Married To Darkness

’What?’

Alaric scoffed, ’The audacity’

Salviana took her seat, the sage-green silk of her skirt rustling as she smoothed it over her knees. She felt Alaric take his place beside her, his presence a dark, protective shield.

"Not at all, Your Majesty," Salviana replied, her voice steady and clear. "The journey had a way of revealing what is truly important."

She caught the look on Abigail’s face—a mixture of awe and jealousy—and the calculating glints in the eyes of the concubines, Audrey and Lucille, who sat further down the table.

The web of the Velthorne family was sprawling and dangerous, but as Alaric’s hand found hers beneath the table, Salviana remembered she wasn’t just a guest anymore. She was a player and she came here by herself.

The air in the dining hall was thick enough to choke on, a cocktail of expensive roasting meats and the bitter, metallic scent of unspoken rivalries. Salviana sat tall, the sage-green silk of her gown pooling around her like a forest glade amidst the jagged stone of the Velthorne court. Beneath the heavy oak table, Alaric’s hand found hers. His skin was cool, his grip a silent promise of protection, but Salviana squeezed back with a different kind of strength. She wasn’t a pawn moved across a board; she was the one who had walked into this den of lions by her own choice.

The clink of silverware against porcelain was the only music until Crown Prince Benjamin let out a sharp, jagged bark of a laugh. He leaned back, his eyes bleary and rimmed with red. Even at this hour, the scent of stale wine clung to him, souring the morning air.

"Look at her," Benjamin drawled, his voice loud enough to make Queen Sansa stiffen. He gestured vaguely toward Salviana with a half-empty goblet. "The ’Divine Lady’ looks glowing. Well-fed. Or perhaps..." He paused, a crude, lopsided smirk stretching across his face. "...just well-fucked. It seems the Dark Prince finally found a use for his sword."

The silence that followed was instantaneous and violent.

Salviana felt Alaric’s hand vanish from hers. She didn’t even see the movement—it was too fast for the human eye to track. In a blink, the silver dinner knife that had been resting by Alaric’s plate was a blur of lethal light, whistling through the air with a predatory hiss aimed directly for the center of Benjamin’s throat.

"Alaric!" King Gideon’s roar echoed off the vaulted ceiling, but he was too far to intervene.

Death was a fraction of a second away until Prince Embrez, sitting with casual nonchalance next to the Crown Prince, moved with the suddenness of a viper. He didn’t reach for the knife; he reached for the back of Benjamin’s chair. With a violent, calculated shove, he sent the heavy seat skidding across the polished marble.

The knife thudded into the high-backed tapestry behind the table, vibrating with the force of the throw exactly where Benjamin’s windpipe had been a heartbeat before.

But the save, while effective, lacked grace. The sudden, forceful push sent the chair’s center of gravity spiraling. Benjamin, caught off guard and slowed by the wine, flailed his arms as the chair tilted dangerously onto its back legs.

CRASH.

The sound of the Crown Prince hitting the floor was followed by the hollow clatter of his goblet rolling across the stones, spilling dark red wine like a mockery of the blood that should have been there. He lay sprawled on his back, legs tangled in the finery of his robes, his crown skewed and his face turning a humiliated shade of purple.

Silence rushed back into the room, heavier than before.

Alaric was standing now, his dark brocade coat flared like the wings of a crow. He didn’t look at the fallen prince; his eyes were fixed on the knife vibrating in the wall, then slowly, they drifted toward Embrez.

"Your aim is getting sloppy, brother," Embrez mused, calmly returning to his apple, though his hand remained close to his own hidden blade. "Or perhaps you just wanted to see Benjamin’s boots in the air?"

Salviana looked down at Benjamin, who was struggling to right himself while his wife, Lillian, looked on with a mixture of horror and cold disgust. She didn’t feel fear. Instead, she felt a sharp, dangerous surge of triumph.

The Dark Prince had just attempted to execute the heir to the throne in front of the King, and the room was too terrified to even breathe.

The clatter of Benjamin’s fall was still echoing when King Gideon’s fist slammed against the table, rattling every plate and glass in the hall. The sound was like a clap of thunder, and the room went from cold silence to a suffocating heat.

"Enough!" Gideon roared, his gaze bypassing the drunken, sprawling heap of his firstborn to lock onto Alaric with a seething, jagged hatred. "You dare? In my presence? At my table?"

Alaric didn’t flinch. His fingers were white where they gripped the edge of the table, the marble beginning to hairline-fracture under his strength. "He insulted my wife," Alaric’s voice was a low, terrifying vibration. "He brought the gutter into this hall. I merely offered to clean it."

"You offered to murder the Crown Prince!" Gideon’s face was flushed a dark, dangerous red. He stood, his shadow stretching long and monstrous across the map of the kingdom carved into the wall. "First your mother– my dearest sister, then... the other one– My precious son. Now you seek to thin the line of succession further? You are looking for trouble, Alaric. You have always been the rot in this family, looking for a reason to let the beast out."

The mention of "the other one"—the unspoken ghost of Anne-Marie—hit the room like a physical blow.

Alaric’s energy shifted. It became something atmospheric, a pressure that made it hard to breathe. He took a step toward the head of the table, his eyes fixed on Benjamin, who was being hauled up by servants, looking pathetic and wine-stained. Alaric didn’t see the servants. He didn’t see the King. He only saw the man who had dared to put filth on Salviana’s name.

"I will take his tongue," Alaric hissed, his hand moving toward the dagger at his thigh.