Isabella's POV
The court applauded as the final petition was dismissed for the day, but I could feel the tension thickening, coiling like smoke around the throne.
Every compliment, every bow, every polished word had been a weapon in disguise.
I had survived them all.
But surviving wasn't winning.
Not yet.
As the room emptied, Dominic remained seated, arms folded, gaze fixed ahead like a statue carved from vengeance. He hadn't spoken once during the assembly not to me, not to them.
But I knew he was listening.
Calculating.
And now, I was the variable he hadn't accounted for.
"You handled Carrow well," he said once the doors closed behind the last noble.
"Handled?" I turned to him. "I humiliated him."
A flicker of amusement passed through his eyes. "That's what worries me."
I stood, shaking the stiffness from my legs. "If I bow every time someone tests me, I'll be kneeling until I'm buried."
"And if you challenge every insult, you'll start a war before you can survive one."
"I thought you said I needed to learn the court."
"I said I'd keep you alive," he corrected, finally rising. "Learning is optional. Breathing is not."
I almost laughed but it wasn't funny.
Not when he was right.
And not when the silence between us carried so much unsaid danger.
He turned to leave, then paused. "You've made enemies."
"Good," I said. "I want them to reveal themselves."
He didn't look back. "They will. But not in the daylight."
I was left alone once again in a hall lined with gold, but none of it warmed me. I could feel the eyes watching through hidden panels. Hear the fabric shift behind the columns.
This palace had ears.
But it also had ghosts.
That night, as I prepared for bed, a whisper slid beneath the crack of my chamber door.
Not a letter.
Not a threat.
A whisper.
Isabella.
I froze.
My guards were stationed outside. Dominic was nowhere near. And yet the voice that spoke my name sounded so close so familiar I felt it in my bones.
I rushed to the door.
Nothing.
Just darkness.
But on the floor, laid where a shadow had just been, was a small white flower.
A withering lily.
The symbol of mourning.
A warning.
Or a promise.