CHAPTER ONE; THE GIRL THAT FORGOT HER OWN NAME
The first thing she noticed was the silence.
Not the kind that lulled you to sleep — this silence scraped. It echoed through the cold, polished walls like a warning. Naya stood barefoot on marble floors, her thin cotton dress barely touching her bruised knees. Her wrists were red and raw from the iron cuffs that had only been removed moments before. The weight of them still pressed into her bones like a ghost.
This wasn't a dungeon. It was worse.
This place was too clean. Too expensive. The chandeliers above glittered like they were mocking her — as if her blood didn't matter beneath all that shine.
She didn't look at the men who brought her. She never did. She'd learned long ago that eye contact only invited cruelty. Instead, she watched the shadows — the places people thought you'd never notice.
One of the guards laughed. "She doesn't speak, huh?"
"She's trained not to." The second man, older, sounded bored. "Buyer said he doesn't want her broken. Just obedient."
The words didn't sting anymore. Nothing did. Not hunger, not fear. She'd buried that girl years ago — the one who screamed when they dragged her away, who begged her mother not to let them take her.
That girl was dead.
The older man knocked on the tall oak door at the end of the hall. "She's here."
A pause. Then footsteps. Heavy. Controlled. Measured like a heartbeat that never missed.
When the door opened, Naya didn't look up — not at first. But something about the silence that followed made her lift her head.
He stood in the doorway like he belonged to it.
Black dress shirt. No tie. Sleeves rolled up to reveal tanned forearms and a silver watch. His hair was dark, slightly tousled, like he didn't care enough to fix it. His eyes — grey, unreadable — stared directly at her. Not like she was a thing.
But like she was a puzzle.
"She's smaller than I expected," he said calmly.
"She's older than she looks," the man replied. "Barely twenty. Kept healthy. Barely speaks. Smart, though — used to write before we stopped giving her pens."
Naya felt his gaze slide down to her hands. Her fingers clenched out of habit, hiding the jagged crescent scars on her palms.
"Leave," the man — Kael, she assumed — said.
The guards didn't argue. They left her there, standing in the doorway of the stranger's mansion like a stain on the floor.
Kael took a step toward her. Then another.
Naya held her breath.
"You're not what I expected," he said, his voice low, almost thoughtful. "But you'll do."
She flinched when he reached for her face, but his fingers never touched her. He hovered just inches from her cheek, then let his hand drop.
"You'll stay in the east wing. You're not a prisoner," he added, almost amused. "But you're not free, either. Let's not pretend otherwise."
Naya said nothing. She couldn't. Her throat had forgotten how to speak.
Kael turned his back and walked into the room. "Come. It's time you understood the rules."
She didn't move.
Not yet.
Instead, her eyes fell to the thin silver key hanging from the back of his belt.
Her heart skipped.
A key.
⸻
And suddenly, for the first time in seven years, Naya remembered what hope felt like…
…right before it turned to fire.