The Royal Wedding Banquet was the quietest meal in the history of the Arindale Empire.
There were three hundred guests in the Grand Hall, a twelve-course feast laid out on solid gold platters, and a string quartet playing a celebratory concerto. But the atmosphere was indistinguishable from a military tribunal.
The Emperor sat at the head of the high table, staring at his roasted venison with a look of murderous, apoplectic rage. He hadn't spoken a word since he was forced to seal the union in the Sun Pavilion.
Kaia sat to the Emperor's right, wearing her spun-silver gown and the heavy, undeniable weight of the platinum Sun-Ring on her left hand.
And sitting beside her, entirely unbothered by the suffocating tension in the room, was Crown Prince Aeron.
He was not wearing his white silk gloves.
