The hall stretched ahead, long and shadowed, each step a measured beat against the polished floor.By the time I stood at my father’s study, my excitement had dwindled, smothered by the weight of uncertainty.
The chill struck me when I crossed the doorway, seeping into my bones like an unwelcome guest.The room was a stark expanse of dark wood and looming bookshelves, where sunlight seemed reluctant to linger, its pallid rays barely reaching the cold stone floor.
My father sat at the massive mahogany desk, an immovable figure surrounded by scattered parchments and weighty tomes.The quill in his hand moved quickly, its brittle scrape the only sound in the suffocating silence.
I stood there, waiting.
Waiting to be acknowledged.
Waiting to understand why, after all this time, he had finally summoned me.
He did not look up when he spoke.His voice was as cold and unfeeling as a winter night.
“You have been betrothed to Lord Winston.You will be married in two months.”
The words struck like a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs.I staggered back as if burned, my pulse thundering in my ears.
“No.”The protest escaped before I could think, raw and breathless.“He’s three times my age—if not more!He’s vile.Cruel.A monster.”
My voice quivered with disbelief, with fury, with the sheer injustice of it all clawing at my throat.
At last, my father looked up, and a slow, measured exhale left his lips as though my refusal was nothing more than an inconvenience.
“What nonsense is this?”he asked, his brow arching in disdain.“You speak as though your desires hold any weight in this matter.Your life, your choices—they are mine to command.”
The words were more than I could bear.
“Father, please!”The dam of my composure broke, and I fell to my knees, hands clasped together, trembling.“Don’t make me do this.Don’t bind me to a man like him.I will wither.I will die.”
“Silence!”The word exploded from him like cannon fire, shattering the fragile space between us.And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he looked at me—really looked at me.His eyes, as unforgiving as the winter sea, bore into mine with an intensity that turned my blood to ice.
“I won’t hear another word.”His voice was a hammer striking the final nails into the coffin of my fate.“Your brothers—my heirs—are dead.Killed.My legacy, the English Timehunter society, has no rightful successor.And a woman cannot manage a Timehunter society.A woman is for the household, for the family.You will marry Winston, and I will pass my title to him.You will obey.You will satisfy his every whim.”
His decree reverberated through the room, a death knell ringing in my ears.The weight of it settled over me, heavy and suffocating, wrapping around my ribs like iron chains.
I couldn’t breathe.
I stood frozen, ensnared by the icy tendrils of my father’s will, bound tighter than any corset.
My shoulders shook as I stood and took a step forward, arms wrapped tightly around myself like armor against the ache.“Please, Father,” I whispered, my voice barely carrying across the vast, unbridgeable distance between us.“Ever since Mother died, you’ve been so distant.You shut me out.I need warmth, and you give me silence.”
“Stop it at once.”His retort came without mercy, cleaving the thick air between us.“This groveling is beneath you.”
The finality in his tone left no room for argument.
There was no room for hope—no room for me.
As if summoned by my despair, the door groaned open, its hinges wailing in protest.And then he entered.
Lord Winston.
My breath caught, my pulse hammering against my ribs as my gaze locked onto the man who would soon hold dominion over my fate.Time had ravaged him cruelly, his skin sagging in loose folds like melted wax, each crease and wrinkle whittled deep by the weight of the years.
His eyes, shrouded in the milky haze of cataracts, carried an eerie, sightless quality—yet they saw me.Pinned me.The spectral glaze over them did nothing to dull their unnerving effect, as though they could strip away flesh and peer straight into my soul.
A sneer curled his withered lips, the cracked skin splitting at the motion, revealing the remnants of what had once been teeth—now jagged, yellowed, and gnarled like ancient tombstones crumbling in an abandoned graveyard.His nose, long and hooked, cast a daunting shadow over his twisted mouth, completing the grotesque profile of a man who seemed more phantom than flesh.
And his hair—what little remained—formed a greasy halo around his liver-spotted scalp, wispy white strands clinging stubbornly as if defying the inevitability of time.Tufts jutted from his ears and nostrils, lending him an unsettling wildness, a monstrous parody of life that sent a shiver racing down my spine.
