Chapter 3: Invitation

Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Invitation

One year earlier

Sebastian Fitzgeralt received the Crown Prince of Palatine’s wedding invitation while barefoot, undercaffeinated, and considering whether throwing his phone into the ornamental lake would constitute an unreasonable response to family.

Fitzgeralt Manor had been awake for hours around him.

Rain had passed over the estate before dawn, leaving the lawns beyond the library windows dark green and shining. Water still clung to the old stone terraces and gathered along the carved balustrades, while the dense trees surrounding the property shifted beneath a mild western wind. The house itself retained the bones of the manor Sebastian had grown up in—gray stone, high ceilings, dark timber, generations of portraits judging everyone from unnecessarily elaborate frames—but almost everything behind the walls had been modernized.

Sebastian had claimed the library because nobody else wanted it before breakfast.

He wore loose black trousers and a charcoal shirt with the sleeves pushed carelessly to his elbows. His dark hair was still damp from the shower, and the coffee beside his tablet had been abandoned long enough to develop the particular smell of something no longer worth drinking.

A cream envelope rested on the desk.

Heavy paper. Gold embossing. Royal crest.

ZION OF PALATINE

Sebastian stared at it.

His phone rang again.

The name on the screen was also Zion.

"You sent me an invitation and called me at the same time," Sebastian said when he answered. "Was one method of harassment insufficient?"

The image settled.

Zion was sitting behind a desk in the Crown Prince’s private office at the palace, dressed considerably better than Sebastian in a fitted navy suit and pale shirt, although his tie had already disappeared. Sunlight from the capitol came through the windows behind him, catching in short blond hair that looked recently cut. His green eyes moved immediately past Sebastian toward the envelope visible on the desk.

"You opened it."

"I picked it up."

"That explains why it remains closed."

Sebastian turned the envelope over between two fingers. "I assumed the enormous royal crest was meant to intimidate me into compliance."

"It intimidates most people."

"We shared bath toys."

Zion’s mouth tightened.

Sebastian smiled faintly.

"Those memories are treason now," Zion informed him.

"Excellent. Execute me and I won’t need to attend the wedding."

"That is precisely why I called."

Sebastian finally broke the seal.

The invitation inside was everything expected from a Palatine royal wedding: a thick ivory card, restrained gold borders, and several lines of ceremonial titles before reaching the names anyone actually cared about.

He read the date.

Then read it again.

"You’re getting married in six weeks."

"Yes."

"And you are only now formally inviting me?"

"You have known for months."

"Knowing you managed to convince someone to marry you is not the same thing as receiving a date."

Zion shifted in his chair and reached for something outside the camera. A coffee appeared in his hand.

"I considered delivering it personally."

Sebastian raised his eyes.

"Then I remembered Fitzgeralt is three hours from the capital by air, and I have a government to help run."

"You have a royal aircraft."

"I also possess basic judgment."

"That would be a recent development."

Zion ignored that. "Besides, if I flew there solely to hand you an invitation, you would spend the entire visit telling me I could have called."

Sebastian considered the accusation and found no flaw in it.

"Yes."

"Exactly."

He placed the invitation beside the tablet.

There was no question of whether he would attend. Zion was his cousin, technically, but that word had always been too inadequate for the way their family operated. Sebastian had watched him grow into the position he now occupied, had fought with him, trained with him, covered for him, and once helped remove evidence of an incident involving an antique carriage that neither of them had been licensed to drive.

Zion knew Sebastian would be there.

Which meant there was another reason for the call.

Sebastian leaned against the edge of the desk. "Who accepted?"

Zion drank his coffee.

That confirmed it.

"Most of the major houses."

"Not what I asked."

"The Alaminians confirmed yesterday. Belvare is sending the heir. Saha—"

Sebastian reached for his own coffee, remembered its condition after the cup reached his mouth, and put it down again.

Zion’s green eyes narrowed with entirely too much perception.

"Saha," Sebastian repeated.

"King Dax and Consort Christopher are attending."

Sebastian waited.

Zion made him wait deliberately.

Annoying bastard.

"And the Crown Prince?" Sebastian asked at last.

"Nero accepted."

Sebastian looked toward the windows.

Rainwater slid slowly down the glass.

Nothing about the answer should have mattered. Royal heirs attended royal weddings. Nero would have been invited regardless of whatever existed or emphatically did not exist between them.

Still, Sebastian’s hand tightened slightly against the desk.

Zion noticed.

"He is not going to eat you," Zion said.

Sebastian looked back at the screen. "You have remarkable faith in a man you know personally."

"That is fair."

"Nero once threatened to throw a minister from a balcony because the man interrupted his dessert."

"He was sixteen."

"He still thinks he was right."

"He probably was."

Sebastian gave him a flat look.

Zion abandoned his attempt at neutrality. "I am asking you not to turn my wedding into whatever the two of you have been doing for the last several years."

"We have been doing nothing."

"That may actually be the problem."

Sebastian’s jaw tightened.

Zion saw that too.

His cousin had become irritatingly observant somewhere between inheriting serious political responsibilities and surviving enough royal scandals to understand that silence usually concealed something worse.

"Nero will be there," Zion continued. "You will be there. I cannot seat Saha in another building."

"Try."

"I considered it."

That earned Zion the smallest curve of Sebastian’s mouth.

Then Zion became more serious.

"You know he hasn’t changed his mind."

Sebastian’s amusement disappeared.

He looked down at the invitation.

He knew.

Nero had made certain he knew for years.

The first time Sebastian had dismissed it as a younger man confusing fixation with permanence. Then months became years, and Nero’s interest did not fade. It matured, becoming less noisy, and considerably more dangerous.

Sebastian had responded by giving him nothing.

Absolutely no reason to believe patience would eventually be rewarded.

It had not helped.

"I don’t care what Nero has decided," Sebastian said.

Zion watched him for another second before leaning back.

"All right."

That simple acceptance irritated Sebastian more than an argument would have.

He picked up the invitation again.

"Dress code?"

"Formal."

"This entire family needs a new adjective."

"Wear black. You already own enough of it to outfit a funeral procession."

Sebastian glanced down at himself.

"And Sebastian?"

"What?"

"Try to enjoy yourself."

Sebastian disconnected.

He set the phone beside the invitation and stood alone in the quiet library while rain tapped softly from the trees outside.

For several moments, neither Zion’s wedding nor the reports waiting on his tablet occupied his thoughts.

Instead, he saw pale hair, purple eyes, and a hand covered in blood.

Sebastian closed his eyes until the image disappeared.

Just another nightmare.

He had been telling himself that for years.