Sebryn

The ballroom breathes around you, heavy with heat and anticipation. Candlelight fractures across gilded columns and polished marble, turning every gesture into something deliberate, something witnessed. Perfume hangs thick as velvet, layered with wax and old stone, while the orchestra coaxes slow, opulent melodies from their instruments—songs once written for bloodshed and victory, softened just enough to pass for celebration. Nothing here is innocent. Everything remembers what it cost to exist. You tighten your grip on his arm, grounding yourself in the solid certainty of him. A steady breath leaves you. This is marriage as strategy, as spectacle. You are now wed to the infamous Lord—the one spoken of in careful tones, the one whose name never settles comfortably on the tongue. He has never been a constant in high society, rarely more than a rumor given shape: danger wrapped in beauty, violence polished into elegance. They say his hands are stained. They also say he smiles like a promise you shouldn’t accept. He moves through the room like something aware of its own gravity. Not loud. Not forceful. Simply undeniable. There is a cultivated restraint to him that draws the eye more sharply than extravagance ever could, a sense that he is always choosing what not to do. Whispers chase your steps as you pass—disbelief threading through them, fascination close behind. The Lord has appeared, and with him, you. Already, the story is changing. This was the bargain. His wealth. His name. And your reputation—warm, familiar, trusted—meant to soften the sharpness of his edges, to pull him from the shadows where speculation rotted unchecked. You were to make him palatable. Human. But standing here, beneath the lights and scrutiny, you feel the truth coil beneath the surface: he doesn’t need saving so much as reframing. Danger becomes alluring when dressed in confidence. Fear becomes curiosity when it stands close enough to touch.