Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina

Chapter 300: Seating Arrangement

A week before the imperial wedding, Sylvia discovered that betrayal could arrive in cream paper, gold ink, and the handwriting of a palace protocol secretary who had probably never committed a crime in her life.

The seating arrangement sat on the long table in the private planning room like an execution order pretending to be stationery.

Sylvia stared at it.

Then stared at it harder.

No change occurred.

Beside the ceremonial procession chart, beneath the finalized witness placements, between three columns labeled attendants, noble escorts, and foreign household positions, her name had been written with perfect, devastating clarity.

Lady Sylvia Croft—lady-in-waiting procession partner: Commander Thomas Lancaster.

Sylvia closed her eyes.

Opened them again.

Still there.

She inhaled through her nose and said, very calmly, "Dean."

Dean, who had been standing near the window with a cup of coffee in one hand and the dangerous expression of a man pretending not to anticipate consequences, did not turn around quickly enough.

That was how Sylvia knew.

He knew.

The traitor knew.

Dean took one slow sip of coffee.

Sylvia turned the paper toward him with two fingers. "Would you like to explain why I have been assigned to walk beside Thomas Lancaster?"

Dean glanced over his shoulder.

His expression was innocent in the way knives were innocent when they had not yet been picked up.

"Oh," he said. "That."

Sylvia stared at him.

The planning room was warm, bright, and too beautiful for violence. Rolls of fabric sat stacked on one side. Floral samples filled half the room with the smell of white roses, citrus blossoms, and expensive restraint. Beyond the tall windows, the imperial palace gardens had been half conquered by wedding construction. Staff moved between temporary arches and ceremonial platforms with the quiet panic of people who understood that one wrong ribbon could become an international incident.

Sylvia had survived weeks of this.

She had survived dress fittings, etiquette reviews, seating diagrams, security briefings, university deadlines, three palace lectures on the difference between consort-adjacent attendants and ceremonial witnesses, and one terrifying afternoon in which Empress Minerva had looked at napkin folds and made an entire room reconsider its loyalty to geometry.

She had not survived this.

"That," Sylvia repeated.

Dean finally faced her fully.

He looked unfairly calm for someone who deserved to be buried under floral samples.

"You are one of my attendants," he said. "Thomas is part of the Rohan delegation attached to the military escort. The pairing is logical."

"Logical."

"Yes."

"Dean."

"Yes?"

"I want to love you and kill you at the same time."

Dean’s mouth twitched.

"Balanced emotions," he said. "Good. That means the wedding preparations are maturing you."

Sylvia picked up the seating card.

Dean’s eyes dropped to it.

"Don’t throw that," he said. "It took three committees to finalize the ink shade."

"I’m not throwing it."

"Good."

"I’m considering eating it."

"That would upset protocol more."

"It would upset me less."

Dean’s expression softened, just slightly.

Sylvia looked away first.

She had managed, for weeks, to keep the whole thing contained. That was what she told herself, at least. Thomas was in Rohan. Distance had made discipline easy. No accidental meetings. No quiet conversations. No chance to stare at him and remember Nero’s offer like a pact with the devil.

No chance to wonder what she would be if she said yes.

She had buried the thought under schoolwork, wedding duties, Dean’s chaos, fittings, schedules, and the exhausting privilege of being close enough to history to be crushed by its furniture.

It had almost worked.

Dean set his coffee down.

"Sylvia."

"No."

"I haven’t asked anything yet."

"I know your voice."

He leaned back against the window frame, watching her with that infuriating mixture of affection and suspicion that made him very hard to lie to.

"You’ve been strange."

Sylvia laughed shortly. "That is an unfair accusation coming from you."

"Stranger than usual."

"I am a university student, your friend, your attendant, your future secretary in training, and apparently a decorative pairing for a military commander during an imperial wedding. My mood has context."

Dean did not smile.

The silence that followed was gentle.

Sylvia hated gentle silences. They made it too easy to become stupid.

"You keep blaming school," Dean said.

"School is real, and you are the most real source of stress in my life."

"The second part is true," he admitted.

She gave him a sharp look.

Dean remained still.

"But it isn’t all of it," he said.

Sylvia’s fingers tightened around the card until the cream paper bent slightly.

Dean noticed.

Of course he noticed.

Everyone in this cursed social circle noticed everything.

"It can be enough," she said.

"For me?"

"For now."

His gaze sharpened.

Ah. Wrong answer.

Dean stepped away from the window.

Sylvia immediately lifted one hand. "Do not come over here with emotional competence. I am warning you."

"I don’t have emotional competence."

"You have Arion. That counts as acquired equipment."

"That is deeply insulting to both of us."

"It was meant to be."

He stopped across the table from her, close enough that she could see the faint shadows beneath his eyes. The wedding was a week away, and even Dean, who thrived under pressure out of pure spite, looked like he had been surviving on coffee, determination, and Arion’s possessive management.

He looked happy too.

That was the cruel part.

Tired, stressed, sharp-tongued, increasingly imperial in ways he probably had not noticed yet, but happy.

Sylvia loved him for it.

She wanted to kill him for the seating card.

Both emotions could coexist. She was learning that adulthood was mostly just surviving contradictions with better shoes.

Dean looked at the card in her hand. "I didn’t arrange it to hurt you."

"I know."

His mouth pressed into a thin line.

She sighed and dropped the card onto the table between them.

"I’m not mad because you paired me with him," she said. "I’m mad because part of me is relieved."

Dean went still.

Sylvia rubbed both hands over her face and muttered, "Wonderful. I have accidentally confessed emotional treason before lunch."

Dean’s voice softened. "Sylvia."