LIAM'S POV:
The gala for my grandmother’s birthday had transitioned from a mere celebration into a masterpiece of orchestrated vanity. The air in the grand hall was thick, a cloying mixture of expensive floral perfumes, the metallic tang of spiritual energy, and the unspoken weight of political ambition. Every envoy who stepped forward to bow did so with a calculated angle, their eyes searching for a weakness in the Byron family or a sign of favor from the royal house. My great-grandfather, Almericus, was moving through this sea of sycophants like a titan among ants. His laughter was a thunderous sound that seemed to shake the very foundations of the palace, though it grated on my nerves.
I watched him with a detached, clinical eye. The man was a caricature of paternal obsession—a "daug
