"𝖂hat are you doing?" my voice was wary, but there was the faintest trace of amusement beneath my trepidation.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"You're teaching me how to cook?" he smiled and started grating the cheese. "We have chefs, Asfand."

"Sure but they'll just ruin the vibe."

I could almost hear my eyes rolling, could feel the heat of the blush creeping into my cheeks. My voice was melancholic and quiet when I asked. "And I have to be a part of this?"

"We're going to make it together. Come on, let's start grating the parmesan."

A pause weighed the thread between us until it felt like it would snap.

"It's not going to distract me."

"I wasn't intending to distract you," the metronomic sound of the hard parmesan against the metal teeth of the grater set a gentle percussion to my thoughts. I tried to think of something to distract me from this domestic scene. Me, standing at the counter with my hair tied back in a messy bun, Asfand with me, coming up behind me, trapping me against the counter. "You said you liked cheese. Get to work, Zee."

The grater continued with a steady beat. I ran my hand over the apron and resolved to pull my shit together. Thoughts died before they landed on my tongue and I cleared my throat to try again, hoping I could infuse my voice with strength that just wouldn't come. "Do you think they've won? Do you think they know?"

"Not until it's finalised. Taimoor was pretty clear about that," the chopping started in the background. I sighed and leaned my head against the cupboard as I watched Asfand with his hand expertly wrapped around the handle of a knife. I didn't know why that was so fucking sexy, but it was. "If you want to go back-"

Asfand's thumb lifted my chin, my focus still trapped on the counter until I was forced to meet his eyes. His long, steady exhale was the only sound between us. Concern etched between his brows. His gaze scoured my face - my flushed cheeks and glassy eyes, my lips that were set in a tense line.

"If it's all too much, do you want to take a step back?" he asked.

"No. I don't want to go back. Not when we've got so little time. Sara gave us the boat for a day and I want to enjoy this before we have to face the wolves."

"Whatever happens, I promise we'll handle it together," his words rang between us like he was waiting for them to settle into my head. "It's going to be okay."

I swallowed and tried to look away, but he wouldn't let me. He was taking up all the space in every one of my senses, and no matter how much I wanted to be sucked into a void, Asfand anchored me right here.

"You're right. I know you're right," I paused to take a deep breath, mustering up the courage. "I am having fun."

Asfand gasped theatrically. "No, you can't, that wasn't part of my plan."

My heart lit up with fireworks. "Okay Chef, what's next?"

We made steak, a beautiful filet mignon, with Brussels sprouts on the side. I was nervous about this. I didn't want to fuck it up. But Asfand didn't let me. It turned out a perfect medium rare. I hummed through every bite. We talked about our families. Well, he talked about his parents.

I didn't have much to say about mine.

As he got up from his seat, his dark eyes scanned the room briefly before halting... on the baby grand nestled in the corner. A fluttering filled my lower belly at the intensity of his stare, and I got up to wiggle my fingers over the keys.

"Do you still play?"

"A little," he came and sat at the grand piano next to me, pressing the keys quickly and lightly as I sang a soft melody. He stared at me and I faltered when I caught him watching me.

The shy smile on his face made me beam at him, but instead of teasing me as he might have ten minutes ago, he reached forward and tucked my wayward strand behind my ear.

"Your voice is pretty," he whispered. My foolish heart skipped a beat.

"You're not too bad yourself," I replied, my cheeks turning pink with the blush that so often covered my face when he was around. I smoothed my hands over my green skirt, moving to stand but he stopped that by grabbing my right hand in his and running his thumb over the odd-shaped birthmark on my palm.

He exhaled, letting his forehead rest against mine. I breathed in his warmth, along with the salt air and sea.

"Everything's going to change tomorrow," I took a shaky breath, eyes still shut.

"It is."

I opened my eyes to stare up into his face up close. His sun-kissed skin, his black hair, and his lips that were just breaths from mine. I didn't dare blink, for fear he'd vanish, a figment of my imagination.

"They'll do their best to run you off, or buy you, or threaten your parents-"

His gaze didn't waver, and the heat of his body sank through my clothes and down to my bones. I hadn't been this warm in my entire life. Besides me, he shifted. It felt as if liquid fire was being injected into my veins. His rough breathing ripped apart the silence between us as each breath between us mingled.

Asfand traced his fingers across my eyebrows, my jaw, down my neck, and to my neckline. I breathed him in, along with the salt air and sea. There were very faint freckles speckled across his face, one just above his lip, two on his cheek, and one just above his thick right eyebrow. A constellation of them. For a second, I wanted to take a Sharpie and connect them to see what myth they held. If they'd form a constellation I could chart my way across.

"Nothing and no one could ever convince me to walk away, not now, not ever," he said softly. "I have waited an eternity for you."

Tears pricked my eyes. It felt good to be accepted, to be not only told but shown that I was safe to be not just smiley Zeenia or competent Zeenia, but all-of-me Zeenia. Even the one who was really fucking sick sometimes. To see someone want me, and only me.

I smiled, hoping to blink away the threatening tears, but one slipped down my cheek. Asfand went still as he noticed it. Then, carefully, he reached up and thumbed the tear away. His hand cradled my jaw, fingertips whispering over my skin. Then he lowered his mouth to mine, sliding his tongue against my lower lip, seeking entrance. My eyes drifted half-shut in pleasure that was soft and gentle as starlight. I was going to tuck this night away as a memory to hold onto when things started to get worse.

"Promise?"

"I promise," he whispered, his chin rasping against my skin. Maybe I was a fool to believe him. Maybe it was the expression on his face, so impassioned, so sure. But I did believe, and more than that, it was more than I'd ever believed in anyone else.

I pulled him closer, urging him on, feeling delirious as I combed my fingers through his dark hair. The waves crashed a few feet away. There was nowhere else to look, except his mouth, at his smooth skin, at his eyes that matched the starry night.

༻❂༺

Crazy.

Mughal Co. was the very definition of madness.

I'd never seen my grandfather loose control before, but I knew anarchy when it looked me in the eye. And there, in luxury, in indulgence, in power, I was face-to-face with the man who was going to find out that the biggest betrayal he'd faced in the seventy years of his life came from his own flesh and blood.

"Impossible. The nerve of someone to do this to us. For someone to slip past our checkpoints..." he jerked his chin behind his shoulder, his eyes narrowed to slits. "Haider! What do you have to say about this?"

"I have no idea how this-"

"Wrong answer," his personal assistant, a man with sleek raven hair threw a batch of documents on the overly loaded table. The papers rained down like hail, not confetti. Daada Jaan's jaw ticked as he stabbed a finger into the guy's ironed shirt. "I want names."

"The numbers were correct, they outbid us," my father scrubbed his smooth cheek with his knuckles, incredulous.

Daada Jaan slid his chair back and deposited the file on the table. The moment he turned away, the cramping tension in my stomach loosened a bit. The reprieve was short lived, though, as only a few minutes later, he returned to the same position, and my anxiety cranked a notch tighter than before.

"And who would dare outbid us? Who has dared to go against me?"

"We're working on finding the-"

"How? How did they know? Our bid was a secret. We'd made sure that ours was to be accepted. Hadn't we?"

I tried not to notice the seat beside him, still absent of a missing Mughal. What was he doing right now? Did he know that they knew?

"I was assured multiple times that we would get the land back," Altamash leaned towards me just enough that my defenses reared up again. He thumbed the collar of his dress shirt, loosening it around his neck,

I cleared my throat and took a sip of my drink, before setting it down on the table. Nearly every person on the floor had gathered in an open circle to watch the show, trying to get intel by hanging around the corridor.

"I'm sure they'll make themselves known. How did they know about the lease being up? It was meant to be kept a secret! The documents weren't publicly available," Altamash nodded along the assistant's words.

"Fix this before I decide to wipe you off the face of the earth. And do it by five, because when I sit down for my six o'clock meeting, I want to act like it never happened. Am I clear?"

"We're working on it sir."

"Work faster," Daada Jaan had now taken notice of me, and as much as I'd originally loathed the idea of being in the room when the news broke, I was glad that I was. Across from me, he raged in his seat, stealing the occasional glance toward me and only breaking the maddening habit when he looked at his phone. "My legacy is in the hands of someone who isn't afraid to take me on. If that doesn't terrify any of you I suggest you find other options."

Suddenly, the commotion stopped.

A throng of suits sliced in two and in walked three men I recognized as part of the financial and legal team. "Sir, Asfandyaar Affandi is not here. He resigned two weeks ago."

"How was I not aware of this?"

"It was approved by Mr. Haider Mughal."

I could see it in his eyes when it clicked. The newest entry, the missing piece, as I stared back at him with undisguised disinterest.

"Stop! Everyone but family, out," I turned my attention towards my brother, my heart stalled as I jerked backward. Altamash's eyes were on me, the dark energy in the room buzzing with shock. "Tell me it's not you Zeenia. Tell me I'm wrong."

"Well, I must say I am surprised. I wasn't expecting this," Daada Jaan's lips were frozen in a cruel smile. Even though I'd seen that look less than a dozen times, and each time haunted my dreams - here was the real face of the patriarch... our grandfather. He looked like a tsar and was going to act like a tyrant."Care to explain yourself?"

"It was an open secret," it was my job to take the blame, to take whatever punishment would befall us, horrific, violent, or otherwise. Taimoor had already lost enough. "I decided to throw my hat in the ring."

A flash of rage detonated in Altamash's eyes as he scanned me. But his voice was even, flatly calm, as he spoke. "Of course it was you. How could you? And you had the nerve to stand here, in this room, watching us-"

"That's enough Altamash," just the sound of Daada Jaan's voice sent fear screaming through me. "Haider, confirm this at once."

"Why would you do this?" my father's words were carried by the wind. So faint and full of despair that they were barely legible and I still flinched. "Why go against your family?"

"Yes. Why would you go out to the world and stab your grandfather in the back? Make him a laughing stock?" Daada Jaan focused those shark eyes on me. Unbidden I lowered my gaze to the emerald signet ring on his finger. "Why besmirch the Mughal name? Your legacy?"

"I wanted more. You know that. So I did what any of you would have done... I reached out and took it."

"And who else helped you in this deception because, and I say this with love, you're not capable of pulling this on your on," now he sneered at me, his rebellious granddaughter. "Because as history has shown, it's always been the two of you. Ever since you were young. You covering for him, him protecting you."

I was standing trial for treason. And I couldn't let Taimoor suffer the consequences.

"He has nothing to do with this," I tipped my head down to meet my grandfather's eyes, whispering darkly. "Leave him out of this."

"He has everything to do with you. Always have. Always will," his gaze cut to mine and stopped when I rose my chin up in defiance. We were so close together in resemblance yet miles apart in our personalities.

"Wouldn't negate the fact that you've lost your touch."

"Yes, you would say that wouldn't you," Daada Jaan faced away from me, clasping his hands behind his back as he walked toward the windows. "Yet here you are. Watching us. Waiting to see if we figured it out. You must have a reason for doing that, well, let's hear it."

"I'm not here to negotiate."

"Lies. This was a power move, a statement," I did not crumple or cower at his tone, even though I could feel the full force of his wrath aimed at me. "To show us... to show me, that you could rip the carpet from under our feet whenever and however you wanted."

"So why would I negotiate? If I could just have whatever I wanted?"

"You were always the smartest of the bunch. You should know now that even you can't have everything," he tilted his head to look up at the midday sun rising over the skyline. "Too bad that your poorly-timed coop will end up hurting you."

Frustration boiled in my veins.

"We'll see who this hurts," I burst before I could stop myself. "Time will tell who comes out on top."

༻❂༺

"Damn it Zeenia, why did you do this?"

"Do what?"

"Is pissing me off your mission in life?" his tone was a flat line on a monitor, dead and grave.

I shrugged, not skipping a beat. "No, but it's a nice bonus."

"Don't bullshit me. Just...don't."

"Fine, what do you want me to say?"

"You'll apologise to Daada Jaan, beg for his mercy and give him ownership of that land. You'll also cut off all ties with that boy," his face shifted, composed, the beast inside him securely chained under the skin of the charming prince.

Altamash was a chameleon, interchangeable and adaptable to a fault. He masked his ruthlessness with concern and his bulldozing ways with enthusiasm. It was his actions that made him dangerous in my eyes. And the fact that he was involved with this? That wasn't going to end well for me.

It would have been better to let him calm down. It would have been better to let go of him and let him cool off. But I wasn't having it today. "Not happening."

"Don't test me Zeenia."

"And don't you fucking push me Altamash."

"You're making a mistake! You're going against your family for him. Does that mean nothing? He's not good for you," a maelstrom of emotions swam in his eyes. If they could speak, they would scream.

"What happened to 'he's a nice boy?'"

"Uh the part where I said we don't want to be associated with him?"

"You don't get to decide that!"

"You think after what you just pulled you have any authority to say who gets to decide what?"

"You can't force me to do what you want," my voice was breezy, and so was I.

"Yes I can."

"What are you going to do? Lock me up until you can find someone to marry me off to?"

He blinked. And for a moment - dear God - his facial expression was so furious I was frightened. "If I have to."

"You're sick. You're mad," for a second, I was discombobulated, unsure what was going on, because the only thing I could think about was what he'd said. "I'm your sister!"

"Exactly, you're my sister and you've made a mockery of me. I'm a joke. People won't take me seriously anymore. Daada Jaan will not take me seriously anymore!"

"Have you ever stopped and thought about why that is? Have you stopped for some introspection? Your biggest wins since you became CEO last year are not yours. They've been given to you by your siblings!" I laughed a little, even though it felt like my heart was cracking. To know that he'd manipulated us so thoroughly, that he'd tricked us and lied to us - I supposed it shouldn't have surprised me.

"All of those things were for the company. There was no individual person benefitting from it," he said, smoothing his Armani tie.

"And yet, you had two individuals working day and night to make those things happen," Altamash stayed quiet, and I started to feel uncomfortable with the silence. "Taimoor created the project you based your entire career and CEO campaign on. How on earth do you even stand to look at yourself in the mirror? After all you did to him... how do you manage to sleep at night?"

He took my air with his neutral face. "The company owned it. It was our lab, our resources-"

"His idea, his hard work, his passion and his creation!"

"So that's why you went after me. Why you chose him."

"Ugh that's so like you, to make it about yourself and what this means to you!" my conflicted sigh did nothing to clean the sudden burst of nerves in my chest. "I didn't choose him, you pushed me away!"

"And this entire time, this was some revenge scheme? A way to make me pay?"

"This was about us getting what was owed to us. Our legacy! Our right!"

"You can try and justify all of this in your head. You can think you did the right thing. That you outsmarted me. Blinded me," I elevated my head to meet his gaze and showed him my version of a psychotic grin. I was born and raised in a world of intimidating rich men, and I'd be damned if I went down like this. "But you did something far worse... you betrayed us. You stabbed me in the back!"

"Wouldn't be the first time someone's done that to a sibling in this family now would it?"

The low blow was supposed to retrieve some of my lost dignity, but bile burned my throat, shotgunned from my stomach.

"Fuck you."

"The feeling's mutual," I cleared my throat and turned away from him. In doing so, I caught sight of Seher making her way toward the study.

Don't come here. Please don't come here. Please don't come here.

To my utter dismay, she swept into the room, and the look on her face changed the moment her gaze landed on us.

"Did you tell her about the proposal?"

I didn't spare her a glance, disgust rolling in my stomach.

"Altamash, listen to me, you're being unreasonable-"

"You've made your bed Zeenia," a forced smile creased her eyes as she slid into the chair. "Lucky for you, you can still marry my cousin.... live a luxurious life away from all of this, a peaceful life as his wife-"

I felt like I might be sick.

"I'd rather die," in as subtle a move as I could muster, I turned toward Altamash. Inside me, a war began - my heart versus the reality of who and what I was. "You know why I did this don't you? You know why I had to go behind your back?"

"Enough."

"Remember this Seher, you turn your back on me today, be prepared for the bullet I'll fire tomorrow."

She shrugged to say she didn't care what I said or did.

"It's so easy to push a knife in from the back... if you're so brave, why don't you fight from where I can see you?" Mughal eyes couldn't cry. No matter what misfortune might befall the descended, we couldn't shed a single tear. So my wretched eyes blinked and watched in horror as Altamash stood next to his wife and continued to talk. "Let's see if your precious brother and lover have the guts to come out and fight. Away from the dark."

My muscles lurched with the urge to slap him, my cheeks so red with anger and humiliation, I could hardly spit out a word. It had to be written all over my face.

"What are you talking about?"

His arms tucked behind his back, he smiled at me as if he wanted to tell me a juicy secret.

"Daada Jaan had him black listed, quietly of course. His parents will be facing a slew of legal cases... and none of them will be able to leave the country. Not for a very long time."

"This isn't you. Don't do this."

I knew he was in pain, knew he'd chosen his words to cut me to the core. I knew and felt it anyway, because my heart felt like it'd been cleaved in two.

"I came to warn you Zeenia. To ask you to back off."

"Daada Jaan. I need to see him-"

"Unfortunately he was called away for business. Won't be back until next week."

"Father-" when I swallowed, it felt like sandpaper.

"You must be truly desperate if you're asking for him."

"You can't do this Altamash. You're making a mistake."

He smiled, leaning into my body, into my soul. His smirk was more frightening than any scowl, frown, or grimace I'd ever seen. It threatened to tear me apart and sew me back together however he pleased.

"According to you I've already made several. What's one more?"

༻❂༺

Solitude used to be a forbidden luxury I had to steal away at odd hours to indulge in. Now I had nothing but that.

I paced the room like a shadow without an owner, waiting for its return. I felt tense. I needed to get to the gym. Beat a punching bag or run for six miles.

Crossing my bedroom, I flung open the double doors that led out to the balcony. I needed air. I needed to feel the wind on my face and to not be trapped inside these rooms. I paused only long enough to remove the shoes from my feet before stalking to the railing and hurling them both as far as I could.

"I'll take another," I demanded, tongue flopping haphazardly around my drunken mouth. My new assistant, hired by Seher, shook her head, but did indeed bring me another martini.

"You have to eat miss-"

"Extra olives, please. I require sustenationess," I emphasized the s's, making sure to really drive the point home.

She glanced up at me with wide eyes full of... something. It could be dread. Irritation. Possibly distaste. It was really difficult to tell when there were currently two of her. Four sets of eyes, two narrow noses, two pouty-lipped mouths. Made distinguishing subtle expressions quite difficult. Although, that could also be the four vodka martinis sitting heavily in my very empty stomach.

My stomach rumbled with hunger as I passed by the food she had left for me, yet I could not muster the appetite, nor the need for self-preservation. Starvation was both an act of rebellion and one of pure disinterest when it came to my wellbeing, especially as I knew what would happen next.

These small sips of joy sustained me through long days in my rooms; long days that would soon become weeks; weeks where I would watch the garden from my window like a little bird trapped in a cage, until I was passed off and married off to live in an another gilded cage.

My family was going to find me a husband to keep things quiet, and I would be locked in another form of terror.

At least here I was still the master of my own fate.

The mere thought of someone other than Asfand touching me had disgust rolling deep inside of me, goosebumps of revulsion covering my entire skin.
People might think I was ridiculous for doing this, for hanging on to something that had only just started - for what they called puppy love. But they could judge me all they wanted.

I knew what was in my heart, and what was between us.

I was the one who had to live with this heartbreak, with the memory of what he made me feel both at the height of happiness, and at the lowest of the low.

Asfand came to me every night in my dreams, a nightmare where I followed him into the darkness and it filled my mouth as I screamed. His face scarred, eyes empty, half of his chest eaten away. The defeated slump of his shoulders a vivid image in my mind.

Tonight I breathed in great gulps, wanting to weep and bury myself back in the hole I'd been pulled from. It hurt - it hurt so terribly that I didn't know what to do to ease its brutal aching. His face plagued me, caused an ache so deep in my bones I feared they would be hollowed out. My heart squeezed in my chest at thinking what he might have endured. At what my grandfather and my brother would do to him.

Since the first time I'd dreamed of him, I'd rationalised everything, looking at it through a psychoanalytical perspective rather than what it truly was - a calling of the heart.

Yet now... after this... How was I supposed to move on when I physically felt as though my heart was breaking?

Stumbling out of bed, I could barely breathe for the sobs that racked my body, the pain so intense I was about to double over in pain.

I barely got to the bathroom before I emptied the contents of my stomach in the toilet. Hunched over, I heaved and heaved, and still, I couldn't get myself under control.

Not when my soul felt as if it was being frayed in multiple pieces, all scattered around.

I was not...whole.

On trembling legs, I grabbed onto the sink as I turned on the water, cleaning my mouth and washing my face. Yet when I looked into the mirror, all I saw was the redness of my cheeks, the bloodshot eyes and the tears that still trailed down my cheeks - tears that would not seem to stop.

Just thinking of him hurt was physically painful.
I swallowed hard, closing my eyes for a second as I banished that thought. This was not the moment to lose myself in my grief. I needed to be strong to navigate the circumstances at hand.

I stared at my reflection in the glass. I looked exactly like I always had. Too pretty, even when I attempted to downplay it, even when I was tired and there were faint smudges beneath my eyes. The face of a woman people saw as a prize, had always been seen as a prize. I hated my face: long raven hair, pale-skin, a replica of my grandfather. Our eyes were the same, carried over by his mother - grey and empty - anyone could see I was his granddaughter and I longed to do something to make that untrue.

I imagined peeling my skin down from my forehead, past my chin. They only cared about the surface until what has underneath inconvenienced them, and then they dropped me like yesterday's trash. Or, worse, tried to change me. This face had brought me nothing but trouble.

Suddenly I wished I'd never been born, never experienced any of it.

I was locked up in my tower, up the spiral staircase to the rooms I'd spent my entire life in. Four days ago, Altamash had slammed the door shut, key turning in the lock with a resounding click.

I'd always believed that my brother cared for me. Stupidly, despite all evidence to the contrary, I thought that he would never stoop to these levels.

Unfortunately for me, no amount of logic and reasoning would change his mind. So I ate, and I drank.

Until I could figure out how to fix this.

Until I figured out how to contact Asfand or Taimoor. We'd wiped our phones clean before we'd come back and had agreed to go off the grid for a few weeks. They probably thought I was safely sequestered away in my house. Pretty sure they hadn't considered the possibility of locked doors and the dragon who guarded me in the shape of my eldest brother.

Closing my eyes as my breathing became more ragged, I thought back to the dance floor, the way he'd spun me around and the blithe smile on his face. My chest constricted, and with every second, it was becoming harder and harder to breathe - to the point that I got lightheaded, my vision swimming. Still, I imagined it was from a succession of twirls and the exertion of the dance.

As the room became increasingly warm, my skin prickled with awareness, I imagined it was his body - his heat transferring to me.

Slumping to the floor in the middle of the room, I inhaled and exhaled, filling my lungs with oxygen. And in spite of the fact that I may be stuck here to get married to someone I hated - that there was no way out of this - an eerie calm washed over me. My thoughts simply took me back to my dream, to the perfect moment where we swayed on the boat, under the midnight sky.

I didn't even realise that I'd fallen asleep but I must have because it was morning, and I was sitting at the little desk before the window. The shutters had been flung wide, and sunlight streamed in, warm and bright where it fell on the desk, on my hands, poised before the canvas, the gilded Z pressed into the side.

I rubbed my fingers over the initial. Would I ever escape this godforsaken place?

I could run. I could cross an ocean to hide amongst unknowing strangers and allow desperation to make me believe my brief escape would help. That it would make it hurt less or even offer some perspective.

Click.

I jerked up, worried that Seher had decided to come in to gloat. However, the door to my room hung ajar, the corridor beyond a dark and dangerous void.

Open. Unlocked. Unguarded.

It could be my mother, or Azaan, helping me escape. They'd tried to come see me several times, arguing just outside the door, but had been sent back by Altamash's guard.

Or it could be a trap, intended to provoke me into an escape attempt.

The silence pressed upon my ears like a weight and I squinted into the light. Terrified, I waited for someone to walk through the door. But nothing happened. Almost against my will, I swung my legs onto the floor.

I peeked out into the corridor.

Though my curiosity was piqued, I hesitated in the doorway. Just as I turned to move away, I saw it. A brief flash of white.

A snowy rose placed in the hinges.

Listening to my instincts, I grabbed my bag, the flower, a scarf, put on my shoes and a jacket and eased out of the room gently closing the door behind me. Faced with three choices: an archway on my left, an archway on my right, and the stairs that went up and down, I chose the archway on the right, pushing in to reveal the secret door that would lead me out of the manor.

For some reason, my body pulled along like an unraveling thread, and I hurried as much as I dared, hoping that someone wouldn't pop out from the dark. The grate was just ahead, and I kept my eyes forward, fastidiously ignoring the walls crawling with insects. Soon I reached a wide, man-sized hole that stood at the end of the corridor.

The sun was high in the sky when I crept over the balcony railing and sidled along that narrow ledge to the trellis of climbing ivy.

I prayed that it would hold my weight when I gingerly tested it and breathed out a sigh of relief as I shimmied down. I didn't really have much of a choice. One step at a time. That's all I could do. And each step I took away from that house was me reaching that goal.

And God. To be outside. Not cooped up in a set of rooms, but out in the open. No guards. No boundaries. Nothing to keep me contained. Space to breathe.

Knowing there was no way I'd make it past the guards at the front gates, I'd gone the only way I could go - backwards, towards the trees. Someone had gotten my door open and I knew that particular someone was waiting for me in the forest.

Each step sent a resounding jolt through my limbs.

The sounds of the woods as I made my way over logs and through muddy patches became soothing. Animals rustled and insects buzzed.

Pure, unadulterated fury rolled through me and for the first time, in a while, I forgot to be afraid. I was a Mughal, controller of my fate, and I was being challenged and caged?

I ended up screaming defiantly to the sky in rage and releasing every emotion that was warring inside of me. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, the sound mixing with my screams, and as I sank to my knees, it started to pour.

Big, cold drops splashed onto my face, into my hair. And God, it felt amazing. Something wild and free. I was soaked in a matter of seconds, my clothing ruined.

I didn't know what the future might be, but I'd take the Manor apart stone by stone until I got my revenge. I'd make him regret the day that he'd kept me under his thumb.

I would paint my path to hell with his blood.

With his dreams. His aspirations. His failures, each one rendered by my hand. I would leave a trail of his destruction behind me that would shine for all eternity.

And I would enjoy every fucking second of that torturous journey.

This was intense. Intense because it hurts to feel so deeply even if it is just for a character. As always, thoughts, comments, feedback?

Next chapter comes out on the 29th! Only a few more to go 😍

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