Chapter 324 v4 - 25: the imperial banquet III

Chapter 324: v4 Chapter 25: the imperial banquet III

Part Three — Marian

Marian saw him before she heard his name.

She did not know why she looked.

One moment, her attention was on Lorenz as he introduced another member of the Milician delegation.

The next—

her eyes found a man farther down the table.

The man sat among the Milician nobles with an ease that made him seem entirely at home.

Dark hair.

A strong jaw.

A carefully kept beard.

Broad shoulders beneath his formal coat.

He was striking.

Very striking.

But it was not his appearance alone that caught her.

It was something she could not name.

Something about the way he sat.

The way he held himself.

The quiet angle of his head as he listened.

Marian’s fingers tightened around her glass.

Her heart gave one hard, painful beat.

Then another.

She stared.

For one moment, the banquet hall seemed to recede.

The chandeliers.

The music.

The voices around her.

Even Adrian beside her.

Everything blurred at the edges.

There was only that man.

And something deep inside her answered before her mind could.

Cassian.

The name did not feel remembered.

It felt recognized.

Marian’s breath caught sharply.

No.

Her pulse began to race.

That was impossible.

Cassian was dead.

She knew that.

Six years since the news had reached her.

Five years since she had last mourned him.

Four years since she had eventually learned to live with his absence and built a life of her own.

A happy life.

A life she loved.

A life with Adrian.

Cassian was part of her past.

So why—

Why did looking at this stranger feel like being struck by something she had not even realized was still buried inside her?

Marian blinked.

She looked again.

The man was still there.

He was older than the Cassian she remembered.

Of course he was.

Six years had passed.

But there was something about his face.

Something beneath the darker hair and carefully trimmed beard.

The shape of his eyes.

The straight line of his nose.

The familiar angle of his cheekbones.

The way his mouth rested when he was not speaking.

Marian’s stomach twisted.

It was not an exact likeness.

That was what made it so difficult.

If he had looked precisely like Cassian, she could have dismissed it immediately.

But this was subtler.

A resemblance hidden beneath age, distance, and changes she could not explain.

The face of a man she did not know.

And yet—

the face of someone she had once known better than anyone.

Her throat tightened.

Perhaps she was simply seeing what she wanted to see.

No.

That wasn’t right either.

She had not been thinking about Cassian.

She had not been waiting for him.

She had not even imagined him tonight.

She had been sitting beside her husband, enjoying the evening, listening to the introductions.

And then she had looked across the room.

That was all.

So why had her heart recognized him?

Marian looked again.

Then the man looked up.

Their eyes met.

Her heart seemed to stop.

She could not move.

For one suspended second, she simply looked at him.

His eyes were not exactly the same as Cassian’s.

They were darker, perhaps.

Harder.

But the shape of them—

the way they fixed on her—

sent a strange shock through her.

Then his gaze dropped.

He looked away.

Marian remained still.

Something inside her trembled.

She did not know what the look meant.

Perhaps he had simply noticed her staring and, out of courtesy, looked away.

Perhaps he had not truly seen her at all.

If he was Cassian, he would know her.

He would know exactly who she was.

But if he was not Cassian, then the moment meant nothing.

He had only glanced up, found a stranger watching him, and looked away.

That was all.

Marian lowered her eyes to the table.

Her thoughts felt suddenly disordered.

She told herself not to look again.

She lasted perhaps three seconds.

Then she looked.

He was listening to the introduction taking place farther down the table.

He did not look toward her.

Marian studied him quietly.

There were differences.

There had to be.

His hair was darker.

The beard changed the shape of his face.

His jaw was heavier.

He looked older.

More mature.

More like a man than the young nobleman she remembered.

And perhaps that was all it was.

A man who happened to resemble someone she had once loved.

Nothing more.

She glanced toward Adrian.

He appeared completely unaware of anything unusual.

His attention remained on Lorenz and the introductions.

He had not looked toward the man again.

Marian’s chest tightened.

If Adrian saw nothing, perhaps there was nothing to see.

She turned her eyes back.

Still there.

Still him—

No.

She stopped herself.

Not him.

She could not think that way.

The herald continued calling names.

Marian listened.

She tried to concentrate.

She failed.

Her gaze kept drifting toward the Milician delegation.

Not obviously.

Never for long.

She would look when no one seemed to notice.

Then, whenever she sensed that the man might be looking in her direction, her eyes would immediately return to her plate.

Once, she waited a little longer.

Nothing.

She looked again.

He was facing elsewhere.

Marian watched him for another moment.

Her heart beat strangely, too fast and too hard.

She hated that she was doing this.

She did not even know him.

She should not be studying a foreign nobleman across the banquet table as though she were trying to solve some impossible mystery.

And yet—

she could not stop.

Every resemblance pulled at her.

The eyes.

The nose.

The line of his mouth.

The way he held himself.

The way her own body had reacted before her mind could reason with it.

Lorenz called another name.

The man remained seated.

Marian’s gaze stayed on him.

Then Lorenz paused.

"Marquess Carlo of Valmere."

The man rose.

Marian went cold.

Carlo.

The name settled into the silence.

Not Cassian.

Carlo.

Marquess Carlo of Valmere.

For a moment, Marian simply stared.

Then reason rushed back in.

Of course.

There was a name.

A title.

A history.

A man standing before her whom everyone else clearly recognized as someone else.

The possibility that she was wrong became suddenly easier to accept.

Perhaps it really was only a resemblance.

Perhaps six years of memory had made her see Cassian where there was only a stranger.

Perhaps the shock of seeing a face that reminded her of him had been enough to make everything else disappear for a moment.

That had to be it.

It was the reasonable explanation.

Marian watched as Carlo bowed toward the Imperial table with the composed courtesy expected of a foreign nobleman.

Nothing in his expression betrayed anything.

Nothing in the room suggested anything unusual.

No one reacted.

No one stared.

No one whispered.

No one seemed to see Cassian.

Only her.

Her certainty faltered.

Perhaps she was wrong.

She looked at him again.

He returned to his seat.

He did not look at her.

Marian lowered her gaze.

Carlo.

She repeated the name silently.

Carlo of Valmere.

Not Cassian.

Not the man she had loved.

Not the man she had mourned.

Just a stranger who happened to resemble him.

That was all.

It had to be.

And yet—

Marian’s heart still felt as though it had recognized him before she had.

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Tbc