Sophie

Sophie Virelyn yanked the veil from her head with enough force to tear the silk and probably chunks of her golden blonde hair. It bunched across the dressing table, threads shimmering with broken glyphwork—each strand meant to symbolize poise, devotion, the ceremonial restraint of the Empire’s highest-born daughter, and the one most likely to inherit the throne, despite her strong desire to have it otherwise. It was beautiful and symbolic and grand, but tonight, it felt like a noose woven from performance.

Her mana flared. The room’s light-glyphs pulsed in response, stuttering before settling. The air thickened around her shoulders, heavy with pressure she did not regulate.

“Careful, Your Highness,” said a low voice behind her.

Madam Thalia Verenne moved with measured grace toward the perimeter of the room. Dressed in her usual storm-gray robes with the silver sash of the Inner Tutors Guild, she raised one hand and began drawing stabilizing sigils through the air with two fingers—swift, clean arcs of mana meant to bring balance. Not calming, just reestablishing some control.

Sophie ignored her.

Elizabeth, her handmaiden and best friend, hovered just outside the danger radius, hands clasped, eyes amused.

The Imperial Princess of the Empire was incandescent with fury.

“I planned it perfectly,” Sophie hissed to no one in particular. “I watched him all night. I waited for the exact moment.”

It wasn’t like she was trying to seduce him. This wasn’t flirtation. Not some courtly whisper on a balcony or a shared drink offered behind a pillar of silk.

This was strategy to accomplish the greater good! Sure, it was calculated, but it was necessary. Ethan Zhou was important to the future. Her Insight told her as much. On the surface, he was instability wrapped in symmetry. A fixed point in the wrong probability space. A disruption.

But her Insight told her he was the future; for there to be a future, he was the key.

He didn’t just represent change. He represented survival, and it was a fact she had known since she first saw him at the Imperial Academy in her Marin disguise.

Over the last few weeks, she had come up with a plan. She was going to charm him with her speech and presence. Get him to accept a private meeting. Explain to him that he needed to come to her for him to succeed in basically saving the world.

And then she would offer him literally anything he wanted. Money? He would have it. Fame? She could deliver that too. Women? Of course, that was easy. She would even include herself in that mix if he would just come to her side.

Her face flushed at the thought.

That conversation had been crafted word by word.

And then—

Shen Minhua appeared. Why? Because nothing in his world seemed to be easy.

The Peacock Sect’s jewel. The mana-tech obsessed fanatic wrapped in the body of a goddess with the tongue of a merchant lord. They were old acquaintances, but Sophie hadn’t truly spoken to her since they were ten. Their education paths had diverged fast—Minhua had chosen invention and public acclaim; Sophie had gone inward, toward mana and deep theory.

They had not fought.

But they had kept track of each other.

Minhua’s name floated across symposium results. Patent lists. Cultivation theory circles. The two of them had never stopped orbiting. They just moved to different levels of the palace sky.

Actually, it was the same with the other Four Beauties of the Empire. They had all been in the same circle once.

Sophie largely ignored them. Until her Insight told her to go to the Imperial Academy. Until her Insight told her bad things were coming. Until her Insight told her that Ethan Zhou was the answer.

She had planned it all; it was going perfectly until Minhua spit all over it.

Minhua had timed her approach even better than she did, the sneaky little fox. She complimented Ethan. Smiled. Then reached forward and touched his sleeve.

The gesture wasn’t intimate. But it was territorial.

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“She touched him,” Sophie muttered aloud, staring into the wall mirror. “Like he was hers to touch.”

Minhua said nothing. Sophie didn’t expect her to. It wasn’t betrayal. They had no friendship left to betray. But it was a move, and it landed with surgical precision. A silent, preemptive strike between two women who knew the game far too well.

She might have recovered.

She could have reclaimed the moment. Sophie was still a princess, and the other had to acquiesce to her somewhat. She could have pulled the moment out. She would have; Ethan was about to accept her invitation, she could tell. Except Dathan—her dumbass, stupid-faced idiot of a fiancé—couldn’t resist the theater.

His voice had carried over the music, full of male outrage and wounded pride. His glove had flown through the air like a challenge sent from a child’s hand.

And just like that, Sophie’s entire maneuver collapsed.

She had been steps from Ethan. Seconds away from getting him on the dance floor where her beauty and charm were bound to captivate him. Dathan’s challenge froze the room, changed the tone, destroyed the possibility of private approach and meeting. And all of it happened in front of everyone.

Her hands curled into fists.

She had almost drawn her blade. Just enough to slice a seam into Dathan’s outer robe. A reminder that she was the one he was embarrassing, not Ethan.

Not because she cared for Ethan. But because Dathan had made her look weak. And Sophie Virelyn did not tolerate weakness. She might have forgiven Dathan, eventually. She might even have forgiven Shen for trying to step out of place. But then her mother stepped down.

The Empress.

Sophie watched the recording again—frame by frame, light by light—as the most powerful woman in the Empire approached Ethan Zhou.

She did not rebuke him. She did not scold Dathan. She touched Ethan’s cheek. Two fingers. A mark. A gesture that had ended noble houses in the past and elevated bloodlines to legend.

“She kissed him,” Sophie said.

Elizabeth flinched slightly at the tone.

Thalia, too polished to pause, corrected softly. “On the cheek.”

Sophie didn’t look at her.

“It still counts.”

That was her moment. Her mark. Her plan. Her Insight. And now, everyone would think Ethan had been noticed by the Empress first. That any attention Sophie gave would be reaction, not intention.

Her mother had stolen the act and turned it into imperial theater. Sophie’s chest tightened. Was it heartbreak? No… she didn't have those types of emotions. Humiliation? Maybe?

She paced again. Three steps. Turn. Three more. Turn.

Thalia watched from a distance, still quietly restoring the pressure in the room to tolerable levels.

Elizabeth finally spoke. “He’ll still listen to you.”

Sophie stopped mid-step. Her voice came low. Quiet. Clipped. “I’m not sure he should.”

Elizabeth looked up, alarmed. “What—”

“I hesitated. I let them get to him first. Shen, Dathan, my mother. And now I’m just one more voice shouting over the noise.”

She turned toward the far window. The view showed the city beyond the palace: soft lights scattered like memories.

Her arms folded tightly across her chest.

“And he’s not noise.”

She didn’t cry.

Princess Sophie Virelyn didn’t cry.

But she did feel something crack—just enough to let the truth show through.

She had tried to protect the future. And instead, she had lost the present. Sophie remained at the window long after her tutor and handmaid had fallen silent. The gala might have ended, but the echoes of it still traced through her blood—raw and unresolved.

But under the lingering sting of frustration, something else had taken root.

She replayed Ethan’s words in her mind. “He insulted my wife. And the Princess.”

And Sophie still didn’t know what to make of that moment. She had spent her life surrounded by words—weighted ones, gilded ones, sharpened like blades—but this? This was something else. Something she couldn’t parse, not fully.

She didn’t understand—was it obligation? Or ceremony? Had he meant to include her?

Had he even been thinking of her? That was insane, right? He didn't even know her.

Hell, she really didn't know him.

Was his acting simply an extension of defending House Li? Or had he looked at the insult and known, without needing to weigh it, that it had struck her too?

And if he had… what did that mean? Somewhere beneath that unreadable calm and perfectly measured restraint, he had recognized the insult for what it was—and he had named it, publicly, with no benefit to himself.

That unsettled her more than she liked because she didn’t know what he was thinking. Again, Ethan didn't know her.

Perhaps she was overthinking, that underneath quiet restraint and methodical calm, he had recognized the disrespect for what it was.

Sophie had not asked to be defended. But being seen… that was different.

That was dangerous. And possibly—useful.

She turned from the window, voice sharp and clear. “Elizabeth.”

Her attendant straightened. “Yes, Highness?”

“Find the Zhou twins. Emily and Elise.”

Elizabeth blinked. “You mean you're going to include them? Is that a good idea? This could get dangerous?”

“Yes, we are. Since we are going to have to alter the plan and we should push up the timeline,” Sophie said. “I was planning to recruit Ethan—”

“Seduce,” Elizabeth said. “Words are important, Highness—”

“I never said anything about seducing him. Don't be crass.”

Thalia and Elizabeth exchanged looks. Elizabeth spoke very carefully, like how a teacher would talk to a toddler. “Right. You don't have any interest in the handsome, brilliant, visionary scholar. My mistake.”

Sophie glared at her. “Just get me the twins and the Lin girl. Marissa. Quietly. I want to meet them within 24 hours.”

Elizabeth sighed. “What should I tell them?”

“Nothing yet,” Sophie said, already crossing to her inner wardrobe. “We will have to wing this one a bit. Pack up. We are heading out.”

She knelt, pulled out the travel pack folded behind a false panel. Dustless. Untouched. But packed.

Elizabeth swallowed. “May I ask where?”

Sophie straightened, brushing a strand of ice-blonde hair from her brow. “Wherever the future needs us to be.”

She looked back once at the shattered reflection of the ballroom in the now-dormant scry stone. “We have work to do.”

Just then, another lady-in-waiting, Anna, entered the room. "Your Highness," she said with a bow.

Sophie gave her a nod while Elizabeth looked on. "Go ahead."

Anna curtsied. "It's happening. Planned for first thing tomorrow morning."

Sophie grinned. "Good."