The carriage ride to the Vale Estate was quiet.
Too quiet.
Seraphine kept her hands folded in her lap, though her fingers trembled each time the wheels struck a stone in the road. Cassian sat beside her, uniform immaculate as always, but something in him was wrong.
Different.
Not colder — Cassian had always been cold — but distant.
As if he were already miles away.
She stole glances at him, searching for a reason in the sharp angles of his profile, the tension in his jaw, the stiff line of his shoulders beneath the rayadillo blue.
She had been called to his mansion before.
Often. Tender nights of stolen confessions, silent closeness, and the fragile sort of warmth they never showed the world.
But today he had sent a message ahead:
"Seraphine, come to the mansion. I need to tell you something important."
Her heart fluttered then. It trembled now.
The carriage stopped.
Cassian disembarked first, offering his hand.
She took it. His palm felt colder than the morning frost.
The servants bowed as they passed, though none met Seraphine's gaze. She found it odd. Whispered. Heavy.
Cassian led her through the mansion and out to the gardens — their gardens — the ones she tended herself, planting only the flowers he once told her he could tolerate the scent of.
White heliotropes. Pale camellias. Winter lilies.
She had planted them all for him.
And now they bent under the late-winter breeze like mourners, trembling in anticipation of something terrible.
"Cassian," she whispered, slowing her steps. "Is something… wrong?"
He didn't answer.
Not until they reached the pavilion — a white stone structure surrounded by the flowers she nurtured with her own hands, the place where he first allowed himself to sit close to her, to touch her hair, to speak of things beyond war.
The place she believed he would one day propose to her.
He stood in the pavilion's center. Motionless. Seraphine approached him, hesitating.
"You're frightening me," she breathed.
Cassian turned.
His face was unreadable.
"Seraphine," he said. "Sit."
She did. Because she trusted him. Because she loved him. Because she believed this moment would define their future.
It did.
Just not in the way she dreamed.
Cassian remained standing, hands clasped behind him.
A soldier delivering a report.
Not a lover sharing his heart.
"I asked you here because I need to tell you something before anyone else does," he said.
Her pulse quickened. "Cassian… what is it?"
A long pause. A pause long enough for the world to tilt.
Finally...
"The Emperor has arranged a political marriage for me."
Her breath froze.
He continued, voice steady — painfully steady. "The engagement was finalized this morning."
Silence.
Cold. Violent. Suffocating.
Seraphine felt her ears ring. Felt her throat close. Felt something tearing inside her, as if her ribs were being pried apart.
Her lips parted.
"Cassian…" She whispered his name like a plea.
As if it would undo his words. As if any of this could be untrue.
"Look at me," she begged.
He did. And in his eyes, there was no denial.
"It is done," he said quietly.
A tremor ripped through her chest.
"…who?" Her voice splintered. "Who is she?"
Cassian did not hesitate. "Lady Marienne Lysford."
Seraphine's world cracked.
Marienne. Her rival. The woman who had always smiled too sweetly, bowed too perfectly, stood too close to Cassian at court events. The woman who once told Seraphine that a man like him would never choose someone so ordinary.
Seraphine's breath came out sharp, uneven. "No… Cassian, no. Anyone but her. Not her. Anyone—" Her voice broke, splintering on the edge of despair.
"I didn't choose her," Cassian said. "It was commanded."
"And you accepted it?" Her voice rose. "You just—accepted?"
He didn't answer.
Which was answer enough.
Seraphine pressed a trembling hand to her mouth as pain surged through her. Her eyes burned. Her heart hammered too fast, too hard.
"You told me," she whispered, voice cracking, "that I was the one you came back to. The one you stayed for. That… that you would handle everything."
He closed his eyes briefly, as if pained. But he said nothing.
"Cassian…" Her breath hitched. "What am I to you?"
His lips parted. But no answer came.
Seraphine's vision blurred with tears.
"Tell me," she pleaded. "Please… tell me I meant something. Tell me you didn't lie to me all these years—tell me you didn't let me love you just to throw me away for her—"
He stepped toward her.
She stepped back.
"Don't," she breathed. "Don't come closer. I can't— I won't be able to breathe if you do."
Her hands shook violently.
"I planted this garden for you," she whispered, looking at the trembling petals around her. "Every flower… every single one… because you said you liked white blossoms in winter."
Her voice cracked into a sob.
"And now you sit me here—here, of all places—to tell me you're marrying her?"
Cassian's jaw tightened. "Seraphine—"
"Why didn't you fight for me?" She cried. "Why didn't you say no? Why didn't you choose me?"
Her knees gave out. She clutched the stone railing, gasping.
Cassian moved instinctively, reaching for her—
"Don't touch me!" She screamed, the sound ripping out of her like torn silk. "Don't you dare touch me now!"
He froze.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
"I loved you," she whispered, voice trembling so violently the words barely formed. "I loved you in every way a woman can love a man. I waited for you. I gave you everything. I believed in you."
Her breath came in ragged sobs.
"And you—" She choked. "You're marrying her."
Her cry fractured, raw and agonizing.
She pressed a hand to her chest as though trying to hold her breaking heart together.
"I thought…" She swallowed hard, shaking. "I thought I was yours."
Cassian looked away — and that, more than anything, destroyed her.
Her voice fell to a whisper so painful the air seemed to tremble.
"Was I nothing to you?"
The pavilion went silent.
Only her quiet, shuddering sobs filled the winter air.
Snow began to fall — slowly, softly — as if the sky itself mourned her.
Cassian finally spoke, his voice low, strained.
"Seraphine… I never wanted to hurt you."
"But you did." Her voice was sharp, broken glass. "You shattered me."
He closed his eyes, fists clenching.
She looked at him one last time — truly looked.
Her lover. Her General. Her winter.
Now a stranger.
Her breath trembled out.
"I hope she knows," Seraphine whispered, voice trembling into a sob. "I hope Lady Marienne knows she is marrying a man who left someone crying in the garden he once claimed was his home."
Cassian flinched.
But Seraphine didn't see. Her vision was too blurred with heartbreak.
She turned away.
And with that single step, she walked out of the winter he had brought into her life — unaware that this was only the beginning of the madness that would take her. And the regret that would one day bring him back.