"Why do you look at me with such fear?" he asked, not turning.
"I have always loved you. The thought of you writing in that stupid journal, pining for him, disgusts me." He finally glanced over his shoulder, his gaze empty. "It's all 'Tenebrarum, Tenebrarum, Tenebrarum.' I grew sick of it. I burned it last night."
He turned fully then and crossed the room. He didn't rush; his approach was slow, deliberate, giving her time to feel every step.
He stopped before her, his shadow swallowing the light. His hand rose, and his fingers, cold and precise, brushed a strand of hair from her damp cheek, tucking it behind her ear. The gentleness was a lie.
"I am the victim here," he stated, his voice low and terrible. "Every day of my life has been suffering. While you had a home, I had ashes."
He withdrew his touch, pacing a few steps away as if the memory was a cage. "I was kind once. I was only five. Your parents… they had mine murdered. For power. For the title to a cursed, forgotten village. I watched our home burn. I heard their screams. That is the inheritance your family gave me."
"No…" The word was a breath, a last defense crumbling. Tears, silent and desperate, welled and fell Aurelia's eyes. "They wouldn't…"
He was back before her in an instant, drawn by her tears. This time, he bent close. His lips touched the wet trail on her cheek, not a kiss, but a sampling. A slow, deliberate taste.
"Salt," he whispered against her skin, his breath chilling the tear track. "The flavor of your legacy."
He straightened, looking down at her as she trembled, delivering the verdict with calm, absolute finality.
"Every part of you," he murmured, his lips hovering a breath from hers, the words a dark promise that stole the air from her lungs.
"You belong to me,"His scent—old parchment and cold stone—filled her senses.
"I will never!" The defiance erupted from a place deeper than fear. Her head jerked forward, not to flee, but to attack. Her teeth found the soft flesh of his lower lip and clamped down with brutal, desperate force.
A metallic tang flooded her mouth.
His blood was on her lips.
"You deserve this, worst if you don't let me out."
He recoiled with a sharp, guttural sound, shoving her back by the shoulders.
She stumbled against the bedpost. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, then pulled it away, staring at the vivid crimson stain smeared across his palm.
His own blood.
For a second, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the slow drip of blood onto the pristine rug.
Then his eyes, dark with shock, lifted to hers. The cold calculation returned, freezing over the pain, hardening into something infinitely more dangerous.
"You stupid, feral thing," he breathed, the words lethally soft.
His open hand moved not with a wild swing, but with a vicious, controlled precision.
Tass!
The crack of the slap was a bomb in the quiet room. Her head snapped to the side, a white-hot bloom of pain exploding across her cheek and temple. The world swam, sounds muffled, colors smearing.
When her vision cleared, swimming with tears she refused to shed, her eyes—once bright with defiance—were now wide, glazed, and filled with a stunned, animal pain.
The vivid red imprint of his hand burned on her pale skin, a brand of his ownership and her rebellion. A single trickle of blood, his or hers she couldn't tell, traced a path from the corner of her swollen lip.
He stood over her, blotting his bleeding mouth with a cloth, his gaze devoid of any warmth, any memory of the boy in the rain.
"You will learn," he said, the promise in his voice colder than any dungeon. "One way or another."
"Eat the pie," he said, his voice now devoid of its earlier heat, flat and absolute. "Because this is the only thing you will have today. And tomorrow. I will starve you bite by bite, hour by hour, until the life in your belly is nothing but a forgotten whisper. Until that child is dead."
He did not wait for a reply, for more defiance, for tears.
He had delivered his sentence. He turned and walked to the door. The turn of the key in the lock was not the sharp clunk of before, but a smooth, dreadful snick of perfect precision.
Then, his footsteps faded, leaving her alone with the grotesque offering.
Aurelia did not look at the pie. Her eyes were fixed on the door, but she saw nothing. Her hands, of their own volition, drifted to her stomach, pressing over the slight swell.
The pain in her cheek was a distant throb compared to the icy terror now flooding her veins, a cold that reached into the very core of her being where her child slept, unaware.
A frantic, animal energy seized her.
You have to leave. Run Aurelia, Aurelia run.
Her mind raced,she had to escape from here.
It's now or never.
She could not just sit. She could not accept the plate.
She surged to her feet, the world tilting briefly from the sudden movement, and stumbled to the room's only window.
It was a tall, narrow pane of thick, warped glass, framed by pretty pink curtains. She beat her fists against it—once, twice—but the blows were absorbed by the dense, ancient material, leaving not a crack, only a dull, mocking thud. She pounded until her knuckles were raw, her breath fogging the cold surface in frantic bursts.
No. No. Please open.
Her gaze swept the room, landing on the small table. The silver fork beside the pie glinted in the dim light.
Yes, the fork...
A stupid, desperate idea. She snatched it, her hand trembling, and jammed the tines into the narrow gap where the window met the sill. She pried, her muscles straining, a low grunt of effort escaping her. The metal gave a pathetic squeal, bending, not the wood. The fork was ornamental, useless. The window didn't budge.
The reality of it crashed down, colder than the glass. The fork clattered from her numb fingers to the floor.
She was trapped. Not just in a room, but in his calculation. Every potential tool was a toy. Every escape, a dead end. He had thought of everything.
She slid down the wall beneath the window, her back against the unyielding stone, and drew her knees to her chest.
Her eyes, wide and dry now, stared at the pie on the table across the room. It was no longer just food. It was a test. A slow poison.
A clock, counting down in silent, sugared increments
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To be continued...