That evening, Nia was escorted to Isaac's quarters.
The deeper she was led into the palace grounds, the more uncomfortable she became. No one had actively told her Isaac lived on a different space totally.
The luxurious wings reserved for royalty slowly disappeared behind her, replaced by isolated and dusty grounds. The guards stationed there were unlike the ceremonial guards in the main palace; these men carried loaded rifles and watched everything with sharp gazes.
At this point it was as though they were escorting her toward a prison cell rather than the residence of the Crown Prince of Subrind.
Then the door opened and Nia understood.
The staff who had whispered with pity that the prince was "kept in a cage" had not been exaggerating.
This place truly looked like confinement.
The room was large, but very cold. Metal walls, minimal furniture, a single bed, books stacked with obsessive neatness and in one corner a thick iron chain was bolted into the wall.
Nia's stomach tightened.
What kind of monster needed to be restrained like this?
Or perhaps… what kind of people would restrain their own prince this way?
All made unease crawl beneath her skin.
Still, she smoothed her expression into practiced innocence.
She had survived far worse situations than an uncomfortable room. That wouldn't stop her from achieving her mission.
The bathroom door suddenly opened.
Nia looked up and forgot to breathe.
Isaac stepped out wearing dark blue silk pajamas, a towel hanging loosely around his shoulders as he dried his damp hair. Water droplets clung to the pale strands of blonde, sliding slowly down his neck and disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt.
The dim lighting only made him dangerously beautiful.
His beauty did not feel human.
It was unfair, almost frightening, the kind of face people would ruin kingdoms for. Even dressed casually and completely relaxed, he radiated something devastatingly magnetic.
Nia had spent her life around powerful men, men praised to be at the pinnacle of male beauty but none of them came close to this.
No wonder they called him the devil's creation.
The realization alone made heat rush through her body. Suddenly the cage did not seem so unbearable anymore.
If she could tame this man…
The benefits would be unimaginable.
She quickly composed herself, arranging her features into perfect softness. Wide eyes. Gentle smile. Vulnerable posture.
"Good evening, my prince." Her voice dripped with honeyed sweetness. "I am your fiancée."
Isaac did not even look at her.
He walked past her like she was a part of the furniture in the room.
Nia blinked in disbelief as he headed toward the small kitchen area tucked against the wall. Calmly, casually, he began preparing dinner.
The complete disregard stunned her more than anger would have. She felt disrespected.
Only if she knew...
To Isaac, her entire existence smelled wrong.
Her face projected innocence, but her aura betrayed her entirely. It carried greed, manipulation, false helplessness, and the rot of someone who had spent years weaponizing affection. Most people could never detect such things but Isaac wasn't most people.
Years of surviving had sharpened certain instincts inside him into blades.
And every instinct in him rejected her immediately.
She was impure and annoying.
So he ignored her completely.
Nia stood there awkwardly while he cooked.
The smell of food filled the room. Spiced meat, rice, freshly sautéed vegetables. Her stomach growled quietly; she had barely eaten all day preparing for this assignment.
Isaac head the growl but he didn't react, he plated his food, sat down and ate peacefully.
Not once did he ask if she was hungry or even offer her water.
After eating, he washed his dishes and settled onto the sofa to watch a movie on the television mounted against the wall.
Nia remained standing.
Minute after minute passed and her feet began to ache.
And still she kept convincing herself in her mind. 'Surely he would eventually acknowledge her existence. Surely this was some kind of power play.'
But then the movie ended.
Isaac stood up and walked toward the bed.
She finally understood he was never going to give her the comfort she waited for him to offer so she walked towards his bed to get it herself.
"You are not to touch any of my things."
His voice cut through the room like ice and Nia froze mid-step.
Isaac continued with back facing her. "You are not to go near anything that belongs to me. As long as you stay out of my space, what happens to you has nothing to do with me."
Disbelief washed over her.
Everything here belonged to him.
How was she supposed to survive?
"But…" Her voice trembled beautifully on command. Tears gathered instantly in her eyes. "But Nia brought nothing with her. Nia would die…"
Any normal man would have softened.
Isaac did not even blink.
"That has nothing to do with me."
The coldness of his tone felt almost unreal.
"Report back to whoever sent you."
And just like that, the conversation ended.
Nia stood there in silence while her carefully crafted expression slowly cracked apart.
He truly did not care.
Not even slightly.
For the first time in years, her beauty, tears, and vulnerability had failed completely.
Her jaw tightened.
This was bad.
Very bad.
Slowly, she lowered herself onto the cold floor beside the wall, wrapping her arms around herself as the chill seeped through her clothes.
In the darkness, her expression finally twisted into irritation.
This assignment was going to be far harder than she thought.
---
The fragile silence between the two nations shattered again only days later.
Subrind woke to a missles .
They fell before dawn, streaking across the dark sky like burning comets and slamming into major power plants and railway stations across the country with terrifying precision.
Explosions lit the horizon.
Windows shattered.
Entire districts lost electricity within minutes.
By sunrise, nearly half of Subrind had been plunged into darkness. Traffic systems collapsed railway transportation froze completely and thousands of commuters were stranded in stations or trapped halfway through transit routes with no idea how to reach their destination.
Hospitals switched to emergency generators. Factories shut down. Communication towers flickered unstable across several provinces.
Panic spread quickly.
And yet compared to the previous market massacre, the casualty count was strangely restrained.
Only a handful of deaths were confirmed and ten injuries.
International analysts immediately noted the difference.
"This appears strategically designed to cripple infrastructure rather than maximize civilian deaths," one foreign correspondent stated during a live broadcast.
But for ordinary citizens, that distinction meant very little.
Fear was fear.
And darkness was darkness.
Subrind retaliated within thirty minutes.
Their missiles crossed into Dilrikian airspace in violent waves, targeting bridges, government facilities, transportation hubs, and communication networks.
Air-defense systems activated almost immediately.
The night sky above Dilrik erupted into flashes of interception fire as missile-defense batteries destroyed incoming projectiles midair.
Most were stopped but not all.
Several slipped through.
One government building partially collapsed, major bridges suffered structural damage and part of the capital's transportation network shut down completely. Smoke rose from multiple districts before emergency responders even arrived.
Miraculously, no deaths were recorded.
But the city descended into chaos anyway.
Roads leading out of the capital became completely jammed within an hour. Vehicles clogged highways endlessly as frightened civilians attempted to flee. Parents held crying children inside overheated cars while radio hosts delivered nonstop updates about possible additional strikes.
Nobody knew whether another missile would fall in the next minute.
Or the next second.