(Rosaline POV)
The ballroom no longer sounded like a celebration.
Where there had once been music, there was now the soft scrape of boots against marble. Where laughter had risen and fallen in waves, there were murmurs—controlled, restrained, and edged with fear. Chandeliers still burned overhead, their crystal prisms scattering light across the floor, but the brilliance felt hollow now, as if the hall itself understood that something sacred had been broken.
Blood had been cleaned.
Not all of it, of course. Some stains resisted the cloth, faint shadows of crimson caught in the seams of stone. Servants worked quietly, eyes downcast, moving with the efficiency of people who knew better than to ask questions.
I stood near the edge of the hall, Priscilla close behind me, her presence steady and grounding. Arthur had been pulled away briefly—to speak with guards, with physicians, with men who wore authority like armor. I did not resent it.
This was his realm.
