*****

Back in the royal court, the air in the throne room seemed to thin, the silence so absolute that the flickering torches sounded like thunder. Vincent remained at the center of the marble floor, his voice cutting through the tension.

"His Majesty may look into the case further if he wants to," he declared, his eyes locked onto the sovereign with a chilling steadiness, "but cancelling my marriage is out of the question."

His retort earned him a collective, audible intake of breath that swept through the entire court. The silence that followed was heavy, thick with the realization that the Marquis of Aelgard just essentially told the Crown "no". It was not merely a move of breathtaking arrogance, but one of absolute conviction.

The courtiers exchange frantic, wide-eyed glances. Everyone knew the Marquis as a man who played the game of the court with icy, obedient precision, a man who followed the rules until the rules became his weapons. Yet, none seemed to matter when it came to that woman.

The courtiers wondered if she had, peradventurely, placed a spell upon the Marquis, enough to make him lose his sense of reasoning, but none dared to voice their unconfirmed thoughts under the weight of his dark, murderous gaze. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

They simply waited for the king to snap, to summon his guards and teach the young man a thing or two about where his manners should lie.

Instead, the King’s drumming fingers went still. He didn’t look angry, he looked intrigued, like a cat watching a mouse that had suddenly grown claws. The stillness was more terrifying than a shout.

"William," he addressed, finally shifting his gaze.

The young man stepped forward, his boots clicking softly on the marble floor. He kept his head lowered in a respectable, humble bow, though his shoulders remained tight with tension. William made sure to maintain a safe, wide distance from Vincent, as if the Marquis were a caged wolf that might still find a way to snap at his throat given the opportunity.

"Your Majesty," he greeted in a polite tone, his voice thin but steady.

The king leaned forward, his piercing gaze pinning William to the spot. "You knew very well that I made the announcement for Vincent and Penelope to be wedded, yet you tried to act against my decree as well. By your own admission, or at least by the rumors you have allowed to flourish, you attempted to interfere with a union sanctioned by the throne. You are just as much in defiance of my will as the Marquis is claiming to be."

A cold sweat broke out on William’s forehead. The fact he still had to be here after the Marquis had his men beat him to nothing yesterday, made him all the more determined to put the Marquis in his place.

"Tell me," the king continued, his eyes narrowing, "what do you have to say for yourself? Did you truly believe your affections carried more weight than a royal decree? Or is the Marquis correct, and you were simply attempting to steal what belongs to the chosen vessel?"

William’s voice trembled with a carefully orchestrated sorrow as he slipped his humble mask back on. "Your Majesty," he started, his tone thick with the weight of a tragic hero. "We did not intend to go against your decree, or bring such shame to your name. Penelope and I have been in love since we were children. Our hearts were promised long before a contract was ever made or signed."

He then turned to Vincent, though he kept his gaze low, avoiding the Marquis’s predatory eyes. "Penelope does not love you in any way. She is a bird with clipped wings in your halls. Please... have the mercy to give her back to me."

Vincent didn’t even dignify the plea with a formal rebuttal. He simply eyed the man from head-to-toe, taking in his trembling hands, the pale face, and the desperate posturing.

He scoffed.

He turned his head away in visceral distaste, as if looking at William for too long might stain him.

"Like you’re worthy," Vincent drawled, the words dripping with such profound contempt that they felt like a physical blow.

"She only married you because you forced her into it!" William countered, his voice rising in a shrill burst of bravado. He pointed a shaking finger toward the Marquis. "You ordered your men to hit me, to break me, just so she would submit to you out of fear. But you can’t buy a soul, Marquis Vincent. In case you do not know, Your Majesty... Penelope and I are already one. In heart and in flesh, she belongs to me in every sense that matters."

A scandalous murmur surged through the hall, louder and more jagged than before. To claim such intimacy with a Nobleman’s wife in open court was a death sentence for a woman’s reputation, and a direct spit in the face of the Marquis’s honor.

Vincent’s posture didn’t break, but the air around him seemed to darken irrevocably, his fists clenching hard at his side. He didn’t look like a man who had been insulted; he looked like a man who was deciding exactly which part of William’s neck to snap first.

Meanwhile, the king simply raised an eyebrow, a silent invitation for Williams to dig his own grave, or Vincent’s.

William reached into his tunic, and he pulled out a delicate, tattered scrap of silk. It was a lady’s handkerchief, embroidered with a distinctive pattern of lilies, the signature of Penelope’s family house. But it was the dark, reddish-brown stain in the center and the way the fabric was torn that drew a collective gasp from the courtiers.

"She gave me this token on the night we truly became one" William boldly declared, his eyes gleaming with a desperate, malicious light. "And if you still doubt our intimacy, then perhaps you can explain how I know of the small, crescent-shaped birthmark she hides upon her left hip? A mark no one else, not even her father– should know of? If I am lying, then tell it to the court; am I wrong?"

The silence that followed was suffocating. William was banking on the fact that Vincent, a man of cold distance and rigid propriety, might not have seen his own wife’s skin in the short time they had been wed.

Vincent’s expression froze. His hand shifted toward where the hilt of his sword should have been, only to realize he had not bothered taking it with him. However, he wished he had more than anything.

This accusation wasn’t just a slight anymore; it was a public claim of a permanent, physical brand on his wife’s honor.

"You speak of my wife as if she is a common tavern girl to be bartered with ’proofs’," Vincent said, his voice menacingly low. "You hold a stolen rag and claim it is a map to her virtue? You are a braver man than I thought, William, to stand in this hall and beg for your own execution. I’ll admit, it was an oversight on my part. I should have just let my men kill you and save myself the trouble of doing it now."