Chapter 6
Alaric knelt at the edge of the cliff, fingers digging deep into the soil. Blood streaked the backs of his hands where his nails had broken.
It had been three days.
Three days combing every ravine, every twisted tree root, every jagged stone at the bottom of that godforsaken drop.
“Seraphina…” His voice cracked as it was carried away by the wind.
That moment–when she fell–kept replaying in his mind.
She hadn’t screamed. Hadn’t cried.
She’d just looked at him, one last time, with terrifying calm. No hatred. No grief.
Just a silence so final it hollowed him out.
With a roar, he slammed his fist into the ground. Pain shot up his arm, but he barely noticed.
His mind dragged him back—to the day she’d clung to his tunic, begging him on her knees to spare her brother’s life.
And he… he’d shoved her off like she was nothing. Left her to scream herself hoarse on the cold stone floor.
“Your Lordship.” A soldier approached carefully, face drawn. “We’ve searched ten miles downstream. Still no sign of Lady Seraphina…”
Alaric’s head jerked up, eyes bloodshot. “Keep searching!” he shouted. “Alive or dead–I want her found!”
He returned to the estate like a ghost.
His feet carried him, almost by instinct, to the courtyard where she once lived.
The room was still.
On the vanity sat the ivory hairpin he’d gifted her long ago.
He remembered the way her eyes lit up when she first opened the box.
ཇ ཅ ཆ ཛ ཆ ཆལ
And the way she later smashed it against the floor–her face empty with despair.
His fingers brushed the edge of the bed. He could almost feel her warmth lingering in the sheets.
How many nights had he kept her here? Not as a lover, but as a prisoner–trying to convince himself she belonged to him through force alone.
But the truth was ugly.
All that cruelty had been nothing more than longing he couldn’t bear to name.
“My lord,” the steward interrupted softly. “Lady Celeste is requesting an audience.”
Alaric’s gaze turned to ice. “Let her in.”
Celeste swept in moments later and collapsed at his feet, sobbing like a broken doll. “You must avenge me, my lord! Seraphina pushed me–she killed our child, and now she’s thrown herself from a cliff!”
“Our child?” Alaric let out a sharp laugh.
He reached down and seized her jaw. “There was never a child,” he hissed. “When I was in exile, I took a blade to the gut. I’ve been sterile ever since.”
“If not for Seraphina’s rare constitution, she’d never have conceived at all. And you–your entire performance- scheme to frame her.”
was just
twisted
Chapter 6
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Celeste’s face drained of all color. “Y–you… what are you saying…”
“Shut your mouth.”
He kicked her aside like filth.
“You think I didn’t know?” he snarled. “That you bribed the physician to fake a pregnancy? That you had maids spike her tea with abortive herbs? That you stabbed yourself with a hairpin and blamed her for losing a baby that never existed?”
His voice dropped lower with every word, until it was cold enough to burn. “I know everything.”
Celeste crumpled to the floor, realization finally sinking in. “Then… why didn’t you stop me?”
“Because I wanted to see her suffer,” Alaric whispered, voice rough with self–loathing.
“I wanted her jealous. Wanted her to cry over me, to care…”
He gave a dry, bitter laugh. “So I kept hurting her. Just to prove she still felt something.”
He turned his gaze skyward.
The crescent moon hung low in the clouds.
“She’s gone now,” he rasped. “And she’s never coming back.”
Celeste opened her mouth to speak again, but one look from him shut her up.
“Guards,” Alaric ordered, without turning around. “Take this viper away. Cut out her tongue. Break her hands. Punish her according to the law.”
“And the Hawthorn family…”
He paused.
“Wipe them out. Every last one.”
Once silence returned to the room, Alaric sank to his knees.
ུ་ཅ ཚན ཧ རྒྱུ
He thought of the last time she’d smiled at him–back before everything turned to ash. Before the rebellion. Before her father’s betrayal.
She had crept into the estate in spring, cheeks flushed, and shyly slipped a hand–stitched sachet into his palm.
})
“Wait for me,” she’d whispered. “Wait until you came ask for my hand.”
Then came exile. Chains, Blood. Survival.
And when he finally clawed his way back to power, the girl he had longed for had become the daughter of the man he hated most.
Blinded by rage, he seduced her.
Imprisoned her.
Tried to break her.
And now, she was gone.
He buried his face inhis hands and trembled.
The girl who once smiled at him like he was her whole world–the one he drove to the edge–would never smile at him again.
At dawn, a scout arrived with news.
They’d found a torn scrap of bloodstained fabric downstream–the same gown
Seraphina had been wearing when she jumped.
Alaric clutched the piece of cloth in a white–knuckled grip, his vision going dark at the edges. Chapter 6
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“Keep searching,” he growled. “I don’t care if you have to drain the river–find her.”
Seven days passed.
Still nothing.
He stood at the riverbank, staring into the rush of water. And for one maddening moment, he thought he saw her–across the river, smiling at him like she used to.
His foot shifted forward on instinct, but a guard grabbed him just in time.
“My lord! No!”
Alaric stood frozen.
Then he began to laugh.
The sound was wild, bitter, nearly unhinged. “She won’t even leave me a corpse,” he whispered. “That’s her final revenge.
When he returned to the estate, he had her courtyard locked and sealed. No one but him was allowed to step foot inside.
Someone suggested holding a funeral–to give her
peace.
He drew his sword and pressed it to the man’s throat. “She’s not dead,” he snarled, eyes burning. “She’s just angry. Hiding. Don’t ever say that word again.”
And still, he couldn’t stop.
He summoned priests and spirit callers from across the kingdom, demanding rituals to call her soul back.
None succeeded.
Late at night, Alaric often drank himself into a stupor, curled up on the bed where she once slept, clinging to the ghost of her warmth.
He dreamed of her often–covered in blood, standing silently before him.
Asking why he wouldn’t let her go.
He always woke gasping, reaching out–only to grasp empty sheets, cold and untouched.
That’s when he would cry.
“I was wrong,” he whispered into the dark. “God, I was so wrong.”
“Seraphina… I’m a monster. A damn fool. I didn’t deserve you.”
“But please… come back to me. Just come back, and I swear… I’ll never hurt you again.”
