"My lady… you're back."
Sorana's voice came from the corner of the room, near the draped window where the moonlight fell in a pale slash across the floor.
Aurelia flinched, her gaze darting toward the sound. She hadn't noticed Sorana when she entered—hadn't noticed anything but the cold of the floor and the torn cloth in her hand.
Sorana stood with a basin of water and a clean linen towel draped over her arm, her expression soft with concern. She had clearly been waiting.
"I heard you hurt your wrist," she said quietly, taking a tentative step forward. "Sorry, my lady."
Aurelia looked at her—really looked. Sorana's face was familiar, kind, the face of someone who had brought her water and mended her hems but she asked too many questions. In her eyes,
Aurelia saw no judgment, only a quiet readiness to serve, to comfort.
That kindness, that unassuming loyalty, was the final weight that broke her.
Slowly, without a sound, Aurelia's composure began to fracture. Her lower lip trembled first, a faint, almost imperceptible movement. Then her eyes welled—violet pools shimmering under the low glow of the chamber's lone candle.
A tear spilled over, tracing a hot path down her cheek. Then another. And another.
She didn't sob aloud, not at first. The tears fell silently, steadily, as if from a deep and hidden well of disappointment—in herself, in the man whose scent still clung to her skin.
Sorana set the basin down silently and moved closer, her own eyes widening with helpless empathy. She didn't rush to wipe the tears away. She simply stood there, a silent witness to the unraveling.
Then, softly, she breathed in—and her expression shifted. A subtle frown touched her brow.
"You smell like master Tenebrarum," she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.
Her gaze traveled over Aurelia—the rumpled gown, the faint redness around her wrists, the marks on her skin, the hollow look in her eyes. Sorana's own face paled slightly, a dawning understanding tightening her features.
"Did he…" she began, then hesitated, as if afraid to give the thought words. "Did he hurt you?"
The question itself made Aurelia burst into full tears. A choked sob broke from her chest, raw and gasping. She shook her head, not in denial, but in confusion—in shame. She didn't know what to say. She was the one who had longed for his touch even as he told her to leave.
And now the one who had stood there, bare and trembling, after he walked away as though she were a piece of trash left behind to suffer.
All the blame should go to her.
Even now, with her back aching and her body sore, it was her heart that hurt the most. And it was all her fault. Too much her fault.
She drew in a shaky, broken breath and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing tears across her cheek.
"Did Calvus come?" she whispered, her voice cracking like dried parchment. "Did he say anything about… about our escape?"
Sorana's expression softened further, a flicker of hope in her gentle eyes. She nodded, reaching out to carefully take Aurelia's trembling hands in her own.
"Yes, my lady. He came. He said you both would escape in three days." She squeezed Aurelia's fingers gently. "You don't have to be scared anymore. You'll be free soon."
Aurelia closed her eyes, fresh tears slipping from beneath her lashes.
Three days.
The words felt far away, like a shore she could no longer see through the storm.
But in Sorana's grip, in the promise whispered in the dark, a fragile ember of resolve began to glow—small, but alive.
Just then, Aurelia turned toward the door. A cold, sudden dread slid down her spine—a silent warning, instinctive and sharp. She couldn't tell why she felt it, but the air in the room seemed to still, charged with a tension that had nothing to do with tears or whispered plans.
Clack.
The sound was crisp, metallic, final.
The door handle fell to the floor.
Someone had broken the lock, who was it?
The door swung open slowly, and there stood Camilla, framed in the doorway like a portrait of calm vengeance.
Her blunt-cut hair was perfectly smoothed, her gown an elegant sweep of midnight silk. But her eyes—those striking blue eyes—held a frost that seemed to chill the very air between them.
"Hold her, maiden," Camilla ordered, her voice cool and smooth as polished marble.
Before Sorana could fully react, the two escorts flanking Camilla moved with practiced speed. They seized Sorana's arms, twisting them behind her back as they forced her to the floor. Sorana gasped, her body tensing, a low growl building in her throat as her eyes began to glow with a feral, amber light. Her skin rippled, claws beginning to form at her fingertips—the first sign of her beast form awakening.
Camilla took a step closer, her smile cold and unblinking.
"Maintain yourself," she said softly, the threat in her voice as sharp as a blade. "Or this time, I won't take it easy with you."
Sorana froze. Her transformation halted, the amber glow in her eyes dimming to a fearful, pained flicker. She remembered—the last time she had tried to protect Aurelia, Camilla had barely raised a hand. One slap, laced with a poison that left Sorana convulsing on the floor for hours, her beast-form suppressed, her body wracked with helpless agony.
Camilla's smile didn't waver as she watched the fight drain from Sorana's eyes.
"Good," she murmured, turning her attention back to Aurelia. "Now… where were we?"
"Lady Camilla, you don't want to touch Tenebrarum's property, do you?"
Sorana's words cut through the tension in the room, sharp and intentional.
They struck both women, but in very different ways.
Aurelia felt a cold twist in her chest. She didn't want to be called his property—not again, not ever. The word was a cage, a brand, a reduction of everything she was to a thing he owned. It made her skin crawl with shame and a helpless, simmering rage.
Camilla, however, went very still. The cool, poised mask she wore did not crack, but her eyes—those striking blue eyes—glinted with something icy and offended. She saw herself as Tenebrarum's only true property—his rightful consort, his future queen, the woman bound to him by vow and bloodline. To hear this maid imply that this disheveled, violet-eyed creature held any claim to what was hers...
A slow, venomous smile touched Camilla's lips.
"Tenebrarum's property?" she repeated, her voice a soft, dangerous melody. She took a slow step toward Aurelia, her gaze sweeping over her from head to toe, as though appraising an object. "Is that what you believe you are?"
She didn't wait for an answer.
"A stray he brought in from the cold. A temporary distraction." Camilla's voice lowered, each word precise. "I am his betrothed. His future. The one whose name will be etched beside his in history." She tilted her head, her blue eyes gleaming. "You are a stain on his sheets. Nothing more."
But even as she spoke, something flickered behind her composure—a ripple of doubt, of fury. Because Sorana's words had struck where it hurt: Camilla knew that what Tenebrarum claimed, he kept. And right now, whether out of cruelty or obsession, he had claimed Aurelia.
And that made her more than a distraction.
It made Aurelia a rival.
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To be continued...