The bedroom was dim and quiet, the way Ruby preferred it in the evenings. She had drawn the curtains back from the tall window herself, dismissing the maid who had tried to do it for her, because she wanted to stand here alone and look out at the estate that had been her world for years.

The grounds of Dravengard stretched below her, lit by the glow of the lamplights, familiar and beautiful and entirely hers in every way that mattered.

She lifted her glass of wine and took a slow sip.

Tomorrow, the guards at her door would step aside. Tomorrow, her house arrest would officially be over.

She had counted every single one of those fourteen days the way a prisoner counts walls. She had smiled through them, maintained her composure in front of the staff, taken her meals quietly, and given nobody any reason to report anything back to Derek beyond the image of a woman accepting her punishment with grace.

Inside, it had been an entirely different matter. Inside, she had been coiled so tightly she was surprised she hadn’t snapped. But tomorrow, all of that ended.

"I can almost smell the fresh air already," Ruby murmured.

She didn’t turn around to look at her friend, Sasha, who was busy rifling through a rolling rack of designer clothes that had arrived that afternoon from the boutique. Three dozen pieces, all carefully selected, because Ruby was not walking back into full court society in anything less than perfect.

"The blue one," she said, throwing a glance over her shoulder.

"The cobalt blue with the draped neckline?" Sasha asked.

"No. The midnight one. The structured shoulders."

"Ah." A pause. "Yes. That one is serious. It says business."

"That is exactly what it says." Ruby swirled the wine in her glass. "The palace should be ready for me. Two weeks is long enough for things to get comfortable without me."

Sasha made a sound of agreement.

"How are the ladies?" Ruby asked.

Sasha snorted. "They have been buzzing, Ruby. You know how they are. Two weeks of silence from the King’s favourite ’person’ is like a year in the gossip world." She dropped her voice. "The ladies are dying to know if you fell out of favour or if you were simply... indisposed."

Ruby’s grip on the wine glass tightened slightly. "Let them wonder. Speculation keeps them interested. I’ll give them the tea myself soon enough."

She turned slightly. "Send formal invitations to the ladies of the court," she said. "Mated and unmated both. I want to host a luncheon. Something elegant. Flowers, proper place settings, good food. None of that buffet nonsense." 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"Of course." Sasha was already typing a note into her phone. "Should I include the Queen?"

Ruby let the question sit for a moment. She turned the glass slowly between her fingers, watching the deep red wine inside.

"Of course," she said, and smiled. "We need the Queen of Dravengard present in our midst, don’t we?"

Sasha looked up. "And the men?"

"Ladies only." Ruby said firmly. "This is a luncheon, not a court assembly."

She had thought about this carefully during the long, tedious days of her confinement, in the hours between performing serenity for the staff.

Walking back into Dravengard’s full social circle with men present meant walking directly back into Derek’s line of sight before she had rebuilt her footing.

He would be watching. She needed the women first. The women were where the real power of any court lived, in the conversations that happened over food and soft music, in the alliances built between unmated females and high-ranking wives, in the whisper networks that moved faster than any official communication.

She knew how to work that room better than anyone.

The men could wait.

"Speaking of the King," she said, keeping her voice light and conversational, "how is the marriage faring? Anything interesting so far?"

Sasha set down her phone and sighed. "Well, the reports coming back from Snow Crest were... frustratingly positive. They say the King dotes on her, Ruby. Alpha Lucas’s guests claimed he almost went feral when that Umbra assassin attacked during the banquet and nearly killed Alpha Lucas when she went missing."

Ruby’s hand suddenly went very still.

A hot, sharp thing moved through her chest, tight and ugly, pressing against her ribs from the inside. She breathed through it quietly, the way she had trained herself to do over years of wanting things she had not yet taken. She was a master of her own mask. She took another sip of wine and let out a dry, airy chuckle.

"How dedicated," she said, setting the glass down on the windowsill carefully. "The King working so hard to convince everyone he actually loves his wife. All for show, obviously. You know how these arrangements are."

Sasha was quiet for half a second too long.

Ruby looked at her.

Sasha moved closer to the window, dropping her voice as though the walls had ears, which in Dravengard they often did.

"Ruby," she said carefully, "It might be more than a performance. Since they returned from the honeymoon, he has tripled her security detail. The household staff have standing orders to treat her like she’s made of glass.

"Ishita asks her what she is craving before every single meal and prepares it all, apparently. And the other day—" she paused, glancing at the door, "the kitchen staff said the Queen cooked for him herself. He ate every last drop and that evening the two of them were in his study until late, laughing and carrying on like children."

Ruby said nothing.

Sasha hesitated, then pressed forward. She had already said too much to stop. "If you ask me, and I know you didn’t, he is beginning to truly dote on her. Perhaps because she is—" another hesitation, "carrying an heir."

Ruby turned.

She turned slowly, the way she did when she needed a moment to arrange her face into something that did not betray her. She looked at Sasha with eyes that were very still and very flat.

"What?"

Sasha’s eyes darted around in misery. "It’s only rumour. From the staff. But the way he is treating her, the food, the guards, the care—it’s not how a man treats a wife he is only performing for. And if she is pregnant—"

"Keep your mouth shut," Ruby said quietly.

Sasha closed it immediately.

Ruby turned back to the window. Her fingers were digging into her palm. She breathed in. Out. Slow and even.

She was not going to panic. She was not going to allow herself the luxury.

She had given Ishita very specific instructions weeks ago. She asked her to put a particular herbal blend into the Queen’s daily meals under the guise of a fertility medicine.

Nothing that would harm the girl directly. Nothing traceable. Just something that would quietly ensure that a pregnancy did not take root. Ishita did not know what the mixture was truly for. The old woman thought she was simply following orders to add a supplement to the Queen’s food for general wellbeing.

What had that old fool been doing?