When Queen Eleanor died — quietly, suddenly, and inconveniently — Aveline of Montelure felt nothing but clarity. For once, there were no games to play, no whispers to plant. The crown was within reach. She intensified her attentions tenfold — massaging the king's swollen, callused feet with scented tallow and mint after hot afternoons, whispering sweet things while her stomach turned. At night, she cried out beneath his weight with choreographed delight, enduring five half-hearted thrusts like a priestess in heat.

At first, everything pointed toward triumph. The king, flushed with grief and wine, grew clingy. He clutched her hand in council, nodded when she spoke out of turn. Aveline was certain it was only a matter of days before he made the announcement. That she — not some foreign lamb — would be named queen of Arsailles.

And then, one morning, she saw the portraits. They were laid out like playing cards on his writing desk: soft-faced girls with ivory skin and placid expressions. Daughters of dukes, of barons, of allied courts. Every one of them painted to be chosen. To be married. To be queen. Aveline stood over the desk, her upper lip curling as she scanned the faces. Nothing in their eyes. Nothing in their hands. Nothing in their names — until her gaze stopped on one. There it was, signed beneath a delicately tilted chin. She didn't finish reading the title. She didn't need to. Her jaw tensed. The bile rose slowly, bitter and deep.

She picked up the miniature, considered it, and let it fall to the floor with a sound just loud enough to be heard. Just enough to be noticed. He never spoke to her about the decision. No explanation. No apology. Nothing. Instead, she learned of the engagement through laughter in the solar — the same women who once clung to her skirts, now singing praises for a name she could barely bring herself to say. Again and again. As if Aveline hadn't spent three years enduring the king's droning politics, his wheezing philosophies on women and wine, his endless desire to be touched, soothed, praised like a god with flaking skin.