The carriage wheels ground to a halt in the snow-covered courtyard of the Wadee villa like the final nail being driven into a coffin.
Gerffron sat inside, wrists still raw from the iron cuffs that had only been removed an hour earlier. His body ached with every breath — ribs bruised purple from the guards' boots, face swollen from Gorgina's fists, blood dried in dark streaks across his torn robe. The emerald-and-gold finery he had worn to the Winter Ball was now rags, stained with mud and snow and his own blood. The blood-red rose that had once been pinned to his chest was long gone, trampled somewhere in the palace corridors.
He stared out the small window at the familiar towers rising against the gray sky. The same villa where he had once walked as consort. The same rose gardens where he had whispered promises through iron bars to a boy who had waited ten years. The same place where he had learned to smile while sharpening thorns in secret.
Now he was returning as something less than a prisoner.
The carriage door opened.
Two of Teivel's personal guards stood outside, faces masked in silver, swords drawn. Behind them, the entire household had gathered in silence — servants in neat rows, gardeners with shovels still in hand, stable boys holding reins. Lady Elowen stood at the top of the steps in deep crimson velvet, fan snapped shut in her gloved hand like a weapon. Her eyes were colder than the snow.
And at the very center of the steps, waiting like a statue carved from ice, was Gorgina Wadee.
She wore a simple black gown today — no cape, no sword, no jewels. Her burgundy hair was pinned back severely. Her golden-amber eyes looked at him without a flicker of the woman who had once kissed him with desperation and whispered that she was falling in love.
Only the Duke remained.
The guards dragged Gerffron out of the carriage. His legs buckled the moment they touched the ground. He would have fallen if one guard hadn't caught his arm in a bruising grip. Snow soaked through his torn boots instantly, freezing his feet.
Lady Elowen's voice cut through the silence like a whip.
"Bring the traitor forward."
The guards half-dragged, half-carried him up the steps. Every step sent fresh pain through his ribs. His swollen face throbbed with each heartbeat. Blood from his lip cracked open again and trickled down his chin.
Gorgina watched him approach without blinking.
When he stood before her, the guards forced him to his knees in the snow.
Gerffron looked up at her.
For one heartbeat, something flickered behind her eyes — a ghost of the woman who had sobbed against his chest in the dungeon, who had screamed that she loved him, who had beaten him while tears streamed down her face.
Then it was gone.
She spoke, voice flat and emotionless, carrying across the entire courtyard so every servant could hear.
"Gerffron Wadee shall no longer be considered as my husband. He is a traitor to the Wadee name. He used this household to commit treason against the Crown Prince. He is responsible for the collapse of the Crown prince's new venture and the loss of hundreds of thousands of crowns."
Her words rang out like a death sentence.
Lady Elowen stepped forward, fan still closed.
"From this day forward, the former consort will live under house arrest within these walls. He will be confined to the east tower. No visitors. No letters. No freedom to leave the grounds. He will be fed the servants' rations. He will wear plain clothes. He will be watched every hour. The Wadee name will no longer be tainted by his presence."
Gorgina's eyes never left his.
"You are nothing to me now," she said quietly, but loud enough for everyone to hear. "You are less than the dirt beneath my boots. You chose a slave over your wife. You chose betrayal over loyalty. You chose to destroy everything I built."
She turned away without another word.
The guards hauled Gerffron to his feet and dragged him inside.
The east tower had once been his private domain — the solar with the oak desk, the library where he had hidden his ledger, the balcony where he had stood watching the moon and making vows to a boy in chains.
Now it was a prison.
They stripped him of his torn robe and dressed him in plain gray wool — the same coarse fabric the lowest servants wore. No gold. No chiffon. No blood-red rose. The silver ring from Count Remal was taken from his finger. The two pebbles from Styrmir were left in his pocket only because the guards did not think to search him thoroughly.
The door to the tower was locked from the outside.
A single guard was posted at the bottom of the stairs.
Gerffron stood in the center of the room that had once been his sanctuary and looked around at the stripped furnishings. The desk was gone. The ledger had been taken. The balcony doors were boarded shut. Only a thin pallet on the floor and a bucket in the corner remained.
He sank to his knees on the cold stone.
The pain in his body was nothing.
The pain in his soul was everything.
He closed his eyes and let India come to him again.
In the dream he was Deepak Sehwal — standing in the small Kolkata apartment, his mother at the stove, his father at the door, the smell of aloo paratha and chai filling the air. They hugged him. They told him they were proud. They told him he had done well.
When the dream faded, the reality crashed back in.
He was twenty-seven years old in this world.
He was a prisoner in the house he had once called home.
He was under house arrest in the very tower where he had planned to save the boy he loved.
Gerffron touched the two pebbles in his pocket and smiled through cracked lips.
He would endure the cold stares, the servants who now spat at his feet when they brought his meagre meals, the way Lady Elowen passed his door every morning with a look of pure disgust, the way Gorgina never came to see him again.
He would endure it all.
Because somewhere across the border, Styrmir was alive.
Growing.
Healing.
Becoming the man who would one day return as an emissary.
And when that day came, Gerffron Wadee would be waiting.
The fire inside him had never burned brighter.
The empire thought it had broken him.
It had only sharpened him.
Gerffron lay down on the thin pallet, chains no longer on his wrists but the weight of house arrest heavier than any iron.
He closed his eyes and whispered to the darkness.
He would endure.
And when the boy returned, the woman who had once loved him would finally understand what it meant to lose everything she had built on lies and chains.
The snow kept falling outside the boarded balcony.