I Faked My Death, He Lost His Soul

Chaos erupted from the gardens below—shouts, screams, the sound of people running.

I stood at the broken railing and looked down. A crowd had already formed around the white heap on the grass that was Seraphina. I felt nothing. An empty, quiet stillness.

I adjusted the strap of my gown, picked up my discarded shawl, and walked calmly back inside.

I had just cleared the balcony doors when a hand clamped onto my wrist with brutal force.

William.

He must have run. His breathing was slightly ragged, but his eyes were the terrifying part—a storm of fury and utter disbelief.

“Seraphina fell from the balcony,” he said, each word dipped in ice. “You were there.”

I pulled my arm, but his grip was iron. “I was.”

“Did you cause it?”

“Yes. What of it?”

His face darkened, the controlled mask shattering into something raw and dangerous. “I told you to learn from her. Is this your idea of a lesson? You will come with me. You will apologize to her.”

“Apologize?” The laugh that escaped me was hollow. “She earned it. I’ll apologize over her coffin.”

“You are beyond redemption.”

He turned his head, not to me, but to the two large, impassive men flanking him—his personal guards. “She refuses to learn respect. Take her to the old wine cellar. Lock her in. She stays there until I decide otherwise.”

“William! You have no right!”

He pulled me close, his face inches from mine. His voice dropped to a lethal whisper only I could hear. “I have every right. I am your fiancé. You could have killed her. If I don’t discipline you, your father will, and he won’t be gentle. This is the lesson. The only one you seem to understand.”

“You’re not my—”

But the guards were already on me. They grabbed my arms, their hold impersonal and unbreakable. My shouts, my struggles, meant nothing. They marched me through a service corridor, down a narrow flight of stone steps, and into a small, dank cellar. The door, a thick slab of aged oak reinforced with iron, slammed shut behind me. A heavy bolt slid home with a final thunk.

The cold was immediate. It seeped from the stone walls and the dirt floor. It was the deep, damp cold of a forgotten place, far worse than any garden pond.

I hammered on the door until my fists were sore. “William! You bastard! Let me out!”

Silence.

The cold bit through the thin silk of my gown. I wrapped my arms around myself, pacing to keep warm. It was useless. The chill was inside me now.

Then, a familiar, deep cramping started in my abdomen.

My cycle. Early.

A wave of nausea and pain doubled me over. I slid down the wall to the floor. I could feel the warmth of blood seeping through my underthings, a stark contrast to the pervasive cold.

Time blurred. The pain worsened, coiling tight. The cold became a physical ache in my bones.

At some point, I heard voices outside the door, muffled.

One guard, speaking low. “…Don Salvatore. It’s the woman. She’s bleeding. A lot. Do we continue?”

A pause. Then William’s voice, filtered through the wood, cold and definitive. “Continue. She needs to remember.”

She needs to remember.

The words finally broke something in me.

The cold cellar, the pain, the humiliation—they all fused into a single, scorching realization. My pain was irrelevant. My reasons were noise. All that mattered was my compliance. My submission.

Tears, hot and silent, tracked through the grime on my face. They were not from the pain in my body, but from the death of a final, foolish hope.

The darkness at the edges of my vision swelled, a welcoming void. The cold stone against my cheek was the last thing I felt as the world dissolved into nothing.