The road hummed beneath the wheels, steady as a heartbeat and colder still.
He sat across from me—Lucian, Duke of quiet wars and silken silence. Sunlight licked the edge of his jaw, gold catching in the fine strands of his hair. He looked out the window like the world outside was easier to face than the one within.
I broke the hush.
"You still train at dawn?" I asked, voice light, as if I cared for small things now.
Not vengeance. Not truth.
His gaze flicked to me, slow, assessing.
"Sometimes," he said. "When I need clarity."
Clarity.
What a dangerous word.
I used to search for it in his eyes, desperate and young, thinking love was a thing that bloomed with patience.
Now I know better. Some gardens only grow poison.
"Strange," I said softly. "You seem clearer than most."
That earned a reaction. Barely. A tilt of his head, the ghost of curiosity.
But no more.
He went back to watching the hills roll past—hands still, shoulders relaxed, the perfect painting of control.
I mirrored him, lips curved in an absent smile. Let him believe I was at ease, that I had surrendered to this silence.
But I had decided.
If I wished to protect Noctare from the rot of its queen, if I wished to tether Lucian's fate before her chains reached him—then I would need more than proximity.
I would need trust. Or the illusion of it.
My fingers curled in my lap and then slowly uncurled.
"In Noctare," I said, my voice light as falling lace, "it is tradition, is it not, to offer one's hand to signify the beginning of an alliance… or friendship?"
That caught him.
Lucian turned to me, not abruptly, but like someone unaccustomed to being addressed in warmth. His brows were faintly furrowed, mouth unreadable.
"You know our customs," he said, not quite a question, not quite approval.
"I've read," I replied and held his gaze. "And I would rather begin this journey as allies than adversaries."
The silence grew roots. His eyes studied my hand — pale, ungloved, extended toward him like a promise I had no intention of breaking.
"You and I," he said slowly, "are bound by an agreement. This marriage… it's not built on fondness."
"No," I agreed. "But kingdoms do not survive on fondness. They survive on foresight. And trust."
I watched the shift in his expression—minute, but present. A breath taken a second too late. A tension softened.
He reached forward.
Lucian Vortan, the Duke they said never touched unless to command or kill, placed his gloved hand in mine.
It was not a romantic gesture. It was not ceremonial.
But it was the first.
His hand was colder than I expected. Or maybe mine was just warmer.
"Then let it be an alliance," he said, eyes still on mine.
I did not smile. I did not need to.
The carriage rolled on.
Seven days. That was how long it would take for the carriage to carry me to the heart of Noctare.
I told myself I could endure it.
I had endured far worse.
For five days, I moved like clockwork — measured, composed, sculpted from sheer will. My posture straight, my answers polite, my meals nibbled without complaint. Lucian sat across, quiet as ever, and I matched his silence with practiced grace.
But on the sixth day, my body betrayed me.
The ache had begun in my spine, then spread — an invisible weight behind my eyes, a tremble hidden in my fingertips. I did not let it show. I would sooner bleed roses than reveal weakness. Yet when the carriage rolled to a gentle halt, I blinked in confusion.
The curtains parted, and I heard murmurs outside. Steps.
Then his voice.
"We rest here."
I turned to him, caught off guard. He did not look at me directly, only at the road beyond.
"We're only a day away," I said, my voice even. "There's no need—"
"There is." A pause. "You haven't looked well since morning."
The breath caught in my throat, thin and sudden.
He noticed?
Before I could summon a reply, the door opened. Cool air spilled in like water, and I stepped out, cloaked in dusk.
Twilight had painted the sky in bruised violets and soft golds. It was beautiful. Too beautiful. The kind of sky that made one forget they were walking into a lion's den.
I wandered a short distance away from the resting guards and murmuring aides, letting the wind loosen the weight behind my eyes. I was still beneath it all — the girl who had died once. The girl who had trusted the wrong hands.
A flutter of movement caught my eye.
A rabbit — no bigger than a loaf of bread, snow-white, with ears like folded silk — was nibbling on the grass not far ahead.
It looked up. I crouched slowly, extending my fingers.
"You shouldn't trust strangers," I whispered to it.
But the creature did.
It let me pet it. Its fur was warm and real. For a moment, I forgot the road behind and the crown ahead.
I didn't hear his steps.
But the rabbit did.
It startled, shuddered, and bolted just as I looked up — straight into the cool, unreadable eyes of Lucian.
"You frightened it," I murmured, standing. My tone was neither scolding nor soft. Just… there.
He glanced in the direction the rabbit had gone.
"If it brings you comfort," he said, "you can take it to the estate. There's space in the gardens."
For a heartbeat, I said nothing.
Not because I was shocked by the offer, but because it stirred something I had no name for. A strange, reluctant warmth crawled up the edges of my ribs.
He had noticed my weakness. He had stopped the carriage. He had spoken of comfort.
Lucian Vortan was not meant to offer such things.
"Then I shall," I said, with a nod as crisp as my breath.
I found the rabbit again before dusk swallowed the last light. It did not run this time. It let me hold it against my chest like a secret I wasn't ready to share.
When the journey resumed, I carried the rabbit with me.
Its tiny heartbeat echoed faintly against mine as the wheels began to turn again, carrying us forward—toward Noctare, toward thrones and masks and plans within plans.
And as the sky darkened behind us, I pressed my fingers to the soft fur and allowed myself one last moment of peace.
The last before the storm.
Noctare did not greet—it loomed.
As the carriage wheels slowed to their final turn, the world outside tilted into grey. The sky had dulled into pewter, veiled in mist, and beyond it stood the estate: vast, ancient, and cold as a cathedral carved from shadow.
Tall iron gates parted before us like the jaws of something old and unsated.
The castle that rose beyond them was not a home. It was a sentence.
I sat still, my spine a rod of polished steel beneath layers of velvet. The rabbit slept soundly in my lap, trusting, warm. Foolish little thing. I envied it.
Lucian had not spoken since we crossed into Noctare's borders. He hadn't needed to. The silence between us was no longer awkward—it had become its own language.
As we approached the entrance, servants in raven-black livery lined the steps like statues, heads bowed, expressions blank.
Welcome, Duchess.
A title that clung to my throat like thorns.
The carriage door opened. I did not move right away. Instead, I looked up at the towering walls, the archways shrouded in ivy, the sharp elegance of a place built not for comfort, but for power.
And memory whispered behind my ribs.
I had walked these stones once before. As a girl.
As a bride.
As a fool.
This time, I would walk them as something else entirely.
I stepped down.
The ground beneath my slippers was cold. Wind curled around my ankles like a warning. I tightened my grip around the rabbit. It stirred, ears twitching.
Lucian followed, his boots touching stone with deliberate finality. The guards stiffened. The air thickened.
"We've arrived," he said simply.
I glanced at him.
His face, as always, unreadable. But his jaw was set just slightly—like someone preparing for battle.
So was I.
"Lead the way, Your Grace," I murmured, a quiet smile on my lips that never reached my eyes.
And with that, I entered the lion's den.
Behind me, the gates groaned shut.
The sound echoed through stone and memory alike.
Welcome home, Liora.
Let the game begin.
The halls of Noctare were made of hush and echo.
Marble beneath my steps. Tapestries with stories too faded to read. Servants bowed as we passed, and I felt the cold stare of portraits on the walls—former lords of Noctare, all bone and silence now, yet somehow still judging.
Lucian walked ahead, his presence cutting through the stillness like a blade. Beside me, Mara's hands were folded tight, her eyes drinking in everything. Behind us, Elaris followed with the kind of grace that looked effortless—until you remembered it was built atop vigilance.
We stopped before a set of doors. The hinges were silver-forged, the handles shaped like intertwined wolves.
"This will be your room," Lucian said, voice quiet.
My gaze flicked to the left. Another door. Similar design. Unmistakable.
Connected.
My breath caught—but only for a second. This room. I had never stepped into it before. Not in my past life. Not once.
Back then, I had been placed in the guest wing. Not by request. By quiet dismissal.
But now… this.
Not a guest room. Not a statement of distance.
This room sat adjacent to the Duke's own, bridged by a common bathing chamber. A fragile thread of intimacy. One that could be crossed or ignored. A gesture: deliberate and calculated. Perhaps not by him, but by the estate's old order. One reserved for a wife.
My fingers brushed the doorknob.
A pulse, low and sure, beat behind my ribs. Why this room?
I knew his habits—he rarely slept in his quarters. He buried himself in his office, mere steps away, managing documents and debts, lands and letters. A man more wedded to duty than anything flesh and blood.
And yet, this thread had been placed between us.
"I trust it meets your expectations," Lucian said.
He didn't look at me. His eyes were on the hallway, already thinking ten steps ahead.
"Perfectly," I replied, my voice honey-smooth.
He nodded once. Then turned to Elaris. "See to it that the Duchess is settled."
Then, like a shadow melting into a darker shadow, he left.
Mara opened the door for me. I stepped inside.
Warm. Clean. Expansive.
And yet… something about it felt like standing on the edge of a chessboard.
"They've given you the room next to the Duke's," Elaris murmured, her tone unreadable as always.
"Yes," I said.
Not quite a triumph.
But not a loss either.
Elaris uncannily brought me comfort.
I ran my fingers along the windowsill. Dustless. The kind of cleanliness that comes not from care but from disuse.
This room had waited.
Now I had entered.
Let the walls remember me.
The rabbit stirred in my arms again. I set it gently down on a cushion near the hearth. It sniffed the velvet, then curled into a small, trusting heap. How easily it slept—how easily it believed.
Mara hovered near the wardrobe, already inspecting the arrangement of my gowns and jewelry. She'd been here before, in another life. Just as I had. But the details were different now. This version of the future was rewritten in subtler ink.
Elaris stood still, her mismatched eyes fixed on the door that led to the Duke's room. "Do you think he placed you here?"
I turned, curious. "Do you?"
She didn't answer. She didn't need to. Her silence was always a shade too deliberate to be anything but measured.
I walked to the adjoining door and laid my palm flat against it. The wood was cold. There was no sound beyond it—no movement, no breath. And yet, the presence lingered. Like he had been here moments before, deciding something he'd never admit aloud.
"He wants something," I said.
"Of course," Elaris replied. "Power does not move without purpose."
And neither did I.
I stepped back and let the door remain closed. Not tonight.
I turned to the bed—four-posted, draped in twilight blue. Fit for a queen, perhaps. But I had no desire for thrones carved of splinters and secrets. What I wanted couldn't be gifted. It had to be taken.
"Mara," I said softly, "draw the curtains. I will rest."
She obeyed, and the world outside dimmed to hush and flicker. Candles glowed on silver stems. Elaris lingered a moment longer, then nodded once, and left without further words.
When I was finally alone, I reached for the rabbit again, holding it close—not for comfort, but for the strange pulse of life it offered. Warm, fragile, real. A tether, however small, to the version of myself that still remembered gentleness.
Then I laid down.
The bed was soft, too soft, like a trap of silken lies. I closed my eyes anyway.
It was quiet.
The duke in the office.
He would come to his room near dusk.
And I?
I would sleep to gain energy for this frail body.
Wake up and start training before dusk.
Both for my physical strength and Noctare.
With or without the duke.
TO BE CONTINUED -