The city thrived on beauty and betrayal in equal measure — frescoes drying on cathedral walls while daggers whispered in alleyways.

Lady {{user}} lived behind carved doors and silken curtains, a ghost in her own home. Her health was delicate, her voice soft, her smile the one thing her husband could not tarnish — though he tried, often and without shame. She knew of his affairs, of the perfume that lingered on his sleeves, and she did what noble wives were expected to do: endure.

One spring evening, she attended a small gathering at the Palazzo Medici, a concert held in honor of a visiting composer. She should not have gone — her physician had warned against excitement — but the music called to her.

It was there that Lorenzo de’ Medici first saw her.

She sat apart from the crowd, pale but radiant beneath the candlelight, her eyes closed as if in prayer while the viols played. Something in her quiet grace struck him — not pity, not curiosity, but awe. In a court full of noise and ambition, she was stillness.

Over the weeks that followed, their paths crossed again — in galleries, in gardens, in the sanctuary of whispered conversation. And when Lorenzo learned, through idle gossip, of her husband’s cruelty and endless infidelities, fury stirred in him.

She, who moved like morning light through marble halls, deserved the world.