That morning held no sun for Liora.
Light did seep through the stone windows of Salverin Manor, yet to her it felt dim, heavy, and impossibly distant. Her small body still trembled with the remnants of last night's cold. The fear clinging to her bones made every movement feel like dragging invisible chains.
The tiny muscles in her back and legs tightened, stretched thin like bowstrings pulled far too often, ready to snap. She tried to rise from her thin mat—more a rag than a bed—but her body resisted. Her knees shook. Her hands quivered.
And yet the first thought that drifted into her mind was:
"I must get up… if I'm late… they'll be angry."
She didn't know who had first planted that reflex. Perhaps a kitchen maid who once showed a trace of humanity. Or perhaps it was simply the world itself, teaching her—wordlessly—that weakness had no place in this house.
Her breath hitched when she forced herself upright. Her knees buckled. Time clung to her skin, dragging at her steps, slowing her down. But she pushed through, pulling one breath at a time as though tugging needles from flesh.
When she opened her door—the tiny broom closet that had become her room—the corridor's cold air greeted her, slicing against her skin like thin glass.
A new day had begun,
yet it already felt like punishment.
---
She entered the kitchen as usual. The servants were already gathered, whispering and shooting sharp glances toward her. They didn't need to speak; their eyes already said everything:
"The stain of this family has arrived."
Liora immediately grabbed the frayed cloth that counted as her daily "duty." Her body still swayed with weakness, but she forced herself forward.
She wiped tables, lifted buckets, rearranged small glass jars of herbs and cooking elixirs used for noble banquets.
Her vision flickered when she reached the tall glass shelf. She reached for a tiny crystal bottle filled with red liquid—an expensive brew reserved for aristocratic feasts.
Servants usually never let her touch it, but today they were busy.
Or perhaps… they allowed it.
Her tired little hands trembled. She tried to support the bottle with both palms… but her fingers lost strength.
The bottle slipped.
It fell.
CRAAACK.
It shattered.
The red liquid spread across the marble floor—
like blood poured upon stone.
For a moment, the world stopped.
The kitchen servants turned. Their breaths caught. On their faces flickered something between shock and a small, vicious satisfaction.
As if they had been waiting for Liora to make this mistake.
One of the women quickly shouted, sharp and triumphant:
"Stop everything! Call Duke Salverin!"
The blood drained from Liora's face.
She opened her mouth to apologize—but her voice died in her throat. She couldn't cry, couldn't speak. A petrifying fear smothered every human reaction.
When the heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor, Liora felt her heart drop. Every step sounded like the slow opening of a gate to hell.
---
Duke Halstein Salverin, head of the family—a man with a presence carved from cold iron—entered the kitchen.
He looked at the shattered glass.
Then at Liora.
His gaze shifted instantly:
not surprise, not disappointment—
but the quiet, simmering hatred he had always reserved for this child. A hatred he never voiced, but one that was present in every glance.
He did not want Liora born.
He did not want Liora alive.
"You…" His voice was low, trembling not with emotion, but with contempt. "Just like your mother. A worthless servant. You can't even handle a simple task."
Liora lowered her head, trembling harder.
"F-Forgive me…" Her voice was tiny, barely audible. "I… didn't mean to…"
"Didn't mean to?" The Duke stepped closer. "There is no 'didn't mean to' in this house."
His hand reached out, gripping her chin roughly, forcing her face upward. His short nails dug into her soft skin, sharp enough to hurt.
"Listen well, Liora," he said, each word a lash across her soul.
"Even your breathing is a mistake."
Liora's legs weakened beneath her. She wanted to retreat. But he held her firmly, as if carving fear into her bones.
Then the slap came.
Not hard enough to break anything—
but hard enough to send a six-year-old child tumbling onto the cold stone floor. Her cheek throbbed hot. Her head spun.
The kitchen servants lowered their gazes, pretending to busy themselves, pretending not to see.
But Liora knew—they savored this moment.
The Duke addressed them without emotion.
"Clean this up. And take the child to the lower room."
The servants stiffened.
Even they rarely went down there.
"It is an order," the Duke repeated.
And Liora's world cracked apart in that instant.
---
They dragged her through the stone corridors toward the underground. The air grew colder, heavier. The light thinned until it felt like walking into shadow itself.
A thick, aged wooden door—reinforced with rusting iron—was pushed open.
The room was pitch black.
No windows.
Only damp stones and stale air that smelled of old water and forgotten years.
The servants shoved Liora inside. Her small feet stumbled; she nearly fell.
"This is your punishment," one servant whispered, almost gleefully.
"The Duke says no food. No water. Until tomorrow morning."
The door closed.
BRAK.
A sound that echoed like a final sentence.
Silence swallowed the room.
Darkness devoured everything.
Liora stood frozen, hugging herself. Her breath broke in ragged, shallow gasps. Her body began to shake again—but this time it wasn't the cold that hurt most.
It was the abandonment.
For a fleeting moment, she wondered if this was what dying felt like.
No sound.
No light.
No one.
Only herself—
and a darkness that felt hungry.
---
Minutes slipped by without measure. The room felt outside of time. As if night lived inside the chamber, not beyond it. As if the world had forgotten that a small child was trapped within.
Liora tried to sleep at first, leaning her head against the frigid wall. But every time she closed her eyes, a different kind of darkness—deeper, thicker—seemed to stare back at her.
As if something was breathing with her.
She cried.
Silently.
Without a sound.
She knew: no one would come.
Her tears soaked into her knees, forming a small wet circle on her tattered dress. The fabric clung cold to her skin.
Her stomach twisted.
The morning's hunger sharpened into a stabbing pain spreading from within.
Her throat felt like it was burning from dryness.
Sometimes she thought she heard things—
but she wasn't sure if they were real or just the imagination of a terrified child:
Soft whispers…
Gentle footsteps…
Another breath in the dark…
She pressed her hands over her ears, curling in tighter.
"I… don't want… the dark…" she whispered, voice breaking.
"I'm scared…"
In that suffocating blackness, the Duke's words replayed:
'Even your breathing is a mistake.'
It pierced deeper than the slap.
Deeper than hunger.
Deeper than the cold.
Because for the first time in her life, a six-year-old child thought:
"Maybe it really would be better if I didn't exist…"
And that was the cruelest wound of all.
---
Liora had no idea how long she had been there. The outside world had likely eaten dinner, gone to sleep, dreamed.
Meanwhile, she lay curled on the stone floor, trembling and exhausted, her tiny life flickering like a dying ember.
She prayed for morning to come quickly.
Yet she also feared morning.
Morning meant facing them again—
the Duke's icy stare,
Kael's scorn,
Lucien's empty gaze,
the servants' contempt.
And in the suffocating darkness, Liora began to understand something:
The world was not waiting for her to grow.
The world was trying to break her
before she ever had the chance.
In the depths of that despair, her body finally gave out. She collapsed forward onto the cold stone, eyes fluttering shut.
The darkness wrapped around her.
Not like death—
but like arms that had long been watching her.
And for the first time…
the darkness felt almost familiar.
As though the world was not trying to extinguish her—
but to awaken something inside her that they would one day
never be able to destroy.