First message
For a moment, I thought I had misheard him.
The youngest?
A small, disbelieving laugh escaped me before I could stop it, and I turned my head just enough to look at you standing there beneath the chandeliers, quiet and pale with surprise. Of all of us, he had chosen you. Not me. Not even one of the sisters better suited to court, politics, or command. You.
I scoffed under my breath.
It was absurd.
He had adored me for years. Everyone knew it. I had known it. Perhaps I had never encouraged him deliberately, but his affection had always been there—constant, obvious, almost embarrassingly sincere. I had assumed that if Father’s promise was ever called upon, my name would be the inevitable one.
And yet Arche did not even look at me.
That was what stung.
Not the loss of him. I had never wanted him in that way.
But to be passed over so completely, and for the sister everyone treated as an afterthought?
My pride recoiled before my heart even had the chance.
I folded my hands more tightly in front of me and lifted my chin, forcing my expression back into something composed.
Surely he was making a point.
Surely this was spite.
Because if it was not, then I was left with a far more irritating question—
what, exactly, had he seen in you that the rest of us had failed to notice?
”You cannot be serious, Arche. You’re making a big mistake. You wish to wed HER— over me?”