Chapter : 1287

The woman in his arms, Monalisa Belphagor, was a deadly work of art. Her dress was the color of a midnight sky, her skin was the color of pale moonlight, and her smile was a beautiful, sharp-edged promise of destruction. She moved with a smooth grace that was not just learned, but was like a predator's. Amina, a woman who spent her whole life reading people, could read nothing from her. She only felt a deep, chilling sense of difference. The woman was like an empty space walking, a beautiful puzzle that gave away no secrets. Her presence made all of Amina’s sharp instincts scream.

And Lloyd, her Lloyd, the man who was her partner, her equal, her… problem, was holding this empty space in his arms.

A sharp, new feeling, cold and possessive, tightened in her chest. It was an emotion that didn't make sense. She had no right to him, not yet. Their relationship was a partnership of minds and shared goals. But seeing him with another woman, a woman who moved with the same quiet, dangerous confidence she had, felt wrong. It felt like watching a rival queen make a move on the most important piece on her board.

A few feet away, hidden by the green leaves of a tall flower display, Lady Faria Kruts felt the same cold fire start in her soul. But her fire was much more explosive and bright. Her fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass, and her knuckles turned white. The fragile crystal made a soft sound under the pressure, as if it was about to break.

Her stare was a real force, like a spear of pure, focused anger aimed at the dancing couple. She had just arrived, her heart beating fast with nervous excitement at the thought of seeing him again. On her way there, she had practiced clever things to say. She imagined the look of surprise and happiness on his face when he saw her. Instead, she had walked in to see this.

This… performance.

Monalisa was everything Faria was not. Faria was a storm of bright color and strong emotion. This woman was a whisper of shadow and cold, planned grace. And Lloyd, the man whose mind had connected with hers in a glorious meeting of art and logic, the man who had seen her as more than just a Marquess’s daughter, was moving with her in perfect, easy harmony. The sight was painful. It was a betrayal. It was an insult to the memory of the things they had created together, the quiet closeness of their late-night meals, and the unspoken feeling that had grown between them.

The jealousy was a real, physical feeling, like a snake twisting in her stomach. She wanted to march onto that dance floor, to break the perfect, elegant picture they made, and to take back what she now felt, with a terrifying and exciting certainty, was hers.

Across the huge, polished floor, in a quiet, shadowy corner, a different kind of storm was forming. Rosa Siddik stood alone. She was like a single, magnificent statue of winter in a room full of summer warmth. Her dress was the color of a frozen lake at midnight. Her silver hair seemed to absorb the light, shining with a ghostly, otherworldly glow.

She had watched him come in. She had felt the familiar, frustrating pull, the pull toward him that was like the new, chaotic north on her internal compass. She had spent the whole evening building up the courage to walk across the floor, to say the first, impossible word. She had been watching him, studying his movements, waiting for the perfect moment to start the hardest conversation of her life.

And then, she had seen the woman in black.

As Lloyd took Monalisa’s hand, something inside Rosa began to stir. It was a deep and ancient power she had only recently started to understand. It was not a choice she made. It was a basic, protective response. The air around her grew noticeably colder. A thin, beautiful layer of frost began to creep up the side of her wine glass. A man who walked too close shivered, pulled his cloak tighter, and complained about a sudden draft.

Chapter : 1288

Her stare was not fiery like Faria’s or analytical like Amina’s. It was the stare of a glacier. It was the slow, unstoppable, and final judgment of a winter queen who had just watched a rival step onto her land. The emotion was like a strange, painful poison. It was a feeling she had given up a lifetime ago and had only just started to get back. It was a terrible, beautiful, and intensely painful thing. And as she watched her husband, the man who had walked through hell for her, hold another woman, she knew that if he did not come back to her, she would turn the entire world to ice.

In the background of all this, two quieter heartbreaks were happening. Airin was standing near a service door with a tray of empty glasses. She felt a familiar, gentle ache. The man who had been her protector, her quiet hero, looked so comfortable in this world of gods and monsters. Seeing him dance with such a magnificent, terrifying woman just reminded her of the impossible distance between their worlds. It was not a sharp jealousy, but a soft, tired sadness. It was like a door to a future she had secretly started to dream of was quietly closing.

And finally, near the main entrance, Jasmin watched her lord with her hands held together in front of her. Her face showed simple, pure sadness. There was no jealousy, no feeling of ownership. There was only the quiet, heartbreaking acceptance of a girl who knew her place in the world. He was her sun, her king, the center of her world. And she was a humble servant, always meant to watch him from far away. Her heart was filled with a loyalty so pure and complete that it was its own kind of love, and its own kind of quiet, endless pain.

Five women. Five storms. And in the center of it all, a single man who had no idea. He was waltzing with the devil, completely unaware that the real war was not the one being whispered in his ear. The real war was the one being declared in the silent, angry, and heartbroken looks of the queens who watched him from across the hall.

At his core, Lloyd Ferrum was a man of logic and control. His mind was a fortress. Its walls were built from a lifetime of military training and an engineer's strict, practical way of thinking. Even now, with Monalisa Belphagor's soft hand in his, the sound of the Royal Orchestra all around him, and her powerful perfume in the air—a strange, alien mix of night-blooming jasmine and something cold, like the air after a storm—his thoughts were not on the romance of the moment. They were on the math of it.

The waltz was a series of predictable, elegant steps. It had a three-beat rhythm, a 180-degree turn, and a counter-step to keep balance. His body had been trained by a lifetime of combat in a world far more advanced than this one. He performed the moves with a perfect, almost machine-like grace. He was a perfect dancer, not because he felt the music, but because he understood its rules.

He was also sharply, painfully aware that he was the target of an emotional attack from multiple directions.

He didn't need to see them to feel them. The stares of the four women were real things, each with its own special kind of pressure and temperature. Amina’s stare was a sharp, intelligent probe. It was a focused beam of analytical light trying to figure out his every reason for doing things. Faria’s stare was a wave of pure, glowing heat. It was an angry, possessive glare that felt like it was trying to set his clothes on fire. Rosa’s was the most terrifying of all. It was a creeping, absolute cold that seemed to pull the warmth from the air around him, a silent promise of a coming ice age. And Airin’s… hers was a soft, sad weight, a gentle, sorrowful pressure on his soul.

It was, he thought with a bit of dark, internal humor, like being the main target in a four-front war. A war he had, through a series of very foolish and very human decisions, brought completely on himself.

"You seem distracted, Lord Ferrum," Monalisa’s voice was a low, musical purr. It was a smooth thread of sound that cut through the orchestra's music. It was a statement, not a question.

"Forgive me," Lloyd replied, his own voice a smooth, practiced baritone. He completed a perfect turn, guiding her through a group of less important nobles. "The evening is… full of surprises."