[Lior's POV — Continuation—The Chamber]
The door closed.
The sound was heavy—final in a way that echoed long after it stopped. The lock slid into place with a dull click, and that was it.
No footsteps retreating, no voices outside, and no one coming back.
When I looked around, the chamber felt darker than my life had ever been.
The room was large, vast even—but emptiness has a way of shrinking space, of pressing inward until walls feel closer than they are. Shadows clung to the corners like they were listening, like they were waiting for something to happen.
This was not a prison cell; that somehow made it worse.
He finally set me down.
My feet touched the stone floor, and pain flared immediately—sharp, biting cold shooting up my legs. I hissed softly despite myself. My legs trembled, bare beneath the thin nightsuit, the fur slipping away like it had never meant to protect me at all.
I swayed.
He watched.
Then he turned slightly and pulled a chair closer to the fireplace, the flames crackling low and steady.
"Come here," he said, not loud, not gentle, a command.
My body reacted before my mind could protest. I trembled as I moved toward the fire, every step uncertain, knees weak. The warmth reached me—but it didn't help. It hovered just out of reach, like a promise never meant to be fulfilled.
I sat, and he approached.
I felt him before I saw him—his presence closing in, heavy and inescapable. His hands moved to loosen the fur around my shoulders, and instinct took over.
I slid back.
Fast.
His hands froze mid-motion, and the air between us thickened, stretching unbearably. I couldn't bring myself to look up. My heart hammered so violently it hurt, fear coiling tight around my ribs.
I waited, thinking he would punish me for this, but punishment didn't come.
Instead—KNOCK. KNOCK.
The sound made me flinch. He turned, opening the door just enough for a maid to bow deeply, her voice barely above a whisper.
"My lord… the hot water and warm clothes."
He took them without a word and shut the door again, sealing us back into the silence.
Then he came closer, too close.
His footsteps echoed on the floor...TAP. TAP. TAP.
And these tap sounds made me more scared than anything. Then, he set the wooden tub down in front of me, steam curling upward, the water inside dark and gently rippling. The heat was visible. Tempting.
"Put your legs in," he said calmly. "They're freezing."
I didn't move.
My feet drew back instinctively, toes curling against the cold stone as if retreating could save me. I shook my head—small, desperate.
"I—I'm fine," I whispered, even though my teeth were already threatening to chatter.
He stared at me, not angry, not annoyed. Just… tired, as he exhaled slowly.
Then—YANK.
His hand shot out, gripping my ankle with crushing certainty. I gasped as he dragged my legs forward in a single motion—SPLASH!
Hot water surged violently over my feet and calves, the sudden heat shocking enough to rip a cry from my throat.
"Ah—!"
I jerked instinctively, but his grip held firm, unyielding. My whole body shook as heat and pain collided, nerves screaming, tears spilling freely before I could stop them.
"Stay still, before I chop them off," he said.
His voice was steel-hard, and my body obeyed.
I sobbed quietly, chest hitching, hands clutching the edge of the chair as warmth seeped back into numb flesh, stinging and overwhelming. My legs trembled violently, helpless under his grasp.
He released me only when he was satisfied—when the shaking eased, when color returned to skin that had gone pale and blue.
"There," he said quietly. "You would have lost feeling."
As if that mattered more than the way I was shaking apart in front of him.
He straightened, towering over me once more.
"You will not refuse me when I am preventing harm," he said flatly. "You may fear me. You may hate me, but you will not endanger yourself out of defiance."
My shoulders curled inward as I whispered, broken, "Yes..."
The fire crackled softly, the water steamed, and I sat there—trembling, soaked, humiliated—understanding with painful clarity that even my resistance would be managed, because in this place even my suffering was no longer my own.
He moved then.
The leather creaked softly as he took the chair opposite me, crossing one leg over the other with lazy precision. The contrast was cruel—my shaking body, his perfect composure. He reached for the tray beside him, fingers closing around a cigar as if this were an evening ritual rather than the aftermath of a kidnapping.
He lit it effortlessly.
The flame flared, then died. Smoke curled slowly through the air, sharp and bitter, mixing with steam and firelight.
He didn't speak at first; he just looked at me, not with hunger, not with cruelty, but with possession already settled.
"Are you wondering," he asked at last, voice low and calm, "why you were brought here?"
My throat felt raw as I swallowed hard and forced myself to nod.
"Yes," I whispered.
He inhaled, smoke filling his lungs, then exhaled slowly—as if deciding how much truth I could withstand.
"I won't dress it in gentler words," he said flatly, and the pause was deliberate. "You were sold to me."
The world stopped.
The fire went silent, the steam vanished, and the room collapsed inward.
"What?" The word slipped out before I could stop it—thin, cracked, wrong.
He tapped ash into the tray with unhurried precision.
"Your father," he continued calmly, "accepted my terms; your sister approved them."
Approved.
"So," he went on, eyes never leaving mine, "whether you want this or not is irrelevant, just like I said before. There is nowhere for you to run. No contract to void. No one to appeal to."
My chest hurt, not like pain, but like something tearing loose inside me.
"S-…sold?" I whispered again, the word foreign and obscene in my mouth. "I—I'm not— I'm a person—"
He stood; the movement alone made me flinch.
"Even a person can be sold," he said quietly.
The words weren't shouted. They didn't need to be.
He stepped closer, the sound of his boots deliberate against the stone. "Here, you are what was given and what was paid for, so...you better calm yourself and start accepting everything."
My hands clenched in my lap, nails biting into my skin as my vision blurred. I shook my head slowly, uselessly.
"They blamed me," I whispered without meaning to. "For my mother. I— I knew they hated me but—"
My voice broke.
"Sold?"
The word finally landed.
Sold.
Like livestock, like property, like something that had value only when exchanged. My breath hitched violently. I couldn't stop it. I pressed my lips together, but a broken sound slipped through anyway.
Alaric watched; he didn't interrupt. When I couldn't look at him anymore, he spoke again.
"Stop shaking," he said. "It won't change what's done."
He turned away, already finished with the moment. "Put on the warm clothes. Eat when they bring food and rest."
He paused at the door, just long enough to remind me he still controlled the air in the room.
"And understand this," he added, voice low and edged with iron. "I won't force you ever for anything."
My heart thudded painfully.
"But do not mistake restraint for mercy," he finished. "You are here because I chose to keep you. The alternative was far less pleasant."
The door opened.
Before leaving, he looked back at me once more—expression unreadable.
"Accept it," he said. "It will hurt less that way."
Then he was gone.
The door closed.
The lock slid home.
I sat there, staring at nothing, water cooling around my legs, smoke still clinging to the air.
Sold.
I had lived my whole life unwanted. Blamed. Discarded. But this—this was worse, because now I knew the truth.
I hadn't been taken because of a reckless kiss. I hadn't been taken because I was desired. I had been taken because I was expendable.
"Hic… hic… sniff…"
The sound tore out of me before I could stop it.
I bent forward, arms wrapping around myself, shoulders shaking violently as the tears finally broke free. Hot, humiliating, unstoppable. They dropped into the bathwater, disappearing instantly—like I had always learned to do.
"I don't understand…" I whispered hoarsely, voice cracking apart. "What did I do…?"
My chest hurt. It was the slow, crushing pain of something collapsing inward.
"Everyone else…" I hiccupped, breath hitching. "Everyone else is given something. Love, a place, and a choice."
My fingers curled tightly into the fabric of my nightclothes.
"Why was I never chosen?" I whispered. "Why was I always the one left behind?"
The fire answered with a soft crackle.
"Did I sin just by being born?" I asked the empty room. "Is that why…?"
My voice broke completely then.
"Why did you forget me?" I whispered upward, to gods that had never listened before. "Why does everyone else get to live… and I'm only ever something to be thrown away?"
My tears fell harder now, my body shaking, my breath coming in broken pieces.
"I didn't ask for this," I sobbed. "I didn't ask to be born. I didn't ask to be loved. I didn't even ask to be happy…"
My hands trembled as I pressed them against my chest, like I could keep my heart from splitting open.
"So why…" I choked, voice barely audible, "…why does it hurt this much?"
The room offered no answer.
Only shadows.Only cold stone.Only the weight of a future I hadn't chosen.
And as the fire burned low and the water grew cold around me, one truth settled quietly, devastating and final: No god had forgotten me.
I had simply never been worth remembering.