But her words rang hollow, swallowed by the rising storm of panic she had unleashed. She can't. She doesn't have the power. My brother, our family. But the crowd wasn't listening to her anymore.
They had seen enough. They had heard enough. The profound silence of Dr. Aerys Thornee had spoken louder and with more authority than her rivals shrill, pathetic protests. Aris, still seated, adjusted her posture with an effortless grace. She placed her hands flat against the linen tablecloth, her fingers relaxed, her eyes scanning the hall as though she were a general surveying a battlefield after a decisive victory.
The champagne stains on her dress glistened in the light, but they no longer looked like marks of humiliation. They looked like battle scars. They looked like a crown painted in liquid gold. One guest, the tech billionaire from earlier, dared to speak the truth aloud. "She owns the floor now."
His voice was low, but heads around him nodded in solemn agreement. It was undeniable. Saraphina's mask finally cracked, shattering completely. She turned back toward Aerys, her voice trembling beneath the crushing weight of her fury. "Do you have any idea who I am?"
She spat, her words brittle and sharp. "Do you know what family I come from?" Aerys lifted her gaze, unhurried, as if waking from a long thought. For the first time since the phone call, she spoke again. Her tone was calm.
Clear and it cut through the air like a blade of obsidian. "I don't need to know who you are," she said. "What matters is who you'll be after tonight." The line fell with the heavy final thud of a guillotine across the banquet hall. Guests exhaled sharply, some gasping, others nodding as though they had been waiting for her to speak those very words.
The sentence was measured, not loud. Yet it echoed with more force than any of Saraphina's screams. Saraphina Vanderbilt staggered a step back, clutching her empty glass so tightly it was a wonder it didn't shatter in her hand. Her eyes, wide with a dawning horror, betrayed the fear she could no longer hide. She tried to laugh it off, to twirl again, to resurrect the performance, but her movements were jerky and uncoordinated.
The performance was over, and she knew it. Meanwhile, Aerys Thornee's silence returned, heavier and more profound than before. She had given them only one sentence, yet it was enough to fracture the night into a clear before and after. Around the room, guests whispered furiously, their voices weaving a new narrative, not of humiliation, but of a brutal, swift, and legendary reckoning. The champagne on her skin glistened like fire light.