“He’s old, cruel… I feel so trapped.”
The words tore at something inside me, something I had long thought dead and buried.
I knew exactly the kind of man Winston was.
And the thought of Elizabeth bound to him, suffering beneath his vile hands?—
A future stolen, a light snuffed out?—
It was unthinkable.
Inside, my turmoil raged as fierce as any storm.
Intervening would be reckless.
It would threaten everything.
But to do nothing?
To leave her to that fate?
I would be no better than the monsters I hunted.
“Elizabeth.”
Her name escaped me as a whisper, heavy with the weight of a war I had yet to win.
She turned to me, her gaze pleading—desperate—but it was not mercy she sought.
It was freedom.
“He is not worthy to stand in your shadow,” I said, my voice low, and firm—a vow I had no right to make.
“Let alone claim your hand.”
And just like that?—
The moment shifted.
A silent promise.
A dangerous truth.
An unspoken declaration hanging between us, like the last breath before a fall.
Because I knew, as surely as I knew my name?—
I would not let her be his.
The garden around us lay silent, save for the rustling leaves, whispering secrets in the dark—a fitting audience for this clandestine meeting between two souls caught in a web far more elaborate than we could have imagined.
“Listen to me, Elizabeth,” I implored, my voice deep and stable, though my pulse was anything but.
I leaned in, close enough to catch the faint trace of roses on her skin.
“You don’t have to marry him.”
Her breath hitched, her eyes widening.Moonlight caught in their depths, reflecting something new.
