The question hung in the air like a blade. Arianna's mind raced. Proof. Did she have proof? She knew what had happened—the timeline was too perfect, her father's sudden death too convenient. But knowing and proving were different things entirely.

"I know what I experienced," Arianna said carefully, forcing her voice to remain steady. "I was poisoned with wolfsbane the night before my mating ceremony. When I woke, my father was dead and Kael had assumed control. The coincidence seems rather remarkable, don't you think?"

"Coincidence is not evidence," Lord Fredrick observed, swirling wine in his goblet. "And poisoning yourself would be an excellent way to create sympathy, to cast...