Chapter nine
1065 Words
A servant entered her chamber bearing a gilded envelope, his expression unreadable. “From Lady Selmira, my lady. A personal invitation.”
Aurelia accepted it, her fingers brushing the parchment carefully. The seal bore the curling ivy crest of House Viremont an ancient bloodline with influence that spread like roots through the pack’s nobility.
Mara, seated by the hearth sharpening a dagger, looked up. “You don’t have to go.”
Aurelia read the delicate script inside. A morning gathering in your honor a celebration of new beginnings. Tea and civility. Noon. We await your grace.
“I know what it is,” Aurelia murmured, letting the letter drift onto the table. “They’re not welcoming me. They’re testing me.”
Mara stood, wiping the blade with a cloth. “You’re stepping into a den of she-wolves who eat their own young.”
“I need them to see I’m not prey.”
Aurelia dressed with purpose. No regal cloak, no gems or crowns. Just a high-collared forest-green gown stitched with quiet strength, and a silver ring Torian had placed on her finger the night they were mated. No more. No less.
The salon where the tea was held was drowning in luxury marble floors veined with rose gold, glass ceilings allowing beams of sun to spotlight the long table filled with platters of sugared fruits, warm pastries, and fragrant brews steeping in porcelain pots.
Lady Selmira rose the moment Aurelia entered. “Our Luna has arrived.”
The other women followed suit, their faces painted with polite smiles that never reached their eyes.
“Please, sit. We’re honored you accepted,” Selmira said smoothly.
Aurelia took the seat they’d clearly reserved for her at the far end of the table, beneath a mural of wolves hunting. She could feel the placement wasn’t a mistake. It placed her apart, slightly beneath them, even if subtly so.
The conversation began with empty niceties.
“The weather has been cruel this year,” said Lady Arenthia, plucking a grape with the grace of a viper. “Much like our politics.”
“Change always comes with a little… mess,” Lady Hannelore added, sipping her tea. “But the pack always finds its way. Especially with proper guidance.”
Aurelia said nothing, letting the silences stretch just long enough to make them uncomfortable. Silence was a weapon too.
Lady Selmira leaned in, smiling. “We’ve all had to adapt, of course. When traditions are shaken… it tests our faith.”
“My faith,” Aurelia replied calmly, “is not in tradition. It’s in what protects the pack.”
Selmira’s smile faltered for a split second. The others exchanged quiet glances.
Lady Miris, younger and more impulsive, c****d her head. “But surely, my lady, you don’t mean to ignore the histories that built our ranks?”
“No,” Aurelia said, reaching for her tea. “But I also won’t chain our future to the sins of the past.”
There was a pause subtle, but electric.
“Spoken like someone unfamiliar with our burdens,” Selmira said. “I suppose when one enters from the outside, it's easier to dismiss the weight of legacy.”
Aurelia met her gaze coolly. “And when one’s born into privilege, it’s easier to forget that legacy can also be rot in the roots.”
Mara would’ve grinned if she were there. But Aurelia didn’t need backup.
The air thickened, the teacups clinking like warning bells.
Lady Miris, perhaps emboldened by the others, leaned forward. “Some say your claim is still unproven. That mating with lord Thorian was… strategic. That you were planted here to destabilize the court.”
Aurelia took a bite of a sugared fig, chewed, swallowed, and smiled faintly. “Then let them keep talking. While they whisper, I’ll be building.”
A tense silence followed. But it wasn’t Aurelia who broke it.
It was Lady Soraya, older and respected, whose brow furrowed as she looked at Miris. “You speak of rumors too freely, child. One might think you started them yourself.”
Miris blinked, caught off guard. “I… of course not—”
Soraya’s eyes narrowed at Hannelore, but the moment was already cracking at the edges.
Aurelia stood, the movement slow and deliberate. “Thank you, ladies. The tea was sweet. The conversation even sweeter.”
“You’re leaving early?” Selmira asked, her voice like silk pulled taut.
“I’ve already had what I came for.”
With a nod that bordered on regal, Aurelia walked out of the salon without once looking back.
Later that evening, Thorian found her in the garden, barefoot in the grass, her hands trailing through the petals of the moonblossoms.
“I heard about the tea,” he said softly.
Aurelia didn’t look at him. “It was poison with sugar on the rim.”
He stepped closer. “And yet you swallowed it .”
“I didn’t want them to think I was afraid.” She looked up at the stars. “But I was. Not of them. Of what I might have to become to keep winning.”
Thorian moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pressing his forehead to her temple. “Don’t become them. Just become the version of you that wins on her own terms.”
Aurelia closed her eyes. She felt raw, hollowed out and filled with fire at the same time.
“They’ll keep testing me,” she whispered.
“Let them,” Torian said. “You’re not the one who needs to pass.” When Thorian said that it somehow reminded Aurelia he didn't completely hate her now.
As night fell fully, the noblewomen in the salon remained behind, whispering anew but this time, less certain, less amused.
Lady Hannelore sipped her third cup of tea, eyes thoughtful. “She didn’t bend.”
“No,” Selmira murmured. “But even steel can break if you keep striking the same point.”
“Or it sharpens,” Hannelore said under her breath, just loud enough to be heard.
Somewhere outside, under the night sky, Aurelia felt the chill in her spine fade just a little.
That was when
the news came in.
“My lady, you are going to be put on a trial.”
“Whatttt?” Aurelia replied her servant.
- Writer
