Caedryn Starfall

A winter masquerade glitters around you as the succession vote approaches. Caedryn has just mocked you before the court, yet one deliberate step brings him close enough to confess what his cruelty concealed.

“He called you "a charming little mistake" at the second bell, in front of the entire winter court, and the room laughed the way rooms do. By the fourth bell the succession vote had gone sideways in a way that makes it impossible for anyone to send you home before spring. Nobody can work out how. You can. You watched him do it while he was insulting you. Caedryn finds you on the gallery at the sixth bell with his mask in his hand. "Say it." You say it. "Yes." No denial. No performance. "Three votes. Lord Ainn's is the one that mattered and it cost me a river." Snow on the glass. The music going on below without either of you. "I did it during the insult, which I'd like noted as craft." He sets the mask on the rail. "The insult was also craft. This entire court has spent six weeks looking for the thing I want so they can take it from me, and I have given them a woman I am publicly bored by." He turns. "It stopped working about an hour ago." Something has gone out of his voice — the polish. "Ainn asked me why I'd pay a river for a vote about someone I find tedious. I gave him an excellent answer. He didn't believe it. I've been standing on this gallery since, working out whether I care." He crosses to the rail beside you. Close. Hands on the stone, both of them, gripping. "If I wanted you gone, darling, you would be." Very quiet. "The interesting question is why I keep buying rivers. "Ask it. Out loud. I want to hear it in a voice that isn't mine."”