Aria Acherley had always been taught that love required effort.
That belief had carried her through years of skating, through injuries, through the endless hours of practice when exhaustion pressed against her lungs and her legs burned with strain. Nothing worth having, her coach used to say, came easily. You had to fall a hundred times before you could glide effortlessly across the ice. She missed that days.
And so, when her marriage began with Henry Lannister's silence, she told herself that all she needed was patience. She would give her love freely, and eventually—surely—his heart would thaw.
But love, she discovered, was not like skating. You could not practice your way into someone else's affection.
---
Their home was magnificent.
A sprawling mansion on the outskirts of the city, where marble staircases swept upward like frozen waterfalls, and every chandelier sparkled with cold perfection. The kind of house that should have felt alive with laughter and warmth, yet for Aria, it felt like a museum—grand but empty.
Every morning, she woke early. She prepared breakfast herself, even though there were servants who could have done it. She made fresh coffee, laid out warm croissants, cut fruit into neat, careful slices. She placed everything on the long dining table and waited for Henry.
Most days, he never came.
She would hear the distant slam of the front door, the rumble of an engine, and by the time she descended the stairs, he was already gone—off to his empire, to his boardrooms and contracts and endless obligations.
On the rare mornings when he did appear, dressed in a perfectly pressed suit, his tie already knotted with precision, he barely glanced at the table she had prepared.
"You don't have to do this," he said once, brushing past her without touching the cup of coffee she had poured.
"I want to," she replied softly, twisting her hands in her lap. "I like taking care of you."
He paused at the door, his hand resting on the frame. For a moment, she thought he might look back, might offer her some acknowledgment. Instead, he muttered, "Don't waste your time," and was gone.
Her chest ached at his dismissal, but she refused to let it crush her hope. She cleaned the untouched breakfast herself, telling the servants she wanted no help. If Henry could not see her love yet, then she would try harder.
---
In the evenings, she dressed carefully, selecting gowns that shimmered softly in the candlelight. She curled her hair, dabbed perfume at her wrists, and waited in the grand dining hall. She imagined them sitting together, sharing a quiet meal, laughing, perhaps even talking about dreams and fears.
Reality was always colder.
Henry arrived late, if at all. He would remove his jacket, loosen his tie, and retreat to his study. When she approached him with tentative smiles and gentle questions, he would answer curtly, his eyes never leaving the documents on his desk.
"Henry, how was your day?" she asked one evening, standing in the doorway of his study with a tray of tea.
"Busy."
"Did anything interesting happen?"
"No."
"Would you like me to stay with you for a while?"
His pen stilled. For a heartbeat, the silence stretched, fragile as glass. Then he said, without looking at her, "Aria, I don't need company. Go to your room."
She swallowed her disappointment, set the tray down anyway, and whispered, "Goodnight."
He did not reply.
Still, Aria tried.
She planned small surprises: flowers in his office, hand-written notes tucked into his briefcase, dinners she cooked herself despite her limited skills. She once spent an entire afternoon learning how to bake his favorite dessert—chocolate soufflé—from one of the chefs. When she proudly presented it to him, his expression barely flickered.
"It's fine," he said after a single bite, setting the spoon down. "But don't trouble yourself."
Her heart sank, but she forced a smile. "I like making things for you."
He pushed the plate away. "Aria, stop trying so hard. This marriage isn't what you think it is." He felt tired.
The words stung like frostbite. She retreated to her room that night, pressing her hands against her chest as though she could physically hold her heart together.
The loneliness was the hardest part.
She had grown up surrounded by the noise of skating arenas, the encouragement of teammates, the applause of strangers. Now, the silence of the mansion pressed in on her like a weight. She missed that days.
She wandered through endless halls, her footsteps echoing against marble floors. She tried to fill the emptiness with music, but the notes seemed to vanish into the vast ceilings. She sat in the garden with a book, but the words blurred when she thought of Henry. She even returned briefly to the ice rink, but it was not the same. Her knee ached, her movements were clumsy, and without Henry's presence in the audience—imagined or real—the joy felt hollow.
At night, the bed was cold. She reached instinctively toward his side, only to find it empty, night after night.
Yet, she never stopped loving him.
Sometimes, when she caught him unguarded, she saw glimpses of something more. The way his shoulders slumped when he thought no one was watching. The tightness around his mouth when his father's name was mentioned. Once, she entered the study quietly and found him staring at an old photograph—of a woman she didn't recognize. His expression then had not been cold, but wounded, raw.
Before she could speak, he slipped the photo back into a drawer and snapped, "Don't sneak up on me."
Aria retreated, but that moment fueled her hope. There was pain in him, pain he kept hidden behind his walls. And maybe, just maybe, she could be the one to heal it.
Weeks turned into months.
Their wedding, grand and glittering, faded into a memory whispered about in society pages. The world believed them a perfect couple—his power, her elegance. Photographers caught them arriving at events together, Henry with his hand resting lightly on her back, Aria smiling at his side. To outsiders, it looked like a fairytale.
But behind the camera flashes, reality remained unchanged.
Aria smiled because she had to. Henry touched her because appearances demanded it. And when the night ended, they returned to a home filled with silence.
She began writing in a journal, pouring her feelings onto the pages she could not speak aloud.
I love him. I don't know why, but I do. I think of him when I wake, when I sleep, in every moment in between. If he only knew how much I would give for just one genuine smile. Maybe one day he will see me. Maybe one day he will love me.
Her words blurred with tears, but she never let herself stop believing.