The Queen's gaze snapped to the King, her eyes wide with a desperation that she couldn't mask.
"Why are you not speaking, Your Majesty?" She asked, her voice trembling, sharp and pleading all at once. "How can Regina be accepted? She has been dead to us for years—banished, gone."
Each of her words cracked like a whip, echoing through the grand hall, but the King remained silent. He leaned back in his throne, one hand resting casually on the arm, offering her no answers.
Meanwhile, Julian watched it all unfold with a smirk that was barely visible. The panic flickering in his grandmother's eyes, the way Hallie's jaw tightened like she was swallowing a scream—it was better than he had hoped.
His gaze slid to Ivan, and oh, how the mighty had fallen. The prince's earlier confidence, that inflated ego he had stood with, was cracking like a cheap glass.
