Chloe.
The throne room doors were obscene.
Tall enough to make a giant feel small, carved with scenes of conquest and war, gold leaf pressed into every groove like the kingdom wanted you to know, before you even stepped inside, that it had won. Many times. Against many people.
Carved from something dark and ancient, stretching so far upward I had to physically stop myself from craning my neck like a tourist, gold pressed into every groove, every battle scene, every grim face immortalized in wood. They said, without saying anything: everything that walks through here answers to us.
I was not intimidated.
I was slightly intimidated.
Kieran's hand was at the small of my back, the lightest possible pressure, barely there and yet I felt it like a brand. Steadying. Deliberate. A claim. Brazy.
The doors swung open.
The throne room stretched before us like a fever dream of gold and marble. Columns lined both sides, and between them stood members of the court, still as paintings, watching. Measuring. Their eyes moved over me the way merchants sized up cargo — calculating worth, looking for flaws.
Try harder, I thought at all of them collectively.
At the far end, on a throne that could only be described as aggressively large, sat the king.
I had prepared myself for this. I had mentally rehearsed. I had given myself three separate internal pep talks in the corridor alone.
None of that mattered because the man was terrifying.
He was older than I expected. Silver at his temples, hard jaw, eyes like chips of dark stone set beneath heavy brows. He didn't smile. He didn't move. He imply looked at us the way mountains looked at weather, like we were a temporary inconvenience he had outlasted before.
It was then that I noticed them.
Four of them, standing to the sides of the throne like they'd been arranged there specifically to be menacing. Which, given everything, was probably exactly what had happened.
The first one I recognized immediately. Balcony boy. The one who had looked down at me from the palace entrance like I was something the limo had tracked in. Up close he was taller than I expected, arms crossed, jaw tight, eyes that had already written a full essay about why I shouldn't be here.
Hello to you too, I thought pleasantly.
The second one was watching me with an expression I couldn't immediately read. Calculating. Like he was doing math. Like I was a variable he was plugging into an equation and waiting to see what exploded.
That one is going to be a problem.
Ugh.
The third one wasn't even looking at me.
He was just… standing there. Gaze somewhere past my shoulder, expression somewhere between bored and absent, like the arrival of his brother's new wife was roughly as interesting as watching paint dry. He hadn't looked at me once.
Somehow that was more unsettling than the hostility.
Excuse me, I am standing right here.
The fourth one was younger. Or at least he felt younger; something in the set of his shoulders, the way he stood just slightly apart from the others. He looked at me for exactly one second, then looked away.
Four brothers. Four completely different varieties of unwelcoming.
A whole collection.
I filed all of them away and kept my face perfectly, serenely neutral.
Kieran guided me forward, his hand still at my back, and I was grateful for it in a way I was absolutely NOT going to examine right now or possibly ever.
We stopped before the throne.
The king looked at me for a long moment. The entire room held its breath. Even the guards, even the cold chandelier light, even the air itself seemed to pause, waiting.
"So," the king said. Low. Unhurried. The voice of a man who had never once needed to raise it. "This is the Princess of Veylinthia."
Every eye in the room was on me.
Is it just me or is it getting hard to breathe?
Your name. Say your name.
"Chloe." I held his gaze, chin level, voice steady. "Your Majesty."
Silence bloomed.
Something moved in the king's expression. Not warmth — I was fairly certain warmth had never visited this room in its entire architectural life — but something. The faintest, most reluctant shift. Like a door that didn't usually open had moved, just barely, on its hinges.
From somewhere to my left, Balcony Brother exhaled through his nose.
It was the loudest exhale I had ever heard. It contained multitudes. It contained an entire press release of disapproval.
Noted, I thought.
"You will dine with us this evening," the king said. Not an invitation. A fact about the future, delivered the way weather was delivered. "We will get acquainted."
"We look forward to it," I said smoothly.
handling shit like a pro.
He studied me one moment longer — that ancient, measuring gaze — then his eyes moved to Kieran. Something passed between them. A whole conversation in a single look, a language I didn't speak yet and wasn't sure I wanted to.
Then he waved his hand once.
Dismissed.
We turned to leave, and as we walked back down that long, gold, very watched corridor, I kept my steps measured, my chin up, my face giving absolutely nothing away.
Dinner, I reminded myself. Tonight. With the terrifying king who looks at people like he's calculating their weight in ash, the brother who has been personally offended by my existence since the balcony, the one doing silent mathematics, the one who didn't even look at me — which is RUDE by the way — and the younger one who I haven't figured out yet.
Totally normal.
Completely fine.
I need to call Seraphina.