*The storm beneath the silence*
The room was still, yet inside her, a storm howled.
Rina lay curled on her side now, her tear-streaked face half-buried in the pillows, breaths shallow and uneven. Her body ached, not from any physical wound, but from the weight of *knowing*. The kind of pain that presses into the soul until it forgets how to breathe.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours. She didn't know.
She stared blankly at the golden embroidery on the bed canopy, her mind spiraling into the past, into echoes of laughter and dreams that now felt impossibly distant.
She remembered the orchard behind the estate.
The way the sun shone through the orange leaves in autumn.
Everything was destroyed with just one word.
With one word: *engaged.*
To someone else.
To *Jin Rotschi.*
A stranger. A mystery. A sentence.
She clenched the pillow tighter. Her knuckles turned white.
"Will he even care that I cry myself to sleep?" she whispered.
Then a darker thought crept in.
"What if he enjoys watching me suffer?"
That was the fear, wasn't it? That he might be cold. Like the stories of his mother. That he might be another chain around her neck.
Or worse—that he might be kind.
Because if he were kind, it would hurt even more. It would mean she would have to betray that kindness, or worse—*fall for it*. She didn't want that. She didn't want to forgive the world for what it had done to her.
A sob escaped her lips. Her tears soaked into the velvet sheets.
Outside her window, the wind had begun to rise. The garden trees swayed gently beneath the silver moonlight. Everything was so quiet, yet she felt like screaming.
She sat up again, dragging her feet to the floor, the cold marble biting at her skin. She walked to the window, arms wrapped around her thin shoulders. Her nightgown fluttered in the draft. She leaned her forehead against the glass.
Down below, the estate was silent. No lights in the garden. No servants rushing through the halls. Just emptiness. Like the world was holding its breath.
She whispered his name for the first time.
"Jin..."
It felt strange. Foreign on her tongue. Like saying the name of a ghost.
Then her lips curled bitterly.
"Do you even know who I am?"
She imagined a boy standing in a distant palace, just as trapped, just as voiceless. Or maybe he was powerful, like the Rotschi blood promised. Maybe he didn't care. Maybe he *wanted* this.
"Or maybe..." she whispered, "you're just another victim."
A long silence followed.
She turned from the window and walked back to her desk. Her fingers hovered above her journal. It was leather-bound, locked with a spell only she could break. She hadn't written in it for weeks.
Now, she undid the seal with a flick of her finger. The lock clicked softly. The pages opened, and the scent of ink and old paper filled the air.
She picked up her pen, and with a shaking hand, began to write:
> *Tonight, I lost everything.*
> *Not because I'm getting married… but because I wasn't given the choice.*
> *They took that from me. Just like they took Aiden. Just like they took my future. My voice.*
> *Jin Rotschi. I don't know you. I don't hate you.*
> *But I will never forgive this world for what it's done to me.*
She stopped. The ink blurred as tears fell on the page.
She closed the journal and whispered the seal again. The lock clicked.
And then, for the first time that night… she stopped crying.
Her face was still wet, her heart still broken—but in her eyes, something had changed. Not strength. Not hope. But *resolve*.
If the world wanted her to marry a stranger, then she would meet him with the full weight of her truth. She would not be the obedient daughter anymore. She would *be seen*. She would not go quietly.
She stood up, walking toward the mirror again. Her reflection stared back, weary and red-eyed, but no longer hollow.
"I am Rina Amberheart," she whispered.
And though her voice trembled, it carried a shard of fire within it.