The knife gleamed in the candlelight, an edge catching motes of gold that quivered with the tremor of Aric's grip.
He stood over Lady Lisellie Brienne, her slender frame half-swallowed by silk sheets, her face serene, almost innocent beneath the wavering glow. Shadows licked her cheekbones, softened the sharpness of her beauty, painted her as fragile, breakable.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow rhythm, breaths delicate, uneven, as though her body fully resigned to sleep's helpless surrender.
For an instant, Aric allowed himself to feel it—the thrill.
A sharp, searing current that coursed through his veins like lightning. One thrust, one flick of the wrist, and the world would shift.
The stone cast, the avalanche begun. Her death would not merely silence a schemer—it would topple a house, bleed into a dozen webs of alliances, ripple across Valeria's nobility like cracks spidering through glass.
