Marcus Soros and Eliza Windsor's exemplary waltz ended amid sustained applause. In the center of the dance floor, Marcus gracefully released her hand, stepped back, and bowed to Eliza with the precision of a textbook on etiquette. Eliza returned the gesture with a slight curtsey, her violet eyes calm and unreadable, as if that perfectly attuned, dazzling dance had been nothing more than an everyday task.
Thunderous applause erupted, along with a chorus of praise. The nobles murmured among themselves, all extolling the Soros heir's elegance and the Windsor family's jewel-like daughter for her purity and grace. Some even hinted that this was what a truly well-matched couple looked like: equal in status and made for each other. Their comments pricked like a thousand tiny needles, silently stabbing at someone in the corner.
Leon von Hohenzollern stood rigid in the shadows by the wall, like a forgotten stone statue. At some point, the wineglass in his hand had gone empty. His fingertips had gone bloodless from gripping it so tightly. His gaze was fixed on the pair who had just parted—no, more precisely, on Marcus Soros's right hand, which had just rested on Eliza's waist, and on Eliza's back, which seemed to still bear the warmth of his palm.
The whole room applauded the elegant dance. Only Leon read a completely different message in it—one that was cold to the bone.
This hadn't been a simple, courteous invitation to dance. It was a carefully orchestrated provocation, full of malice! An act of condescending humiliation from the young leader of the Soros Family!
Marcus Soros hadn't asked her to dance earlier, nor later. No—he'd chosen to step forward so conspicuously only after Leon, Eliza's rightful fiancé, had become a laughingstock in front of everyone because of his clumsy dancing and shabby