Sold To The Cruel Pr Chapter 87: The Announcement

Chapter 87: The Announcent

"Let’s go in, Mother," Theron said, forcing a smile into place.

Margrethe slipped her hand through his arm with a bright, almost triumphant smile, and stepped in beside him as though she were entering in his shadow and yet sohow still belonged to the light.

Her son was her pride.

For Theron, however, this was the last place he wanted to stand. The hall ahead was beautiful in the way sacred places were beautiful—vast, gilded, severe. It was the kind of grandeur that did not invite comfort. It demanded surrender.

And he was bound to it, whether he liked it or not.

But Aveline was not.

The thought settled in him with sudden, fierce clarity.

He had selfishly drawn her closer to this world, and now it was his burden to keep her from being crushed beneath it. Her pain returned to him in flashes, and his hands curled into fists at his sides.

She would adapt. She would grow stronger. She would find her footing. He could not let her go—not yet. Not when she was still so fragile, so uncertain of herself.

This, too, he told himself, was for her sake.

She needed the academy. She needed distance from court, from politics, from the sharp edges of everyone’s expectations. She needed ti to learn herself, to gather strength, to stand without trembling.

And when she was ready, when she had grown steady enough to bear the truth, perhaps then he would reveal who he was.

Then she would understand.

She would understand why he had hidden his identity, just like she understood why he had left without a goodbye ten years ago.

Yes, his Aveline would understand.

He would clear the path for her before she ever had to walk it.

The mont he stepped inside, the trumpets blared. It was not a simple announcent. Not the ordinary call that marked the arrival of another noble.

This was different.

The entire hall seed to awaken.

Conversations died mid-breath. Glasses paused in hands. Every head turned toward the grand archway as though so ancient force had entered with him.

Theron walked forward beneath the weight of every gaze upon him.

One by one, the nobles bowed.

Their reverence rolled through the hall like a wave, hushed and asured, as he crossed the long red carpet that divided the room. His father waited at the far end, standing with his mistress at his side and Alaric beside her.

Above the walkway, firebenders raised their hands and kindled living fla into a great arch overhead, the fire flickering and breathing like sothing alive, sothing holy. Its light danced across polished stone and gold trim, casting moving shadows that made the entire hall feel like a temple of power rather than a banquet hall.

Beyond that stood the lords of the great houses, each one sworn to House Blackwyre. Their ceremonial swords were lifted in a solemn arch, their heads bowed, one hand pressed over their hearts in formal welco.

Theron kept his gaze straight ahead.

But from the corner of his eye, he saw everything.

The subtle stir among the gathered nobles. The ones who bowed with sincere pride. The ones who bowed only because they had to. The ones who watched with quiet loyalty. And the ones who could not quite hide the rebellion simring beneath their lowered lashes.

He drew in a slow breath.

His cloak trailed behind him like a dark cot’s tail as he walked through fire and steel and silence toward the throne at the end of the hall.

When he reached his father, Margrethe gave a graceful curtsy.

Theron answered with a deep bow.

"Father, I have returned," Theron said.

He kept his voice level, but beneath the polished calm, unease stirred.

This had been announced as a feast. Yet the hall felt too prepared, too formal, too ceremonious. It did not feel like a dinner ant to welco a son ho. It felt like an event arranged with intent, as though he had been summoned to stand beneath a blade he had not yet seen.

It made little sense.

At least, not yet.

"Raise your head, son," the King said.

Theron obeyed.

Prince Alaric gave a sharp scoff. "All this spectacle for soone who spoke so grandly, and yet returned without a single monster to show for it."

Consort Ingrid nudged her son lightly, a half-hearted gesture that barely qualified as a reprimand. "Alaric."

But even she did not truly insist.

King Kevran, however, only smiled. "How could I deny my queen a royal feast when she never asks for anything?"

His eyes softened as they rested on Margrethe.

Yet Margrethe only held his gaze for a brief, stiff mont before turning her eyes toward Theron. No one but Ingrid seed to notice the flicker of hurt that crossed the King’s face when his wife refused him even that small courtesy.

Ingrid stepped closer and let her finger graze the back of his hand.

At once, the King turned toward her, and a smile blood on his face as though it had been waiting there all along.

Theron’s mouth curved faintly.

"You have not heard, have you, Alaric?" he said coolly. "Half the monsters in the forest are already dead."

He turned, lifting a hand toward the ceiling. "If you spent less ti in whorehouses and more ti training, perhaps you could have managed sothing similar."

He knew perfectly well Alaric could not.

And that, more than anything, made the other man’s expression worth provoking.

But even as he smirked, a deeper unease tightened in Theron’s chest. His mother had arranged this. That alone was enough to tell him the night was not as simple as it appeared. It felt like a trap. He was already here, already standing in the center of it, and there was no telling how much worse it could beco.

He released a beam of light from his palm.

It streaked upward into the do, striking the mirrored ceiling and scattering into brilliant shards of radiance across the grand hall as everyone cheered at the brilliance. Usually, that was where the display ended.

Not this ti.

The mirrors shifted.

The light gathered, narrowing toward one corner of the hall.

Theron lowered his hand at once.

The music changed too, softening into a slow, almost dreamlike rhythm.

Then fire burst across the air.

The grandsons of Duke Caelvaris stepped forward, raising a curtain of living fla that arched and fell in a blaze of gold and scarlet, parting the hall like a ritual opening.

And behind the curtain of fire, stood her.

"Lady Roselyn Caelvaris!" King Kevran announced, his voice carrying cleanly through the hall. "Crown Prince Vaelor Theron Blackwyre’s betrothed!"