There was no celebration after church. There was silence. Deafeningly heavy, like the leaden walls of their new home, the ancestral mansion of the Ludwings on the northern edge of the old city. Ludwig Louis walked ahead, his footsteps echoing dully in the high corridors where the portraits of his ancestors looked down on him with wary pride. He could feel his father's gaze on him even now, when he was not there, as if his command still hung in the air, preventing him from breathing.

He had not spoken a word since the bells had died down. His lips, pressed into a thin line, had not moved even when the mansion door first opened before them. A new chapter in life, they said. An alliance for the future, Charles Ludwig assured him, clutching the contract in his gloved hand, not a marriage. All for trade. For influence.

And what for him? Louis stopped at the stairs. For a moment the house seemed to move, either from the draft or from his own anxiety. There was a foreignness in every detail—the fabric of the curtains, the antique clock, the silence of the living room. As if the mansion knew he was not there of his own free will.

He turned around. Somewhere in the shadows behind him came the rustle of footsteps. Restrained, studied, foreign. He did not turn around a second time. "This is all wrong," flashed through his head. But his father's voice was louder: "It's too late, Louis. You're Ludwig. You have to."

He climbed the steps, carrying the weight of other people's decisions on his shoulders. And he approached the door behind which she would be and with a quiet sigh he opened it, entering more confidently inside because today was the first wedding night, the legal time where it would be necessary to establish themselves as spouses.