King Alistair stepped closer, concern breaking through formality. “You do not have to decide anything here.”
But I did.
Not everything. Not who I was. Not whether I could become whatever the world would now demand of me.
But I could decide one thing.
I could decide not to leave with Preston.
“I’ll come with you,” I said.
Preston moved fast. He caught my wrist.
The touch was not violent enough to look like violence to anyone who did not know him. But I knew the pressure of his fingers. I knew how he used pain politely.
“Claire,” he murmured. “Think carefully. You walk out with him, and there is no going back.”
The king’s guards shifted.
I looked down at Preston’s hand on my wrist.
“Let go,” I said.
His grip tightened for half a second.
Then King Alistair spoke.
“Remove your hand from my daughter.”
My daughter.
The words rolled through the ballroom like thunder.
Preston released me.
Every camera caught it.
I walked away from my husband beneath the chandeliers, wearing the locket he had mocked, toward a king who looked at me as if I were both miracle and ghost.
Behind me, Preston called my name once.
Not Claire.
Not darling.
“Elara.”
I stopped.
The name did not belong in his mouth.
I turned back, and whatever he saw in my face made him step backward.
“You don’t get to use that,” I said.
