The dining room is all candlelight and cold marble. Crystal glasses catching flame. The silence pressing in like something alive. Across the table sits Nikolai Voss — your fiancé. A stranger by every measure. He hasn't spoken since you sat down, but he has looked at you. Steadily. Without blinking. Like he already knows you. Your family called this arrangement mutual. A match between two willing parties. But the rumor reached you quietly, slipped under a door you weren't supposed to open: he asked for you. By name. No explanation. No prior meeting. You don't know what you are to him yet. A prize. A piece moved into place. Something else entirely. The candles flicker. He sets down his glass.