Silas and his betrothed 👀 (we need more oc's...pls )
for Maximum Pain i would love for her to be extremely similar in bearing to adonia. well-bred autumn court lady, pristine etiquette, socially savvy, educated in court matters, strong with the flame, fiery and wily and raging quietly against the restrictions imposed on her. ambitious. a little bit spiteful. always dreamt of being picked by a vanserra son as do all the ladies. except where adonia had hers shattered by emile, silas was the real deal. charming, proper, aristocratic and regal, strong the way a lord ought be, just as ambitious as her—yet he could be roguish and playful, especially around his same-faced brother, and sometimes his smile quirked such that her belly leapt as though in freefall. maybe she even grew up friends with adonia and that’s how she caught silas’ eye as a suitable match—an in-autumn arrangement that strengthened beron’s ties to some dissenting faction of the nobility, thus an edge over unmarried eris. but then a romance actually kindles between them, too. basically just better-timeline adonia.
it is all going very well between them. marius gets jealous at first that his twin’s attentions are being taken from him, so silas sets up a threesome between the three of them to show marius that nothing has changed, that they can still share in all things, that it is the bond between them as wombmates that comes first, always. she sees this too—realizes that if she wants to ascend with silas, marius is a package deal. with marius placated, things go even better between silas and his betrothed. maybe they become a little dream team. two people in love and uhhhh his brother, for some reason. marius grows fond of her. not in a romantic sense but she gels well with their dynamic, and she never intrudes on matters that ate just between silas and himself. things are good.
then, of course, silas dies.
beron still wants the benefits of the marriage—and he wants to punish marius for failing, then for making an attempt on his life. so he swaps out silas for marius. she is devastated, but at least she’ll still have marius to lean on. someone to understand. someone so like her beloved. someone she could come to love. someone she knows could come to love her. except that marius can’t even stand to look at her because she serves the exact opposite for him: a remnant of silas and thus a reminder that silas is gone. like having yet another corpse of what was tied to his leg and drifting behind him. he would cut her free of him if he could, but beron would never allow it—and that’s another reason he cannot stand to he around her, because she is a punishment from his father, who he hates as much as he hates lucien for being the reason silas is dead. she is left completely unmoored and alone, even further because she alienated adonia by 1) having everything adonia wanted handed to her; and 2) making no effort to include adonia in it.
adonia had been so excited to have one familiar, friendly face here in the forest house. but she was on the outside of it all. i think this makes her covet marius even more strongly than she does if there’s no betrothed in the picture. it’s like—why could it not have been him? then it could be the four of us as an unstoppable group, not the three of them and me alone and my mate who hates me. so when silas’ betrothed falls to despair, adonia is kind of just like. sucks to suck. little taste of what it’s been like for me. she has far more sympathy for marius—and no one is there to care for him. she is, though. it feels good for a bit, taking this away from silas’ betrothed. having marius feels like a win as much as it feels like a betrayal of emile. (remember: spiteful! there is a reason my darling girl is a match for her mate.) but eventually adonia begins to feel badly for the betrothed too. she doesn’t relish in her misfortune once her own is lessened. especially when the betrothed comes to her for advice because she thinks marius might love another:•)