Then Arion’s phone buzzed on the table.

Dean did not move at first, because he had reached a rare state of partial peace involving a pastry, Boreas’s enormous head on his lap, and Arion’s hand warm at the back of his neck. That peace lasted exactly three seconds before he looked at the phone, saw the caller ID, and narrowed his eyes.

"That is yours," he said.

Arion glanced at the screen.

His expression changed so little that most people would have missed it. Dean did not. The slight softening vanished from his mouth, the amused warmth in his eyes folded away, and the Crown Prince surfaced in the quiet space between one breath and the next.

"Public Relations," Arion said.

Dean went still.

Boreas, sensing a shift in the atmosphere and possessing the survival instincts of a seasoned court animal despite his history of door-related treason, lifted his head from Dean’s lap and looked between them.

Dean lowered the pastry slowly. "Why is your public relations manager calling you two hours before Lucas and Mia arrive?"

"That," Arion said, reaching for the phone, "is an excellent question."

He answered.

Dean watched him more closely than he meant to.

Arion did not put the call on speaker. He only held the phone to his ear, gaze settling on the windows, body still sprawled on the sofa with Boreas pressed against his thigh as if he had not just become something sharp enough to cut the room open.

"Yes."

A pause.

Dean hated pauses in phone calls. They always meant the other person had said something interesting enough to make silence useful.

Arion’s eyes hardened.

"Send it to my secure channel."

Dean sat up straighter.

Boreas stood immediately and moved off the sofa, not far, only enough to sit against Dean’s shin like a furry barricade.

Arion listened for several more seconds. His fingers rested loosely on the arm of the sofa, but Dean saw the precise, dangerous stillness of them.

"No public response yet," Arion said. "Lock the contacts. Freeze the payment trail. I want names, intermediaries, outlets approached, quoted amounts, and all draft headlines if they exist."

Dean’s stomach dropped.

Arion’s gaze shifted to him briefly.

That was enough.

Dean set the pastry down.

"Do not notify Minerva yet," Arion continued. "Notify Otto’s office with a restricted flag. No general palace circulation. Send a summary to my intelligence liaison and copy me directly. If anyone publishes before I approve a line, I want their access suspended within thirty seconds."

Another pause.

Arion’s mouth curved faintly.

It was not a smile.

"Yes. I understand that would be aggressive. Do it anyway."

Dean exhaled slowly through his nose.

Aggressive, from a public relations manager, meant something very different than aggressive from Arion.

Arion ended the call and set the phone down.

For one moment, neither of them spoke.

Dean looked at him. "What happened?"

Arion leaned back, but the casualness had become decorative now. His body remained on the sofa; everything else about him had already moved into war.

"Our public relations office intercepted a payment attempt."

Dean stared at him.

"To whom?"

"Several media channels. Two gossip platforms, one political commentary feed, and one civilian royal-watch account with unusually high engagement."

Dean felt the room tilt very slightly, then settle.

He knew before Arion said the name. All the events in the last week had been indicating already that Andrea would do something stupid.

"Andrea," Dean said.

"His family," Arion corrected. "At least officially. The money is moving through a Vale-associated intermediary."

Dean’s eyes narrowed. "Officially."

"Yes."

"What were they trying to leak?"

Arion did not answer fast enough.

Dean’s pulse changed.

Boreas pressed harder against his leg.

"Arion."

The Crown Prince looked at him then, fully, and Dean hated the care in his face almost as much as he hated the anger underneath it.

"Fragments of Caelan’s proposal," Arion said.

The words landed without surprise, which almost made them worse.

Dean had known Caelan intended to use him. He knew the old man had treated his designation, his ability, and his future as pieces on a board he had no right to touch. He knew enough of the ugliness that the name Caelan still carried weight in certain rooms of his mind, old and cold and impossible to entirely throw away.

But knowing a wound existed did not make it pleasant to have someone else reach for it with bad intentions.

Dean sat very still. "Fragments."

"Cropped sections. Enough to show your name, Thomas’s family reference, stabilizing capacity, and Caelan’s seal."

Dean laughed once.

It sounded wrong even to him.

"Of course."

Arion’s hand twitched toward him, then stopped. Dean saw the restraint and appreciated it in a distant, furious way.

"The intended narrative," Arion continued, "appears to be that Thomas accepted the proposal, that Palatine had nearly placed you with him, and that the arrangement fell apart only because of Caelan’s death. The implication being that I chose you afterward from another failed bargain."

Dean stared at the hidden television panel.

Boreas whined once.

Dean looked down at him and placed a hand on his head automatically, though the motion felt detached from the rest of him.

"What are you not saying, Arion?" Dean asked.

Arion’s hand clenched on the sofa armrest. "That Andrea has the drafts of the other proposals. The ones we, Palatine, Saha, and Alamina couldn’t find, but a family in my empire had them."

Dean went very still.

The room did not change. The pastries remained on the table. Boreas pressed against his leg. Sunlight still entered through the windows with insulting softness, gilding the polished floor and the edge of Arion’s sleeve.

But something under Dean’s ribs went cold.

"The other proposals," he repeated.

Arion’s jaw flexed once. "Yes."

Dean looked at him. "All of them?"

"We don’t know yet. Public relations intercepted the payment route before the full package left their system, but the preview file had metadata from four separate drafts. Thomas’s name, and three others."

Dean’s mouth went dry.

He had known Caelan had intended to sell him.

That was not new. That horror had already been named, dissected, filed, hated, and buried under layers of survival. Caelan had looked at Dean’s designation, his political inconvenience, and had decided that if Dean could not be controlled easily in Palatine, he could be placed somewhere useful.

Sold, but with better stationery.

What they had not known was how far the old man had gotten.

Dean swallowed once. "Who?"

Arion’s eyes stayed on him.

That was answer enough.