that know exactly when to strike.
Rayna's eyes narrowed. Her lips moved as if to speak, but the voice of Marek interrupted, carrying from her left.
"Eight guards?" he said, tipping his head toward the princess with the smile of a man who was already bored. "Now I'm offended. We only brought charm."
"And whiskey," Ainsworth chimed in, appearing on her right. "Heavily armed with both."
They flanked Isabella with effortless unity — two shadows dressed in tailored tuxedos, more wolfish than knightly, and far less diplomatic.
Rayna lifted her chin, but her smile never reached her eyes.
"Surely," she said, "a woman is allowed to protect what interests her."
"Absolutely," Isabella replied, folding her hands in front of her. "But protection implies something fragile. Aldrin is anything but."
The implication hovered between them — silent but biting.
Rayna's guards shifted, unsure.
"Step aside," Isabella said again, quieter now. "This isn't about you. But it will become about you if you insist on testing the waters Aldrin swam through to get here."
"Poetic," Marek murmured.
"I was going to say biblical," Ainsworth countered.
Rayna's smile twitched, faltered. She exhaled slowly, reigning herself in.
"You misread me. I only meant to share one last moment."
Isabella stepped forward, black gown whispering around her heels like shadows made silk.
"Then let this be your moment: your night is done. If you have any grace left, you'll walk out with it."
The room felt like it leaned in. Waited.
Rayna hesitated — a second too long.
"Because eight guards won't be enough," Marek added, voice low now. "Not here. Not with what he's earned. You think you're trying to stop something—"
"But it's already happened," Isabella finished.
And it had.
You could feel it in the bones of the night.
Rayna stared for one long breath, but her posture shifted. Not surrender — never that. But the recognition of a fight she could not win, not here. Not now.
She turned, not sparing another glance toward the balcony, and swept through the ballroom with the silence of falling royalty. Her guards followed, invisible again.
Behind her, Isabella exhaled.
"She'll try again," Ainsworth said, sipping his drink.
"Let her," Marek replied, eyes flicking toward the balcony. "He's not looking back."
They turned their gaze toward the night, to where Iris stood like the still point of a spinning world, laughter soft on her lips, eyes cast low. Aldrin stood beside her like gravity wrapped in skin.
"That man," Marek murmured, "was built for war."
"And now," Ainsworth added, raising his glass, "he's learning how to surrender."
Isabella watched them with a quiet smile — the kind only prophets wear. The kind that knows what comes next.