Part 4
The morning after the wedding did not bring the clarity Cassian hoped for. Instead, it brought a thick, suffocating fog that rolled off the Vesperan Sea, swallowing the coal towers and turning the Foundry into a ghost ship adrift in a sea of grey.
Cassian woke with a start, his hand instinctively flying to the dip in his waist where Elara had poked him the night before. His skin still felt sensitized, humming with a phantom electricity that made the silk sheets feel like sandpaper. He groaned, rubbing his eyes. He felt like a "shattered emptiness" that had been filled with cheap lead and bad decisions.
He dressed himself—refusing to call for Arthur—clumsily fumbling with the buttons of a fresh, midnight-blue waistcoat. He was twenty-five, a man of violence and cunning, yet he felt like a child hiding under a bed. He needed to re-establish the hierarchy. He needed to prove that the "Golden Bastard" was still the one holding the leash.
He found Elara in the glass-walled breakfast room. She was an image of "optimistic idealism," dressed in a high-collared gown of sunflower yellow that seemed to defy the gloom outside. She was holding her Lumen-Box, meticulously photographing a plate of sliced blood oranges as if they held the secrets of the universe.
"You're late," she said, her voice a melodic chime. She didn't look up from her lens. "The Duke has already left for the refineries. He said your 'medical condition' seemed to have flared up last night and suggested you stay in the North Wing to... recover."
Cassian's jaw tightened. "My father needs to learn the difference between a medical condition and a hangover. And you," he stepped closer, his boots clicking sharply on the tile, "need to learn the difference between a secret and a weapon."
Elara finally looked up. She looked "reserved and innocent," her eyes wide and curious. "Is there a difference? In a world of transactions, isn't a secret just a weapon that hasn't been fired yet?"
"I'm warning you, Lark," Cassian leaned over the table, his shadow falling across her oranges. He was using his height, his "violent exterior," trying to reclaim the room. "What happened in the Vault stays in the Vault. If I hear even a whisper of... that... among the nobility, I will make your life a very long, very monotonous hell."
Elara didn't flinch. She leaned in, her extraordinary sense of smell catching the scent of the peppermint he'd eaten last night, mixed with the sharp, acidic tang of his current irritation.
"You're very loud when you're afraid, Cassian," she whispered, her voice dropping the musical lilt for that "brutally honest" tone. "It's a fascinating trait. Like a bird puffing its feathers to look larger than the hawk."
"I am the hawk in this house," he growled.
"Then why are you standing so far away?" she asked, a "chaotic little" glint in her eyes.
She stood up, her movements fluid. She walked around the table, her sunflower skirts rustling. Cassian stood his ground, his arms crossed, his face a mask of arrogant defiance. He was smart; he was cunning. He knew she was trying to bait him.
"We have a luncheon with the Duchy Council in two hours," Elara said, stopping just inches from him. "They expect to see a unified front. They expect to see the Golden Son and his Muse in perfect, 'cookie-cutter' harmony."
"I can play the part," Cassian said, his voice returning to its cocky, adult rasp. "I've been playing parts since I could walk. I'll hold your hand, I'll kiss your cheek, and I'll tell them you're the light of my miserable life. Just don't get any ideas about... poking the hawk again."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Elara replied, her expression shifting back to that "quirky" optimism. She reached out, her hand moving toward his shoulder.
Cassian's eyes narrowed. He prepared for a flinch, tensing every muscle in his core.
But she didn't poke him. Instead, she gently adjusted his lapel, smoothing the fabric with a delicate, "affectionate" touch. Then, as she pulled away, her pinky finger accidentally—or perhaps with the most "cunning" precision—brushed against the side of his neck, just below the ear.
The reaction was a violent, involuntary twitch. Cassian's shoulder jerked up toward his ear as if he'd been hit by a bolt of lightning. A short, strangled "Nyehh!" escaped his throat—a sound so undignified and "crybaby"-like that he immediately turned his head away, his face flushing a deep, mortified purple.
"Oops," Elara murmured, her smile not reaching her clinical, cold eyes. "The hawk seems to have a very... sensitive plumage."
"Stop it," Cassian hissed, his voice trembling with a mix of fury and genuine, physical distress. He turned on his heel, his "confidence" shattered once again. "I'm going to the stables. Don't follow me."
"Don't be late, Husband!" she called after him, her voice returning to its sweet, musical notes. "The Council hates to wait. It makes them... irritable!"
Cassian didn't go to the stables. He went to the library, the one room in the Foundry that smelled of old paper and silence rather than grease and coal. He slumped into a leather chair, his head in his hands.
He felt the "shattered emptiness" expanding. He was twenty-five, he was the heir to an empire, and he was being dismantled by a twenty-two-year-old girl with a camera and a "kink" for his vulnerability.
He was smart enough to see the pattern. She wasn't just mocking him; she was studying him. Every flinch, every "crybaby" sound he made, was being recorded in that "chaotic little mind" of hers. She was looking for the man beneath the mask, and the man beneath the mask was someone Cassian had spent a decade trying to bury.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, crumpled object he'd found in his dressing room this morning. It was a sticker—a small, sparkly dinosaur he'd bought months ago on a whim during a trip to the lower districts. He had a secret collection of them, along with bags of strawberry marshmallows and old, forgotten history books about the common folk.
It was his "cursed sensitivity." His secret innocence.
He stared at the sparkly dinosaur—a triceratops with googly eyes. It was the most "goofy" and "sensitive" thing he owned. If Elara ever found this... if she ever saw the "crybaby" who liked sparkly stickers...
He quickly shoved it back into his pocket as he heard the heavy footsteps of his father approaching.
"Cassian," the Duke of Vane said, stepping into the library. He was a man of iron and ledgers, his presence sucking the air out of the room. "The Nightingale girl. Is she... compliant?"
Cassian stood up, his "Golden Bastard" mask clicking back into place, though it felt heavier than usual. "She's a delight, Father. A bit quirky, a bit too fond of moss, but she'll do her duty. The transaction is secure."
"Good," the Duke said, his eyes narrowing. "Because the Council is hearing rumors. Rumors that you're losing your edge. That you're spending more time in the bottom of a bottle than in the boardroom."
"I can do both, Father. It's called multitasking."
"See that you do. And see that your wife remains... manageable. The Nightingale Resonance is the only thing keeping our turbines from seizing. If she becomes a problem, deal with it."
The Duke turned and left without another word.
Cassian sat back down, the weight of the "pawn" status pressing into his chest. He looked at the door, then at the window where the fog was finally beginning to lift, revealing the jagged, predatory cliffs of Oakhaven.
He wasn't just a pawn. He was a man of violence yearning for peace, trapped in a marriage that was a war, with a woman who smelled like rain and saw through his skin.
"Baby steps," he whispered to the empty library, mocking himself. "Just keep taking baby steps until you fall off the cliff."
He stood up, adjusted his coat, and prepared to face the Council. He had a world to build, a mask to polish, and a wife he needed to keep at arm's length—literally.