Caden’s POV
I left the ballroom before the echoes finished bouncing off the walls.
The doors slammed behind me, cutting off the noise, the gasps, the whispers, the future my father had just torn open and shoved down my throat. My boots struck marble in sharp, furious rhythm as I stalked through the corridor, my blood roaring so loud it drowned everything else.
Her.
Of all people.
The girl from the market. The one who had looked me in the eye without fear, who had dared to challenge me like I was nothing more than another rude boy. The King had lifted her chin with those same hands that had never once touched me with affection.
My jaw locked.
“Caden!”
I ignored the voice and kept walking.
“Caden, stop,” my mother snapped.
I turned so abruptly Kaela nearly collided with me. Arinelle stood rigid behind her, her face pale with rage barely held in check. Kaela’s eyes were bright with tears, her mouth twisted in disbelief.
“Did you see her,” Kaela burst out. “Did you see the way she stood there like she belonged?”
“She doesn’t,” I said coldly.
“She humiliated us,” Kaela continued, her voice rising. “A nobody. A village rat.”
“Enough,” Arinelle said sharply, but her eyes gleamed with the same fury.
“She has no name,” Kaela sobbed. “No lineage. She cannot be my sister.”
“She will not be anything,” I said. “This ends.”
Arinelle stepped closer, her voice dropping. “Your father has lost his mind.”
“He has always done as he pleased,” I replied.
“But this,” she hissed, “this is an insult. To you. To me. To everything we built.”
I laughed once, bitter. “Built. Yes.”
She flinched. “Do not start with me.”
“You fed him the idea that cruelty makes a ruler,” I snapped. “Now he uses it on us.”
Kaela wiped her eyes angrily. “What are you going to do?”
I stared down the corridor, imagining the ballroom behind us. Her shock. Her refusal. The way she had begged him to choose anyone else.
The memory burned.
“She didn’t want it,” I said quietly.
Arinelle’s eyes narrowed. “What does that matter?”
“It matters,” I said. “Because he chose her anyway.”
“That is power,” she replied. “And power must be answered.”
I turned to face her fully. “I will not marry her.”
“You cannot defy the King openly,” Arinelle warned. “Not yet.”
“Then I won’t,” I said. “I’ll make it impossible.”
Kaela inhaled sharply. “You’ll scare her away.”
“I don’t need to scare her,” I replied. “I need to break the arrangement.”
Arinelle studied me, calculation replacing rage. “Careful.”
“I am always careful.”
She circled me slowly. “If you humiliate her, the court will turn.”
“If I reject her,” I countered, “the court will follow.”
Kaela frowned. “What if Father insists.”
“He will not,” I said. “He values stability. Appearances. If I make her unfit, he will have to reconsider.”
Arinelle smiled slowly. “You have learned well.”
I did not return the smile.
“Caden,” Kaela said softly. “She looked… terrified.”
I snapped my gaze to her. “And?”
Kaela hesitated. “And that scared me.”
Arinelle scoffed. “Fear is weakness.”
“No,” I said, surprising us all. “Fear is leverage.”
Kaela looked between us, unsettled.
I turned away again, my mind already working, mapping possibilities like a battlefield. Isolation. Coldness. Distance. I had mastered all of them. If she thought this palace would offer her warmth, she was mistaken.
She would regret stepping into my world.
Arinelle’s hand closed around my arm. “Do not underestimate her.”
“I don’t,” I replied. “I despise her.”
“That’s not the same thing,” she said softly.
I pulled free. “It’s enough.”
We reached my chambers. I shoved the doors open and paced the room, energy crackling beneath my skin. The walls felt too close, the air too thin.
I had been controlled my entire life—by expectations, by lessons, by my mother’s whispers and my father’s silence. This was not destiny. This was provocation.
And I would not kneel.
Kaela lingered in the doorway. “You’re really going to fight this.”
“Yes,” I said.
“How?”
I stopped pacing and looked at them both. “I will make her wish she had never been chosen.”
Arinelle’s smile was sharp with approval.
Kaela looked away.
I faced the window, staring out at the palace grounds where torches burned against the dark. Somewhere within these walls, she sat in shock, trying to understand how her life had just been ripped apart by a crown she never asked for.
Good. Understanding would come later. For now, I needed only one thing, control.
“I will break this arrangement,” I said aloud, the vow settling deep and immovable inside me.