Cedric approached, and Leon raised an eyebrow at the boy who’d been staring at him from across the room earlier.

Cedric, however, walked straight past him like he wasn’t there. He got the air treatment for the second time.

"Lena," he said, voice smooth, practiced charm sliding into place. "It’s been a while. Do you remember me? We met at the spring gathering two years ago."

"Of course," Lena said politely. "Prince Cedric, wasn’t it?"

"You remember," he said, sounding pleased. "Allow me to properly introduce myself again. Cedric Arden, ninth prince of the kingdom." He extended a hand toward her, the same smooth motion Reinholt had attempted minutes earlier, except this time there was an audience.

Half the ballroom had already noticed.

Conversations dimmed. Heads turned, subtly at first, then less subtly. The ninth prince, the Lightning Prince, S rank prodigy, approaching Lena von Silford directly, in front of everyone.

"Would you do me the honor of a dance?" Cedric asked, smile firmly in place, the kind of smile that had clearly worked on every other girl he’d ever used it on.

The whole room seemed to lean in slightly.

Was the young prince taking an interest in Lena?

Cedric’s smile widened just a touch, the confident look of someone who already knew the answer, who had probably rehearsed this exact moment in his head and was simply waiting for it to play out the way it always did.

Lena looked at his hand.

Then at him.

"That’s very kind of you, Your Highness," she said, with the same polite warmth she’d used on Reinholt. "But I’ll have to decline."

The smile on Cedric’s face did not move for a full second.

"That’s great, take my hand, wait...What?"

The murmurs started almost instantly, spreading outward from the small audience that had gathered to the wider ballroom in seconds.

"Did she just—"

"She turned down the prince?"

"How arrogant can you—"

"Maybe she didn’t understand who he—"

Leon and Yuki sat back with matching smug grins, chips in hand, thoroughly enjoying what was shaping up to be a genuinely once in a decade spectacle. Yuki had to bite down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing again. This felt serious in a way Reinholt’s rejection hadn’t. There was a difference between embarrassing a noble’s third son and embarrassing royalty in front of the entire continent.

Lena, for her part, simply turned to head back to the table, completely unbothered.

That was when Cedric’s gaze shifted.

Past Lena. To Leon.

Something in his expression sharpened.

"Is it because of him?" he said, loud enough that several nearby clusters of nobles turned fully toward them now. "That failure?"

Lena’s expression darkened.

"Don’t call him that," she said, calm but firm, the same tone she’d used earlier. "And I’d suggest returning to your seat, Your Highness."

But Cedric wasn’t done.

"Everyone knows what he is," he continued, voice carrying easily across the now quiet section of the ballroom. "E rank. Can’t do anything himself. And hides behind his sister for everything, doesn’t he? And I’m pretty sure he probably told you to turn me down too."

Lena’s hands curled slightly at her sides.

Leon, sitting a short distance away with a chip halfway to his mouth, went very still.

He set the chip down.

Of all the things this prince could have used as material. Of all the angles he could have picked.

He picked that one.

’Ahh’

Leon stood up.

The motion was unhurried, almost lazy, but something about it drew every eye in the immediate area toward him instantly. Conversations stopped mid sentence. People who had been deliberately not looking suddenly couldn’t help it.

He walked toward Cedric, slow, even steps, and stopped a short distance away.

Looked him directly in the eye.

"Leave my sister alone," Leon said. Quiet. Even.

"And watch how you speak about her."

For a moment neither of them moved.

The air between them felt different. Heavier somehow, though nothing visible had changed. A few of the nearby nobles shifted uncomfortably without quite knowing why, the way people do when standing too close to something they can’t see but can feel.

Across the ballroom, heads turned. Arlott. Lena, now beside him. Julian, Cain, Rosa, and a scattering of cousins Leon hadn’t even properly met yet, all of them watching this unfold.

Cedric stared at Leon.

This wasn’t what he’d expected.

Leon had never attended a single one of these events. Not one. Everyone knew that. The story had always been the same, the talentless E rank who kept to himself because he had nothing to offer, the failure who let his sister handle everything. Cedric had walked over here expecting exactly that. A boy who would shrink, who would look away, who would let the insult slide because that’s what failures did.

Instead he was being looked at like he was the one out of place.

Cedric’s jaw tightened.

Then, slowly, his expression shifted into something colder. Something that almost looked like satisfaction.

"Interesting," he said quietly.

He leaned in slightly.

"I hope you’ll have the power to back those words, Leonis Silford. Because I’ll be hunting you."

He turned, robes shifting, and walked back toward the royal platform without another word.

The tension didn’t dissolve so much as slowly drain out of the air, leaving the ballroom in a kind of stunned quiet that took several seconds to break.

Murmurs picked back up almost immediately, but different now. Confused.

"... Was that him ?"

"He didn’t even flinch."

"The prince just challenged him."

"Wait. He made the ninth prince back down?"

Across the room, Julian stood frozen, staring at his half brother with an expression he hadn’t worn in years.

Whatever he’d been expecting tonight.

It wasn’t that.