The corridor outside her room was silent, hushed by the weight of midnight. A silver glow spilled in through the arching window panes, casting long shadows across the marble floors of Faolinshire's eastern wing. The air was still, the fire in her room reduced to faint embers that glowed gently against the velvet curtains and golden-framed portraits.
Brooklyn stood by her doorway, his hand hovering over the handle. For several minutes, he hadn't moved. He could hear her breathing faintly from inside—uneven, soft. Not quite asleep. Not fully awake. Something between peace and restlessness.
Then, slowly, he entered.
She was lying beneath layers of ivory linen, propped against plush pillows, her body thin and fragile beneath the blanket. The bruises had started to fade, but the shadows beneath her eyes hadn't. Her hair—once tangled and dirtied beyond recognition—was now brushed out across the pillow like a spill of scarlet gold.
Her eyes flicked open at the sound of his footsteps.
"D-Duke…" she whispered, her voice dry and cracked with hesitation.
Brooklyn came to the side of her bed. He knelt down slowly, not like a ruler surveying a subject, but like a man speaking to someone… who mattered.
"I want to know," he said quietly. "Everything."
Catherine blinked, confused.
"Everything they did to you," he continued, gently reaching for her hand, his fingers wrapping around her cold, slender ones. "Everything you remember. Everything you endured. I want to hear it from your lips."
She hesitated, her hand trembling in his. Her lashes lowered, then lifted again, as though searching for something—permission, perhaps. Or courage.
"I… I don't…" her voice quivered. "It's… ugly."
"So is this world," he said, amber eyes steady. "But the truth will never be uglier than silence."
Her lips parted.
And then she began to speak.
It was halting at first, a patchwork of broken phrases and half-mumbled names. Her voice wavered as she tried to form the sentences. She spoke of being taken at sixteen, dragged from her home when the border fell. How she was chained in a black cart. How they told her she was a gift for the prince of the enemy kingdom. How she was renamed, stripped of her nobility and her dignity alike.
They never let her eat without permission. They'd beat her for blinking too slowly. They would test poisons on her skin to see how long she could endure the burning. Sometimes they'd starve her for days just to see if she'd break. She was made to crawl, to beg, to obey every order like an animal. And if she disobeyed even once—just once—there'd be ten lashes before she could cry.
Catherine's voice broke when she described the cellar.
The place she was found.
She explained how long she'd been kept down there, the days blurring together into weeks, then months. How sometimes they'd forget she was alive. And sometimes, she wished they would.
Brooklyn didn't interrupt. Not even once.
He held her hand the entire time.
Her voice cracked as she described the nights where she would pray to die. That maybe in the morning, she wouldn't wake up. That someone would end it quietly, mercifully.
But no one ever came.
Until now.
And by the end, she couldn't hold the words together anymore. Her body started to shake, her breath coming in quick, sharp gasps. Tears poured down her cheeks, her hands clenching tight around his.
"I don't want to remember anymore," she sobbed, voice raw. "I—I didn't want to live. Why… why did you…"
Brooklyn said nothing.
He simply pulled her into his arms.
He sat beside her on the bed, wrapping his arms gently but firmly around her trembling frame. Her head buried against his chest, soaked in tears, her cries muffled by the fabric of his coat. He rested his chin against her hair, eyes distant—burning with quiet fury for the horrors she'd survived.
"You can cry," he whispered. "You're allowed to cry."
Her sobs echoed softly into the night, as if her soul had been waiting for this—this moment of collapse—for years.
He held her tighter.
"You don't have to carry this alone anymore."
And in that silent room beneath the silver light of the moon, something inside Catherine finally broke…
…and something else began to heal.
The flames in the fireplace crackled gently, casting soft amber light over the room. Outside, the wind rustled the ivy trailing down the outer walls of Faolinshire's eastern tower, a whisper of movement beneath the endless silence of midnight. Within, time felt suspended—just the two of them, tangled in grief and breath and the quiet ache of memory.
Catherine's sobs had slowed but not yet ceased. Her fingers clutched tightly at the sleeve of Brooklyn's dark coat, as though if she let go, the world would crumble once more.
"I never wanted this…" she whispered into his chest, her voice trembling. "I just wanted to live a peaceful life. I never asked to be born into nobility… never asked to be called 'Princess.' But they—they hated us for our kindness. My mother… she was a true queen, not by title but by heart. And my father, he was gentle, a man who cried when the roses bloomed because he thought they were beautiful."
Her throat clenched and her breathing shivered. "They slit my father's throat in front of me. I was fourteen. Then they dragged my mother out and tied her to the palace gate… as a message. I screamed. I screamed until my voice broke. They laughed. Said that was the beginning of my obedience training…"
Brooklyn said nothing. His arms simply tightened around her, solid and unwavering, a stillness that somehow gave her strength.
"I kept thinking—if only I had done something different. If I had hidden. If I had begged harder. If I had tried to die sooner maybe… maybe they wouldn't have suffered so much because of me."
He drew a deep breath, silent for a long while. His hand gently stroked her back, over the gauze-wrapped shoulders, between the ribs that had once known whips instead of words.
"They broke me apart every single day," she said in a voice so raw it hardly sounded human. "Not just my body… but my thoughts, my dignity. They said I was only alive because I was too pathetic to die. And I believed them. For a long time… I did."
Brooklyn closed his eyes.
If rage had a sound, it would be the way his pulse beat at that moment—steady, slow, and crushingly deep beneath his calm expression.
But this wasn't the moment for revenge.
It was the moment for presence.
"You survived," he murmured, his voice low and gravel-edged, as though forced through years of frozen silence. "That alone makes you stronger than every man who ever hurt you."
She didn't respond. She couldn't.
Her body began to slacken against him, the storm inside her finally exhausting itself into nothing more than hollow breaths and the soft rise and fall of her chest.
Catherine had cried until her voice was gone, until her eyes were too heavy to remain open. She lay in his arms like something sacred—shattered, yes, but sacred still.
Her fingers, once gripped in fear, now lay limply against his sleeve. Her cheek was pressed against the thick wool of his coat. Her breath steadied, little by little.
She had fallen asleep.
Brooklyn looked down at her for a long moment, not moving, not speaking. He reached out with one hand and gently pushed a loose strand of her golden-scarlet hair behind her ear.
In the firelight, she looked so much younger.
Like the girl she might have been.
The girl they never let her become.
Brooklyn whispered into the quiet, a vow without drama, without ceremony. Just truth.
"You're safe now. No one touches you again."
Then he shifted carefully, lowering her into the bed without waking her. She whimpered softly at the loss of warmth, but the blankets quickly swallowed her in comfort. He pulled them up to her shoulders and lingered for a few seconds more.
His hand hovered above her cheek.
He didn't touch her.
Not yet.
Instead, he turned and walked to the window, the night wind brushing against his face. Below, the torches of Faolinshire shimmered like stars cast upon the ground.
He would burn the world before letting another hand bruise her skin.
And as he left her room in silence, he made sure the door closed without a sound.
The room had grown quieter still—so much that the flickering flames in the hearth sounded like whispers. Brooklyn sat on the edge of the bed now, Catherine nestled against him, her body limp from the weight of grief and exhaustion.
She had shifted in her sleep sometime between sobs and silence, unconsciously seeking warmth. Without a word, he had lifted her and pulled her into his lap—gently, with more care than he had ever shown another living soul.
Her head now rested on his shoulder, tangled strands of scarlet-blonde hair fanned softly across his chest. Her breath was warm against his neck, slow and shallow, but peaceful.
Brooklyn's hand moved in rhythmic strokes down her back, avoiding the worst of the healing bruises. His fingers were slow and steady, an unfamiliar tenderness guiding them.
This wasn't like him.
He wasn't the type to comfort. He wasn't the type to hold. He wasn't the type to look down at a trembling soul and feel… protective.
But as Catherine slept—fragile, light, utterly vulnerable—it wasn't pity that stirred inside him.
It was purpose.
He looked down at her face, relaxed now in sleep. The tears had dried, leaving faint silver streaks on her pale cheeks. Her lips were slightly parted. Her fingers, once clenched with tension, now lay quietly in her lap.
He took in every mark on her skin—every scar, every bruise, every bandage. He saw the healed-over lashes of a whip just beneath the edge of her nightgown's collar. The thin burn scars running along her upper arms. The faint ridges of old restraint marks around her wrists.
Brooklyn clenched his jaw.
The rage he felt was not loud. It didn't demand screams or shattered walls. It simmered like iron submerged in lava—slow, seething, waiting.
But none of that showed on his face. Not while she slept in his arms.
He adjusted his posture slightly, letting her sink more comfortably into him. Her breath hitched for a moment, but then steadied again.
And for the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to whisper something not in command, not in order.
Just a quiet promise.
"I'll make sure you smile again. Even if I have to drag the sun back down from the sky for it."
He glanced toward the window. The moon was high, soft silver painting the dark stone of Faolinshire's towers.
"Whatever they did to you… it ends here."
He didn't know how long he sat like that, holding her. Minutes or hours—it didn't matter.
But when he finally laid her back down on the bed, tucking the blankets around her, she murmured softly in her sleep—nothing intelligible, but with the smallest hint of calm in her voice.
She was still breathing evenly. Still safe.
He rose, turned away slowly, and walked to the doorway.
Before leaving, he looked back one last time.
And then, quietly, he closed the door.
A vow had been made tonight.
One that nothing—not war, not pride, not even his own coldness—would break.
Catherine stirred slowly beneath the weight of warm silk blankets. Her lashes fluttered before her eyes opened fully, squinting against the soft golden light filtering through the tall, draped windows of her chamber.
The first thing she noticed was warmth. The kind that settled in her chest. The kind that didn't feel like fear.
Her body still ached—no miracle had erased that overnight—but there was something gentler in the ache today. It didn't feel like punishment.
She pushed herself up slightly with a wince, her fingers gripping the headboard. Her body protested the motion, but her mind was still and calm.
And then it came back to her.
The night.
Him.
Her breath caught for a moment. Not out of fear—but memory. She remembered how she had broken down, how she'd finally opened herself fully. How her voice had cracked and trembled while speaking of things she had locked away for years. And how she had expected rage, disgust, indifference—anything but what she received.
Instead, she remembered his arms. His warmth. His silence that wasn't empty, but comforting. His voice—quiet, steady—telling her to let it all out.
She looked to the side. Her chair was still beside the bed, ever so slightly pulled forward. The pillow on it had been disturbed. That's where he had sat.
Her heart skipped.
She reached toward her wrist, her fingers brushing over the bracelet he had given her the night before—the one she'd been too overwhelmed to take off. It shimmered faintly in the light, a delicate band of silver with a small sapphire embedded in its center.
He had given her something beautiful. Not because he wanted anything in return, but just… to offer.
The thought filled her with something unfamiliar.
Was it gratitude?
Was it affection?
Was it the start of trust?
She didn't know.
But for the first time in what felt like an eternity, Catherine smiled.
It was small, fragile even—barely a curve of her lips. But it was real. It wasn't practiced. It wasn't forced. It was born of a feeling she didn't fully understand yet.
And it was because of him.
Brooklyn.
The man who had every right to command her, use her, discard her. Yet instead… he held her when she cried.
He told her to rest.
He gave her comfort.
Her fingers tightened around the bracelet.
"…Thank you," she whispered, unsure if she meant it for him, the gods, or herself.
A knock came at the door, gentle and rhythmic.
It opened just a sliver and a familiar voice came through. "Good morning, my lady. Are you awake?"
It was the maid from the day before—the one with the soft voice and caring hands.
Catherine sat up a little straighter and tried to compose herself. "Yes. I'm awake."
The maid stepped in with a kind smile and a folded gown in her hands. "That's wonderful to hear. I brought you something more comfortable to wear—Duke's orders. And the breakfast tray is already on the way."
Catherine blinked. "Breakfast?"
The maid chuckled lightly. "Of course. A lady must eat."
Catherine's eyes welled slightly—not from pain, but because the care still felt surreal.
She smiled again, just a little more confident now.
"I… I'd like that."
The sunlight outside grew stronger.
And somewhere far beyond the stone walls of Faolinshire, the world kept spinning.
But for now, inside this quiet room, something had shifted.
The air didn't feel so heavy.
And for Catherine—shaking, broken, slowly healing—there was the faintest glimmer of hope in her chest.
Because he had not broken her.
He had given her reason to hope again.
She pressed a hand to her chest and closed her eyes.
"I'll keep smiling… if it's for you."
A month had passed since that night. The fragile, shattered girl Brooklyn had carried out of a war-torn palace was no longer the same.
Catherine had begun to smile more easily. The shadows hadn't entirely left her emerald eyes, but they no longer consumed her. She walked now—though still with a slight limp—her steps light and deliberate.
The castle staff adored her. She never demanded, never raised her voice. When she smiled, it was small, but those who saw it found themselves smiling too. She had an air of grace that was not performed but born out of pain, like a flower blooming through winter frost.
And today, the entire west wing of Faolinshire Castle buzzed in quiet preparation.
Brooklyn approached her corridor, walking with the measured calm that masked the mild anticipation tugging at his chest. He hadn't seen her properly in two days. Not since she had insisted on trying to dress and walk without assistance—part of her quiet rebellion against being "a burden."
He hadn't pressured her. He didn't want to frighten her again.
But today, he wanted to see her.
As he reached her chamber door, he raised his hand to knock—only to be gently blocked by one of the maids, an older woman with a firm but respectful bow.
"My Lord Duke," she said with an apologetic smile, "we must ask for a little patience. The lady is getting ready. We're dressing her properly today, for the first time in weeks."
Brooklyn blinked. "Dressing her?"
"Yes, my Lord. She's insisted on doing it with dignity. No bandages today, no plain robes. She wishes to look… proper."
"…Can she manage?" he asked softly.
The maid nodded. "She can walk a little now. Her strength's returning. You'll see."
Brooklyn stepped back with a quiet nod and waited near the garden corridor, arms crossed. Outside the arched window, late autumn leaves fluttered in the wind, but inside his chest something else stirred.
Then, the door opened.
His gaze turned—
And there she stood.
Catherine.
Her gown was a soft shade of wine-red velvet with gold embroidery curling like ivy along the edges. The bodice hugged her slender figure without pressing too tightly against her healing frame, and the skirt swept gracefully around her legs with every small step. Her long scarlet-blonde hair was brushed gently down her back, catching the light like sun-kissed fire.
And her face—
There was no make-up, no powder to hide the faded bruises or the faint scars left behind. She had insisted on that.
She wanted him to see her as she was.
But to Brooklyn, she didn't look broken.
She looked radiant.
Natural. Whole.
He stared at her longer than he meant to, his golden-amber eyes widening with rare speechlessness.
Catherine walked toward him slowly, her gaze flickering nervously toward the floor, then up to him.
"D-Do I… look strange?" she whispered.
He blinked, unable to form a sentence at first. Then his lips parted—
"…No."
He exhaled, almost like he hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath.
"You look…" He looked away, slightly turning to hide the softness on his face. "…You look very graceful today."
Catherine flushed gently, fingers fidgeting with the fabric near her waist.
"I—I wanted to look like a person again," she said with a small, hesitant voice. "Not like a ghost wrapped in blankets."
"You never looked like a ghost," he replied. "But you look… proud now. It suits you."
She looked up at him—stunned, a little shaken by the compliment, then lowered her head again, biting her lip to hide the smile trying to form.
Brooklyn cleared his throat. "Would you like to walk with me? To the garden? It's a peaceful morning."
She nodded. "If you walk slow."
"I'll walk at your pace."
He extended a hand. Not to command her. Not to pull her forward.
But to offer.
She looked at it for a heartbeat too long before placing her hand in his.
And then, they walked.
Not master and servant. Not conqueror and prize.
But something quieter.
Something just beginning to form.