[color=lightgray][center][img]https://i.ibb.co/gMrQxwfn/Chat-GPT-Image-Feb-8-2026-08-49-16-AM.png[/img] [img]https://i.ibb.co/V0PfMhsf/8531-FC85-1297-4-C7-A-9-B65-C29409-E6-F295.webp[/img] [sub][color=DDB775]Interaction:[/color][@FunnyGuy] Lorenzo [@samreaper] Kazumin [@Potter] Olivia [@Oso] Cassius[/sub] [img]https://i.imgur.com/sPIxd99.png[/img][/center] For a moment, King Edin said nothing. [color=salmon][sub]"[i]Wife killed for all to see... ...For your children to see. Forever miserable... ...Love forever far from your grasp. [/i]"[/sub][/color] The words should not have mattered from Lorenzo Vikena. They should have been absurd coming from a man who could barely enter a ballroom without embarrassing himself. Yet many had heard them, and worse, some part of the room had believed them. Edin could see it in the stillness near the dais, in the widened eyes, in the mouths that had gone tight around swallowed words. They were not only shocked by Lorenzo’s disrespect. They were shocked by the possibility that the fool had spoken something true. Then Charlotte reached him. Barefoot and clutching her dress in both hands, she crossed the room without any care for the eyes upon her and embraced her stepfather. The sight landed exactly as Edin knew it would. Sympathy crossed some faces. The girl clung to Lorenzo as though he had saved her from something, as though the king himself had become the danger standing before them. It irritated Edin more than it should have, not because he cared for their little family scene, but because he knew how easily such images could become stories. Then his eyes moved to Cassius Vael. The bastard son stood near Charlotte with open violence in his gaze. Edin saw the way he positioned himself, close enough to defend her, close enough to make a statement without yet daring to say one. A few weeks in Sorian and a pretty girl’s favor had apparently made him bold enough to glare at a king in his own hall. Then came the woman with strawberry-blonde hair, someone Edin could not recall ever seeing before, which only made the boldness of her approach more insulting. She was worse in her own way. Not important enough to recognize, not titled enough to matter, and yet there she stood with rage written plainly across her face. Edin regarded her with cold disdain as her eyes burned with the kind of hatred that belonged to those who forgot how easily hatred could be punished. Then Kazumin moved to her. That annoyed Edin most of all. He went to the girl, pulling her into his arms. So that was who she was. Still, even Kazumin had chosen to protect someone from Edin rather than preserve the dignity of the crown. They all looked at him as though he were the threat. In his own hall. [i]In his castle.[/i] Edin’s expression did not change at once, but he felt something inside him intensify. [i]No. This would not be the story.[/i] Edin finally smiled. [color=DDB775]“Have you forgotten your own words, Duke Vikena?”[/color] The quietness of the question made several people still further. He stepped forward, his eyes only on Lorenzo. His attention settled fully on the duke, forcing the attention of those nearby to follow. [color=DDB775]“You speak boldly for a man who began this indecency himself.”[/color] An indecipherable murmur came from the nearest nobles. Edin heard it and pressed. [color=DDB775]“Do not look at me as though I created what came from your mouth.”[/color] His gaze moved to the cluster of courtiers nearest the dais, the ones close enough to have heard Lorenzo’s earlier counsel before the shouting began. A lord with a pale, nervous face. A woman in green whose hand had tightened around her fan. A court official standing rigidly near the steps. [color=DDB775]“You heard him.”[/color] The lord stiffened. [color=#B3EBC0]“Your Majesty?”[/color] Edin did not look away from Lorenzo. [color=DDB775]“Did Duke Vikena tell me to keep Lady Charlotte as my north star?”[/color] The lord swallowed. [color=#B3EBC0]“Yes, Your Majesty.”[/color] A pause moved through the room. Edin turned his eyes toward the woman in green. [color=DDB775]“Did he warn me of lingering eyes?”[/color] The woman’s face tightened with visible discomfort. She glanced toward Charlotte, then lowered her gaze. [color=#F4A6A6]“He did, Your Majesty... Those were his words, Your Majesty.”[/color] There. His gaze returned to Lorenzo. [color=DDB775]“You placed your daughter in this conversation. Not I.”[/color] Then he leaned in ever so slightly, lowering his voice just enough to make the words feel personal. [color=DDB775]“I gave your words the courtesy of a question instead of the punishment they deserved.”[/color] Charlotte remained wrapped around Lorenzo, and Edin allowed himself one deliberate look at her. Her tears had done their work too well. That needed to be turned as well. [color=DDB775]“Look at her.”[/color] His voice lowered, and the softness in it was crueler than anger would have been. [color=DDB775]“Look at what your loose tongue has done.”[/color] Then he looked back at Lorenzo with open contempt. The accusation landed hard enough that a few nearby nobles looked toward Lorenzo again, this time with uncertainty rather than sympathy. Edin continued before the room could recover. [b][i][color=DDB775]“Your words made her the subject. Your rage made her the spectacle.”[/color][/i][/b] His voice boomed so that many nearby could hear it, turning even more heads, though it did not get through the noise of the ballroom to everyone. [b][i][color=DDB775]“I asked whether your counsel had meaning. You answered with slander, hysteria, and a threat you barely had sense enough to swallow!”[/color][/i][/b] [color=DDB775]“You insulted your king. You slandered lawful judgment. You invoked my dead wife before my court.”[/color] He took one more step closer, enough that the guards shifted. [color=DDB775]“If you claim to be her father, then you had best start acting like it.”[/color] Then his attention shifted, his gaze passing over Cassius, Kazumin, Charlotte, and Olivia in turn. [color=DDB775]“And the four of you would do well to remember where you stand before you look upon your king with accusation in your eyes [i]EVER AGAIN[/i].”[/color] The moment might have erupted further. Edin had already caught sight of Calbert Damien moving quickly through the crowd. The count’s expression was restrained, but his haste betrayed him well enough. No doubt he meant to salvage what could be salvaged before Lorenzo dragged his own reputation, and perhaps Cassius’s with it, into deeper ruin. Edin’s eyes narrowed. Before Calbert could reach them, a palace attendant stepped urgently to the front of the gathering and bowed low. [color=white]“Your Majesty,”[/color] he said, [color=white]“the King and Queen of Varian will be entering shortly.”[/color] Edin froze in his position. The Varians could not enter to find a Caesonian duke trembling with rage before the throne, Charlotte Vikena crying, Cassius Vael staring murder at his king, and some unknown girl looking as though she might set the whole palace alight if given enough reason. It angered him that they would leave breathing because of something as simple as optics. This would have to be ended now. Edin’s gaze snapped back to the cluster before him, and when he spoke again, his voice was intimate but sharp enough to cut. [color=DDB775]“You have five seconds to remove yourselves from my sight.”[/color] He lifted two fingers at his side. The gesture was small, but every guard near the dais understood it at once. Hands shifted to hilts. The men nearest Lorenzo and Charlotte did not move in yet, but they readied themselves with the obedience of those waiting for one more command. [i][color=DDB775]“All of you.”[/color][/i] His eyes passed over Lorenzo, Charlotte, Cassius, Olivia, and Kazumin. [b][color=DDB775]“And if you value your lives, you will not make me say it twice.”[/color][/b] [/color]