Silk & Sabotage

Part Six: Day +3

"Embers and Eyes That Don't Look Away ".

By the third morning after the wedding, Sonhane had fallen into a gentle silence. The music that once danced through its marbled halls now lingered only in echoes. The feverish joy had cooled, like coals still glowing but no longer aflame. Courtyards breathed slower, banners fluttered lazily in the breeze, and even the servants moved with a hush — as if the palace itself knew something delicate had begun to fracture.

Mia stood at the tall windows of the south gallery, her silhouette a sharp contrast to the soft golden light that bathed the city below. Her gown, a slip of cream silk, draped her like it had been painted on — whispering against her skin when she breathed. Her hair was loose, tumbling in dark waves, untouched by pins or jewels. No crown. No veil. No pretense. Just the rawness of a woman too sharp to be soft, too burdened to sleep, and too alive to feel peace.

She looked out across the land she had vowed to protect and found no comfort in its beauty. The ceremony was behind her. The roles had been performed. But something inside her refused to still. It stirred, coiled, pressed against her ribs like a secret trying to claw free.

The soft knock came just as sunlight kissed her shoulder.

"Come," she said, not turning.

Lucas entered without ceremony. No medals, no regalia — just a plain black tunic and trousers, sleeves pushed to his elbows, the damp ends of his hair curling from a recent bath. He looked stripped down, as if this room, this morning, asked for something more human than kingly.

"I didn't expect you to be up," he said softly.

"I didn't sleep," she murmured.

He came to stand beside her. No touch. No comment. Just his quiet, commanding presence beside hers, reflected faintly in the glass — the war bride and her warrior husband.

When she turned to him, it wasn't rehearsed. Her hand rose of its own accord, fingertips brushing the sharp line of his jaw. The rasp of stubble against her skin was real. Grounding. Her gaze flicked to his — unreadable, unflinching.

"You've barely touched me since the wedding," she said, barely more than a whisper.

Lucas didn't smile. "I didn't want to force what hadn't chosen me."

"And now?"

His chest brushed hers as he stepped closer, the heat between them thick with something unsaid. One hand reached up, gentle but assured, fingers sweeping a lock of hair from her cheek before settling — warm and heavy — at the nape of her neck.

"Now I don't think I'd survive not touching you."

Her breath faltered. Her lips parted. There was a question hanging between them, neither spoken nor denied — what are we becoming? But neither asked.

He didn't kiss her mouth. Not yet. His forehead pressed gently to hers, his breath brushing her lips. His thumb traced the line of her jaw. There was hunger, yes — but beneath it, something tentative. Unnamed.

When his lips finally grazed her neck — slow, deliberate — her knees weakened. It wasn't possession. It wasn't dominance. It was... discovery. As if each kiss mapped a place even he hadn't expected to want to know.

She gripped his shirt, not to pull him in, but to steady herself. The air had turned thick, electric, trembling with all the things they weren't ready to say.

And that's when she stepped back. Her breath shallow. Her voice barely a thread.

"I need air."

Lucas didn't protest. He didn't follow. But he watched her walk away like he had just learned how dangerous she truly was — and how much he didn't want to lose her.

The palace was quieter now, most guests gone, most guards posted elsewhere. Mia walked the inner colonnade barefoot, her heels swinging lazily from one hand. The marble floor cooled her feet, but not the heat in her veins. Her gown clung to her every step, the silk shifting like water over skin.

She moved as if untethered, but she felt the pull before she saw him.

The air changed. That unmistakable weight — not footsteps, not sound. A presence. A shadow that didn't belong.

She paused — spine straightening, breath catching.

"Mino," she said, without turning.

He stood in the archway like a man who had never left — dressed in diplomat-black, collar open, hair tousled as if he hadn't slept either. His eyes, those maddening green-flecked lies, drank her in with a kind of restraint that felt more dangerous than lust.

"You missed your window," she said coldly.

"I never had one," he replied.

When she turned to face him, there was fire in her gaze. "What do you want?"

He stepped forward, slow. "To see what he's done to you."

She arched an eyebrow. "You mean what I've become without you?"

"No," he said, eyes narrowing. "I mean what you've buried because of him."

She didn't blink. "You walked away. You vanished."

"I did what I was ordered to do."

"And I did what I had to."

Silence stretched between them. The kind that cuts deeper than noise.

Then he moved — just a step. Just enough.

He didn't touch her. But his breath reached her shoulder. "You wore cream," he murmured. "You used to wear crimson."

She swallowed. "Things change."

"No," he said. "You just cover them better now."

She didn't answer. She couldn't.

When his lips pressed lightly — once — against her shoulder, she didn't move. But something inside her did. A shift. A stir.

He pulled back without a word. And then, like smoke, he disappeared again.

That evening, during the final banquet, Mia sat between ceremony and chaos. Lucas on her right — composed, unreadable. Three seats to her left, Mino — quiet, still, but burning.

The air was taut with something unspeakable. Not jealousy. Not rivalry. Something more primal — the ache of unfinished wars.

Lucas passed her a goblet of wine, his fingers brushing hers — but his gaze lingered a second too long. Observing. Not accusing. Just… watching.

Mino raised his own glass, eyes locked on her for a beat that should've been nothing — but wasn't.

Mia laughed at a diplomat's joke, smiled at a baron's toast. But her body language betrayed her. Her fingers tapped once. Her eyes flicked back and forth, never landing too long.

Something haunted her.

Someone.

Irina, watching from the upper gallery, caught it all.

And in the flicker of her eyes, the fire of a new game was already beginning to burn.