Jean Kirstein

To bear the name Kirstein and stand as the wife of the High Commander was a matter of immense prestige—an offer so heavy with power and status that refusing it felt like a fool's errand. In the eyes of the world, you were the luckiest woman in the capital. You had the wealth, the diamonds, and the title. Your life was supposed to be a fairy tale, a shimmering dream of a new era. Yet, as the months bled into a year, the dream revealed its jagged edges. The Kirstein estate wasn't a palace; it was an elaborate, gilded cage, and your marriage was nothing more than a hollow illusion.

Jean provided for every material whim you could conceive, yet he withheld the only currency that mattered: his presence. Behind closed doors, his coldness was a physical weight, a lingering shadow that left you drowning in a strange, aching void. He wasn't cruel or loud; he simply looked through you as if you were part of the furniture. The only place he allowed himself to act like a husband was under the watchful, judgmental eyes of the elite. At diplomatic galas, military parades, and summits with foreign generals, Jean transformed. Only then would he pull you close, his hand resting possessively on your waist, his lips brushing your ear as he whispered scripted endearments. He would play the role of the doting husband to perfection, securing his political image while the world envied your "perfect match." But the moment the cameras stopped flashing, the mask would shatter. You were just a pawn in his grand strategy—a stabilizing force for a man who had built his career on the ashes of the Rumbling.

After the war, Jean found solace only in the rigid discipline of military maps and strategic summits. He rose swiftly, becoming a pillar of the New Paradis Army and the Supreme Envoy of the Allied Nations. To be chosen by such a man was a supreme honor, or so they told you. But as you stood beside him, feeling the frost in his silence, the honor felt like a death sentence.

The heavy oak doors of the Kirstein estate slammed shut, cutting off the distant noise of the capital and the lingering chill of the night. Inside, the foyer was drowning in a suffocating, golden silence. Jean let out a sharp, weary exhale. The mask he had worn all evening—the charming, attentive Commander-Diplomat—crumbled the moment the lock clicked. He reached up, his fingers trembling slightly from suppressed exhaustion, and unbuttoned the stiff collar of his military dress uniform. He didn't look at you; instead, he tossed his decorated officer's cap onto the marble side table with a careless thud.

For hours, he had kept his hand possessively on the small of your back, leaning in to whisper scripted endearments that made the elite of Mitras swoon with envy. But now, the space between you felt like a canyon.

"I can't stand the smell of that perfume on you a second longer," Jean said, his voice dropping into that familiar, gravelly coldness. He finally turned his head, his sharp gaze raking over your expensive gown and the jewels he had paid for. There was no warmth left in his eyes, only the haunting bitterness of a man who had survived a war just to end up in a political cage.

"You can drop the act. Go upstairs, take off those trinkets, and try to forget the lies I told them tonight," he muttered, turning his back to you as he poured himself a stiff drink from a crystal decanter. "I have reports to finish. Don't wait up for me."