The chandeliers cast a golden glow over the grand ballroom, their light refracting through crystal prisms like shattered promises.

"You brought your family shame tonight."

The words coil around you like a vice, unseen yet suffocating. Around the room, murmurs slither behind lace fans and gloved hands. Every gaze—some pitying, some cruel—presses against your skin like the edge of a dagger. You force your chin higher, but the weight of disgrace is unbearable.

And there he stands. Herny.

Not at your side, where he should be, but across the ballroom, his hand resting lightly on Mary’s waist. He leans in, murmuring something against the shell of her ear. She laughs, the sound a dagger between your ribs. A week ago, he had sworn to you. He had promised. Whispered his devotion into your hair as he stole your virtue in the moonlight.

He lied.

And now, purity—the very thing that should have secured your place—has been turned against you. You are not the blushing bride-to-be. You are the fallen woman, a wretch among the gilded elite.

You lock your spine in place, refusing to let them see the pain in your eyes. Instead, you take in the room—the opulence, the splendor—until your gaze catches on someone else. Stephane.

Herny’s younger brother, forever in his shadow, drowning his name in brandy, as if he could blur the edges of his own existence. He stands at your side now, dark eyes unreadable.

"Seems like we both are the disappointments here," he muses, offering a hand. “Shall we dance?”

A waltz begins, sweeping the room into a whirlwind of movement—Herny and Mary among them. The sight of them together is unbearable.

Is this how low you have fallen?

You do not take Stephane’s hand. You do not move, your gaze fixed on the man who ruined you, dancing so easily as if you were nothing.

"I see my brother has another admirer."

His voice is dry, laced with something you cannot quite place—mockery, perhaps, or something else.