House Serraris Estate
Location: Risk it for the biscuit!
Aurelian Veruna
It felt as if Sibylla’s heart was thundering in her ears, the world around her dissolving into the soft blur of motion and music. Yet, her mind was racing -- racing through months of their growing friendship, of revelations and changes, of all the ways life had shifted since Wielu.
She could still see it, that battlefield of words and silence where everything between them had changed, when she had broken down to Aurelian in the wake of it all that she didn’t want to have to keep up masks or pretenses with him when she already had to do so with everyone one else -- and how he’d agreed that he would try. Since then, she had come to know Aurelian not as the politician or the Prince of Parrlay, but as the man behind the masks and the dangerous charming smile. The man who made mistakes, who could laugh easily, who could lived freely. And somewhere in those quiet, stolen hours, she had begun to care for him in ways she had never thought or wouldve allowed herself to.
When he had kissed her back on Kadaarra, she hadn't been ready. Her heart had still been caught elsewhere, tangled in what she thought love was supposed to be. She had shoved him away, confused and angry at herself for feeling anything at all. But this time, as his thumb brushed her jaw and the air between them thrummed with the weight of everything unspoken, Sibylla knew with frightening clarity that this was different.
This was a
choice.
She wasn't reeling from heartbreak or expectation. She wasn't a dutiful daughter or a poised diplomat weighing consequence. For once, she wasn't thinking about her reputation, her House, or the courtly eyes that might be watching even with the annonminity of the masks. She was thinking only of
him.
Of Aurelian.
Of the man who had pushed her to live again when all she'd wanted to was to drown herself in work. Who had seen through her masks as easily as she saw through his. Who had made her laugh when she thought she'd forgotten how.
And yes, the thought
terrified her. The possibility of something real, something that could burn brighter than it should. The risk of it unraveling everything they had built. But wasn't that what she'd
always done? Step back when it mattered most, silence herself out of duty or fear until the moment passed and she was left wondering what might have been?
Not this time.
Her mind flashed with the doubts she'd whispered to him, to Ace, to Dominique. About choice, expectation, and the uneasy question of
who she truly was beneath it all. She'd spent so long wondering whether her decisions were ever truly her own. But now, as she stood in his arms, with the world spinning and his voice catching softly on her name, she knew one thing with absolute certainty.
This was
hers.
Aurelian spun her one last time, and when he caught her again, his hand found the small of her back, his breath warm against her cheek and her heart stuttered and tore through the last of her hesitation.
He was right there, his thumb tracing the edge of her mask, his gaze burning with something raw, tender, and wordless. The tension was unbearable. The ache of weeks of indescion cracked open inside her, spilling into the space between them.
He leaned in.
And this time, Sibylla didn't flinch.
She didn't think of the consequences, or the court, or what tomorrow might bring. She didn't think at all.
She simply moved, leaning up into him, her lips finding his, soft at first, then certain. The world around them fell away, the orchestra fading into silence, the lanternlight blurring to gold. Her hand slid up to his chest, feeling the quickening thrum of his heart beneath her palm. Everything feeling heady and electric all at once.
And this time, she
didn't hold back.
This time, she kissed him because she
wanted to. Because she knew
exactly who he was, and who she was with him.
No duty. No mask. No fear.
Just them.