Page 16 of Nikolay

“The floor was active,” I continued, hearing formality settle over my voice like armor, “and she appeared distracted during a demonstration. Her section was not being attended with appropriate consistency. I corrected the issue poorly, perhaps, but my concern was not invented.”

Kazimir remained silent.

In that silence, I heard how thin the explanation was and hated it for being all I had to offer.

“Obsidian is not a casual establishment,” I said, making myself continue because stopping now would have looked too much like surrender. “Its standards exist for reasons beyond mere presentation. Staff cannot permit themselves to become part of the spectacle. A lapse that might be inconsequential elsewhere can become dangerous here.”

Still, he said nothing.

It was one of his oldest weapons, and one of the most effective. People rushed to fill silence. I had spent centuries learning not to. Yet under his gaze I felt the old reflex stirring all the same: the pressure to keep justifying, refining, dressing the poor excuse until it resembled a respectable argument.

“She is new to the environment,” I added. “Unfamiliar with certain expectations. If she intends to remain in our employ, then she must understand—”

“Why,” my father asked again, quieter than before, “have you been treating Madelyn Baucaum with such disdain?”

The question did not interrupt. It erased.

I stopped.

There was no room left in the office for business language. None for standards. None for the comfortable abstractions of performance and protocol I had tried to stack between myself and the uglier truth.

My hands closed behind my back. Hard.

For one absurd moment, I considered lying properly. Not deflecting. Lying. Saying I did not know what he meant, that Bodhan had exaggerated, that Maddie herself had misread me if she had made any complaint. But my father had ruled for nearly nine centuries. He had weathered wars, coups, betrayals, church fires, and immortals who fancied themselves subtle. To lie to him in that room would have been less strategy than insult.

I looked at the darkened glass wall rather than at him.

Then I said, “I believe she is my mate.”

The words fell into the room and altered its shape.

I do not know what I expected. Surprise, perhaps, or some minute shift in expression. But my father’s face did not change at all. If anything, he grew more still.

After a moment, he turned from me and walked toward the fireplace. Not away exactly. Rather to the side, giving the confession space to settle without immediately stepping on its throat. He stood between the marble pillars, one hand slipping into his pocket, his gaze resting not on the flames but somewhere beyond them where only centuries could see.

When he spoke, his tone remained composed. “Why is this a problem?”

I let out a breath that felt too much like the beginning of defeat.

“You have met her,” I said.

“Yes.”

“She is...” I searched for a word that would not expose me and found none. “Unsuitable.”

At that, he did glance back over his shoulder. “Unsuitable.”

The repetition did not rise enough to become mockery. That made it sting more.

“She is agreeable enough,” he said. “Intelligent. Competent. Warm. She appears to possess courage, and not the ornamental kind. Lucia speaks highly of her. Bohdan hired her willingly. Even Kyra, who is not generous with casual praise, appears to value her. So I ask again: why is this a problem?”

His calm made the answer harder, not easier. Anger might have let me respond in kind. This left me only with myself.

I forced my stare from the fire to the wall hanging beyond the desk, to the stitched royal houses and conquerors of our line. Gold thread. Crimson thread. Generations of marriages negotiated with rank, with land, with history in mind. Centuries of believing we preserved something by aligning blood with blood, power with power.

“When I imagined such a bond,” I said slowly, each word souring as it left me, “I imagined someone of standing.”

My father did not move.