By the time the smoke cleared, silence had returned.
Nobles cowered behind silk veils and shattered glass.
The velvet curtains smoldered at the edges.
Ash floated like lazy snowfall.
And Seraphina von Ashgrave stood untouched.
Perfect.
Her dark garnet gown clung to her hips like spilled wine. A tear along one shoulder revealed skin dusted in embers, not blood.
She reached for her wineglass.
A fluffy, silver-furred cat with one golden eye leapt delicately into her lap, tail curling and let out a soft meow .
Seraphina sipped her wine.
"That's all they prepared. I expected better?" she indifferently commented.
---
Thorne stood beside her now. Still, massive, his dark skin streaked with soot, his braided hair tied back with military precision. Blood dried at his knuckles.
His amber eyes—strange, rich, almost otherworldly—remained fixed on the striking woman in her silver throne.
And in the center of the ballroom floor, the assassin's head lay exactly where he'd dropped it—
like a reminder. Like punctuation.
---
Rhys returned from the perimeter.
Hair damp with sweat, sword still drawn.
His steel-gray eyes scanned the room once, then landed on her.
His expression?
Tight. Controlled.
But his shoulders were locked like he was still braced to fight whoever so much as looked at her sideways.
He stopped exactly three steps from her left side—always her left—and bowed.
"The remaining rats are dealt with, my lady."
He didn't glance at Thorne.
He didn't have to.
He knew Thorne was now officially part of her shadow.
And it was driving him mad.
---
Caspian arrived last.
His long, honey-brown curls had come half undone during the chaos.
One sleeve was missing.
There was a small smear of blood across his jaw—someone else's, probably.
His golden eyes glinted as he approached, smiling like the whole thing had been staged for him personally.
He knelt—less like a knight, more like a lover in a play—and took Seraphina's hand, brushing it with a kiss.
"Am I still pretty, master?"
A black cat with two different-colored eyes (one blue, one pink—yes, pink) jumped onto his shoulder and began aggressively grooming his hair.
He didn't flinch.
He just winked at it.
---
The nobles were watching now.
Some from behind their guards.
Some through fans and masks.
All of them thinking the same thing:
She's still standing.
And she didn't flinch.
They didn't know what to do with that.
In their mind, Seraphina should have cried.
Begged. Run.
Instead, she had three men at her side—
each dangerous, beautiful, loyal in a way no one could understand.
And the cats.
There were so many cats. Probably awakened in the choas.
Dozens of them.
Perched on balconies. Curling under chairs. Staring from shadows.
Watching.
Waiting.
Like priests attending a goddess.
---
Lucien finally stepped forward, clothes spotless, expression flat.
He adjusted his spectacles with one gloved hand.
"Shall I send the clean-up crew?"
Seraphina stroked the cat in her lap, a sleek orange tabby with a notched ear and an attitude.
"No. Leave the blood.
Let them remember."
The orange cat purred louder. Caspian's cat yowled approval.
Thorne didn't speak.
Rhys didn't blink.
Caspian blew a kiss at a passing server and took another wine glass.
---
Seraphina rose slowly.
The cats parted for her.
And the room?
It didn't fall silent.
It held its breath.