The nobody who became the sovereign

Chapter 5

The car rolled smoothly through the relentless downpour. Outside the fog-slicked windows, the massive iron gates of the estate loomed into view, dripping with mist.

"You're staying in my quarters tonight," she said the moment the engine cut, her voice leaving no room for argument. "We're making the announcement tomorrow morning."

"Agreed," he replied without hesitation. "Though I have one condition."

"Name it," she answered.

"There are things about my past you aren't going to understand right away," he murmured, watching the rain streak the glass. "As long as none of it threatens you or your city, and I give you my word it won't, we don't go digging for answers neither of us is ready to give. Deal?"

She held his gaze for a long moment, appraising him the way a seasoned tactician might size up unfamiliar ground.

"Deal," she said.

The council hall was packed. Roughly three hundred of the city's elite stood shoulder to shoulder in the vaulted room, every last one of them whispering about why they had been summoned before a single official word was spoken. Gossip always traveled faster than ledgers in this town.

He stood beside her near the dais, dressed in a sharply tailored coat she had practically forced him into. He would have preferred something far plainer, but he figured it was best to let her keep thinking he was the penniless outsider she took him for.

"This is completely insane," a voice grumbled from the second row, loud enough to carry. "She's marrying a nobody just to spite her uncle. This isn't politics. It's a temper tantrum."

"Still better than handing the whole district to the Cross family," a woman whispered right back.

The remark stung, but he kept his expression carved from stone. He was getting better at hiding his reactions, or perhaps he had simply learned that most insults weren't worth acknowledging.

Harlan Vale pushed himself up from his chair near the front, his face dark with suppressed rage.

"Xena. A word. Right now."

"Whatever you have to say can be said right here, Uncle," she replied smoothly, her voice easily filling the cavernous space without a hint of strain. "The Council requires a formal announcement, and I've given one. Darian Vale and I are engaged. The paperwork fulfilling the stability clause was filed this morning."

"You've lost your mind," Harlan barked, his eyes sweeping over Darian from head to toe with the exact same look of casual disgust Evander had given him the night before, as though he were some piece of debris scraped off a boot. "The man has no lineage. No coin. No family backing to speak of. From what I hear, he was dragged through the mud at his own promotion ceremony less than twenty-four hours ago by his ex-fiancée's family."

A wave of muffled laughter rippled through the crowd.

"You keep remarkably good track of my affairs, Uncle," she noted, unperturbed. "I'm almost impressed by how fast the rumor mill works for you."

Harlan's jaw tightened, momentarily thrown off by the deflection.

"That isn't the point. The point is that you are handing our family name to a vagabond who brings nothing to the table."

"He provides precisely what the stability clause demands," she countered evenly. "A husband with zero competing ambitions. No rival factions pulling his strings behind the scenes. No desire to wrest control of my estate." She pinned her uncle with a hard, unblinking stare. "You spent four months telling me I needed a spouse who couldn't threaten my authority. Well, congratulations, Uncle. You got your wish."

The room erupted into a mix of scandalized gasps and cynical amusement. Harlan's face flushed a deep, mottled red, caught between outright fury and public humiliation.

A few yards away, Lord Evander Cross sat with his arms folded across his chest, watching the exchange with narrowed eyes. Beside him, Gideon Veyne leaned over, murmuring something into his ear. Whatever was said, Evander's expression hardened instantly, shifting from mild annoyance into something cold and calculating.

"Vale," Evander called out, his voice cutting cleanly through the murmur of the crowd, designed to draw every eye in the room. "Quite the rapid turnaround for a fellow I had to slap in front of a dozen witnesses just last night."

Darian felt his pulse spike, but he kept his tone completely flat.

"Circumstances have a way of shifting in twelve hours, Lord Cross."

"Do they?" Evander stood up, brushing down his vest with deliberate, theatrical slowness, clearly relishing the sudden shift of attention. "Tell me, does Lady Vale know about our little scene last evening? The proposal? The ring? The waterworks?"

"There were no tears," Darian answered coolly.

"Plenty of people in that room would tell you otherwise," Evander smiled thinly, glancing around the chamber to garner silent nods of agreement from the onlookers. "I have to wonder if she'd still find you useful if she knew you spent last night crawling on your knees to another woman before settling for whatever this farce is."

A knot tightened in Darian's chest, not from the sting of the jab, but from the simmering rage he had been holding in check since the previous night. Evander's arrogance was becoming insufferable. Once this alliance was locked in, he was going to have to deal with him permanently.

He glanced sideways to gauge Xena's reaction, but she didn't even flinch.

"I am well aware of what happened last night, Lord Cross," she stated, her voice dropping the temperature in the room. "I happened to be watching most of it from my car."

She turned her full, razor-sharp focus onto him.

"What I find fascinating is that you felt the urge to publicly torment a complete stranger at a gathering that had nothing to do with you, simply because the Veyne family dragged you along like a lapdog to handle their dirty work. It tells me a great deal about the kind of partner you would have made."

An absolute hush fell over the hall.

Darian felt a sudden surge of respect for the woman standing beside him. She hadn't blinked, hadn't questioned him, and hadn't taken the bait. She had simply seized the insult and thrown it right back where it belonged.

Evander's polished facade cracked, color rushing to his cheeks.

"Watch your tongue, Lady Vale."

"I make it a rule to be careful," she replied smoothly. "Careful enough to steer clear of men who take their marching orders from their father-in-law."

Snickers broke out across the floor, sharper this time and directed squarely at Evander instead of Darian. Gideon Veyne scowled darkly, while Evander's cousins, Ronan and Alaric, shifted uneasily, suddenly finding the polished floorboards fascinating.

Darian kept his silence. He simply stood back and watched the room's mood pivot on a single sentence, realizing something about the woman beside him that had escaped him until just now.

She had just made a mortal enemy out of the most powerful house in the city, and judging by the look in her eye, she didn't regret a single syllable.