The room was silent, steeped in a heavy calm that followed the last polite exchange between Naoko and Amelia. The silver teapots had cooled. The delicate porcelain cups, half-emptied, sat idle before them. Only the faint ticking of the antique clock on the obsidian wall dared to break the quiet.
Then, without warning, Naoko turned her head. Her silver gaze found Rina with the precision of a dagger in flight.
"Rina," she said softly—but there was power in the softness, something that could not be ignored. "You're in love with someone, aren't you?"
Rina blinked. The words struck her like thunder. Her back straightened instinctively, her golden eyes widening in disbelief. Her breath caught. Her heartbeat stumbled.
The room froze.
Even Amelia lifted her gaze, surprised. Leona tilted her head slowly, watching Rina out of the corner of her eye.
Naoko's voice was still calm—frighteningly calm.
"So," she continued, "I have a question for you. Are you willing to let go of that love... to marry my son?"
It was a question wrapped in silk but edged in steel. The kind of question that couldn't be escaped with clever words or delicate deflections.
Rina couldn't speak at first. Her lips parted slightly, but her voice betrayed her. She felt heat rise to her cheeks, and her fingers trembled slightly where they rested in her lap.
Her flame-red hair swayed gently, brushing over her shoulders like a living thing. Her golden eyes flickered—not toward Naoko, but sideways. Toward Leona.
**Shin.**
Of course. It was always him.
She had loved Shin Blackthorn quietly, stubbornly, for years. He was light-hearted, charismatic, bold—a knight with a crooked grin and a sword for a spine. But Shin... Shin loved someone else.
**Leona.**
Rina saw it clearly now, more clearly than ever before. The way his eyes softened when he looked at Leona. The way he joked only with her a little differently, more sincerely. She had known it all along—had buried it under pride, ambition, denial.
But now, with Naoko's question hanging in the air like a guillotine, the truth stood naked before her.
**I will never have his heart.**
She blinked, slowly, and looked at Leona—just for a moment. Then turned her gaze down, shame creeping over her features. It wasn't Leona's fault. It never was. Leona was kind, bright... impossible to hate.
And yet—
Rina's mind spun with the memories of last night. The unexpected meeting in the kitchen. The moonlight slanting across obsidian tiles. Jien, standing there like a ghost given form—quiet, observant, unreadable. The dinner they shared. The tea. Her rage. Her shouting. Her threats.
**"I'll kill you if you touch me."**
She had said it. Screamed it, even.
And what had he done?
Smiled.
He smiled, not with mockery, but with patience. As if her pain didn't disgust him. As if he'd seen monsters worse than her fury and didn't flinch. As if he understood.
She had insulted him, cursed him, accused him of being nothing more than a pawn in his mother's game.
But Jien Rotschi had listened. Silently. Calmly.
And smiled.
Rina bit her lip. The image of him—how still he had been, how disciplined, how devastatingly handsome in the half-light—rose in her mind again.
He had not touched her.
He had not lied to her.
He had simply *been there.*
And now\... he was her fiancé.
She drew in a slow breath, grounding herself. Her golden eyes rose to meet Naoko's. And though her voice was quiet, it did not shake.
"Yes," she said.
Naoko tilted her head. "Yes... what?"
"Yes, I'm ready to let go."
Another pause.
Rina continued, more firmly this time, her voice gaining its edge.
"I know who I loved. I know that it was never returned. I've made peace with that. I know what this engagement means—for me, for my family, and for Jien. I may not love him yet, but he listened to me when no one else would. He let me speak freely. He didn't judge me."
Her cheeks warmed, but she didn't look away.
"And... in a small part of my heart," she admitted, "I'm glad that I'm the first woman in his life. That he's mine now. Not because of a kiss or a touch—but because I know his world began and ended behind these walls. And now, I'm stepping into it."
Naoko's silver eyes gleamed, but her expression didn't change.
"You're braver than I thought," she said finally, her tone unreadable.
"She is her mother's daughter," Amelia added coldly, though her voice carried pride behind the veil of detachment.
Naoko nodded once.
"Very well," she said. "Then we shall proceed."
She rose from her seat in one fluid motion, every inch the sovereign she was. Leona still hadn't spoken, but her blue eyes were full of conflicting thoughts.
As Rina stood as well, something had shifted in her—not a complete transformation, but the first quiet note of one. The first truth spoken out loud.