Chapter 3 - The Weight of an Unbroken Shadow
Celeste leaned down slightly, letting her diamond earrings catch the light just inches from Silas’s face. Her voice was a purr meant only for him and the immediate onlookers.
"You're lucky anyone still remembers you," she whispered mockingly, tilting her head with a smile that carried all the arrogance of someone who believed the world belonged entirely to her generation.
For five full seconds, the ballroom seemed to lose its air. The guests who had giggled fell silent, unsettled by the complete absence of fear on the old man's face. Silas didn't blink. His expression remained utterly unreadable—calm, cold, and heavy as granite.
Then, slowly, the dark leather gloves on his hands tightened against the armrests of the wheelchair.
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It wasn't the frantic grip of an elderly man trying to steady himself. It was the deliberate, unyielding pressure of a predator waking up from a long rest. The leather creaked under the immense tension of his palms. The slight slouch in his spine vanished as his shoulders pulled back, broad and square under the dark wool of his charcoal suit.
Celeste’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. A strange, instinctual chill ran down the back of her neck, though she quickly brushed it aside, convinced that a man in a chair posed no threat to anyone in this room.
