Page 27 of The Vespertine Treaty

It didn’t take long before my husband—His Terrorising Grace—decided I was due for my punishment.

The door didn’t rattle; it didn't shake. The heavy oak simply glided open, the metal groaning in submission.

I pressed myself against the foot of the bed, clutching Poppy to my chest. The door swung open.

Cain stood there. He didn't look angry. He didn't look like a monster who had chased me down. Frankly, he looked bored and that was fraying my nerves.

He leaned against the doorframe, his massive arms crossed over his chest, blocking out the light from the hallway. Rhana sat at his feet, licking a paw, looking smug.

“Rhana tells me you two found the corridor quite… stimulating,” he drawled, his voice a low, terrifying rumble that vibrated in the floorboards. “She says you smelled of fear and stupidity.”

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. “I was lost,” I lied, the words tasting like ash.

Cain tilted his head, his grey eyes glinting with a cold, predatory amusement. “Lost. In a straight corridor. Leading to a door sealed with my magic. With a lock pick in your hand.” He pushed off the frame and took a single step into the room. The air temperature dropped ten degrees.

“Do not insult my intelligence, Ophelia. It is tedious. You are not a spy. You are not a warrior. You are a barely functional Life-Wielder who thinks a hairpin is a weapon against the master of this house.”

He stopped at the foot of the bed, towering over me. He didn't touch me. He didn't have to. His shadow was weight enough to crush me.

“I expected defiance,” he said softly, his voice devoid of pity. “But this? Skulking around like a rat in the walls? It is beneath you. And it is beneathmeto have a wife who acts like a common thief.”

“I have a right to know who I married,” I snapped, my fear momentarily eclipsed by indignation.

“You have the right to survive,” he corrected, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “And you are failing at it. You want to understand the dance of this House? Fine. Then you will learn the steps. But do not think for a second that you are leading.”

He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a register that vibrated in my bones. “And Ophelia? If I catch you or that fox wandering where you are forbidden again, I will not lock the door. I will lock the beast away. Permanently. I will place her in the suppression kennels of the lower ward. The walls there are lined with dampeners that will choke out your connection. You will not hear her in your mind; you will not feel her fear. You will beutterly alone. You may be my wife, but she is merely a nuisance I am tolerating. Do not test my mercy; it is a finite resource.”

Poppy whimpered against my chest, burying her nose in my robe. The threat was absolute. He wouldn't hurt me physically, but he would tear my soul in half by taking her.

He turned on his heel, dismissing me as if I were a bore.

“Get some sleep, wife. You will need your strength. I plan on breaking you thoroughly tomorrow.”

He wasn't lying.

The breaking was not physical; it was a slow, methodical dismantling of my dignity.

For the next days, the estate became a theatre of my humiliation. Cain had commanded I be prepared for the 'Mating Ritual Dance’—the traditional, archaic performance required at the Masque of Broken Balance.

But Cain refused to attend the lessons.

“The Prince is… occupied,” the dance instructor, a severe Cenite woman with a spine like a steel rod, informed me on the first day. “You will learn the steps alone.”

And so, I danced with a ghost.

For hours each day, in the centre of the cavernous, mirrored ballroom, I was forced to hold my arms up, embracing empty air. I had to arch my back for a dip that no one was catching. I had to circle a partner who existed only in the pitying glances of the staff.

“Higher, Lady Alistair,” the instructor would bark, tapping her cane on the floor. “Your hand must rest on his shoulder. Look up! Look into his eyes with devotion!”

“There is no one there!” I screamed on the third day, my arms aching, my spirit fraying. “I am staring at the ceiling! I look like a lunatic!”

“Then imagine him,” the instructor replied coldly. “Imagine the weight of him. If you falter on the night of the Masque, you insult his House. Again.”

It was a calculated cruelty. Cain knew exactly what this was. He was forcing me to perform the physical act of submission and adoration over and over again, to an empty space where he should have been. He was teaching me that my role was to perform, and his role was to decide if he would show up.

By the end of the week, my muscles burned, but my pride was ash. Then, the dawn broke on the tenth morning, and I realised my time was up.

Ten days.