My Unchosen Ex Chases Reborn Me (Soren and Fiona) novel Chapter 13

Chapter 13 Imperial Banter

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The feast slid effortlessly into a pageant of music and movement. Princess Aurora of Brorchester stepped onto the lantern–washed platform, a slender blade catching each crimson beam. She spun, leaped, and slashed through imaginary foes with a soldier’s precision yet a poet’s rhythm. By the final flourish, every cup was forgotten; the hall thundered with approving cries.

Fiona sat beside Ulrich, shoulders drawn in, letting the velvet shadows swallow her pale gown. Neither the Sixth Prince nor the sharp–eyed, ever–meddling Soren spared her so much as a glance.

Yet she never saw the sword dance to its end; unease kept tugging at her sleeve.

A maid slipped up behind her, silent as falling dust, and bent to whisper, “Ms. Fiona, Ms. Wagner is asking for you.”

One look at the maid’s strained eyes told Fiona something had gone terribly wrong. She rose at once and followed the girl out of the glowing pavilion.

Backstage smelled of crushed rouge and nervous sweat. Yolanda spun toward her. Moisture trembled on her lower lashes. “Fiona, what am I supposed to do?” she blurted.

Fiona laid a calming hand on her arm. “Yolanda, breathe. Tell me everything from the start.”

She had arranged a dazzling routine, perfect in her mind, until a fellow dancer hissed a warning just prior to that. A pose that was common in Duflana, which was prohibited in Brorchester, was considered a vicious mockery of their royal excesses.

If that scene played before Princess Aurora, Yolanda could never shoulder the consequences it would bring between the two countries.

“Then this dance cannot go on,” Fiona responded calmly.

Yolanda nodded hard. “I’ll replace it with another routine. The troupe practices that endlessly, they won’t misstep. The catch is that we’re missing a performer.”

Fiona understood at once. She knew the steps by heart, yet a daughter of the Niven family sharing a stage with professional dancers would stain her family’s pride.

However, Yolanda was engaged to Ulrich. Any disgrace that befell the Wagner family would splash straight onto the Niven family.

Fiona weighed advantages and ruin, and remembered how sincerely Yolanda had always

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Chapter 13 Imperial Banter

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treated her; the plea could not have come lightly.

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She lowered her voice. “Yolanda, this stays between us. If anyone asks, say I’m feeling unwell and resting in your tent.”

Yolanda nodded, then turned to a maid. “Put on Fiona’s gown and lie in my quarters. If someone enters, keep silent and pretend to sleep.”

Behind a painted screen, Fiona slipped out of her linen day dress and into the satin costume, designed to celebrate every curve. When she emerged, Yolanda glanced up and color seared across her cheeks.

Guided by Yolanda, Fiona joined the troupe backstage and ran through the routine once, her body finding the familiar arc of each bend without a slip.

To hide her identity, she bound a sheer veil over her face and kept her tongue still. Moments later, she followed the other dancers onto the brightly lit stage.

Though positioned away from the center, she felt dozens of deliberate or accidental stares brush against her skin like embers.

She stole a glance at Xavier; his brows knit, suspicion flickering in his eyes.

Then her gaze flicked to Soren. He held her stare a heartbeat before turning toward the empty seat next to Ulrich.

Fiona’s stomach dropped; a chill shot up her spine and burst against her scalp.

There was no time to dwell. The strings and flutes struck their first chord. Fiona moved, every motion a river of silk–her waist bending like a willow, her sleeves fluttering like spring pear

blossoms.

The single routine stretched into eternity, each second dilating around her racing heartbeat.

The moment the final note of the music died, Fiona dipped into her closing bow, then all but fled the candle–lit platform. Her pulse still thrummed with the rhythm of the dance when she caught sight of Zephyr Marchmont, the Sixth Prince, seated in the royal gallery, staring at her with a steady, unmistakable hunger.

She had sworn never to let the Sixth Prince near her again. Power pooled around men like him, thick as storm clouds, and in her previous life, she had learned how easily lightning struck. He had scorned her in public, yet tried to cage her as a concubine in private. That lesson was carved deep enough to ache even at that moment.

So she gathered her skirts and flew down the corridor, a wisp of silk racing the shadows that

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14:37 Fri, Oct 10

Chapter 13 Imperial Banter

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