Vows Said, Swords Drawn.
1443 Words
The Midnight Conversation
Cassian Trent sits alone on the veranda of the Morvain estate the night after the wedding—sleeves rolled, tie loosened, hair a mess. The moonlight casts a silver hue over everything, but it doesn’t reach his expression. He’s stone still—brooding, contemplative. That carefully curated indifference from the ceremony is cracking now.
Enter Mariel Morvain, Dora’s mother.
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Morvain Veranda – Late Night
“You're going to catch a cold,” Mariel said softly, stepping into view, her silk robe flowing around her.
Cassian didn’t flinch. “Didn’t think cold could touch me anymore.”
She studied him. The boy who was now her son-in-law, the man who had sparred with Dora like a storm trying to outshout thunder.
“Why did you agree to this, Cassian?”
He turned to look at her. Not defensive. Just tired. “Because I was tired of fighting battles I never asked for. And because my father asked me to.”
“But Dora isn’t a battlefield,” she said.
“Isn’t she?” He met her eyes. “You saw her. I could practically feel her hate through her wedding veil.”
Mariel’s lips curved slightly. “Good. That means she still feels something.”
“That’s a twisted definition of hope,” Cassian muttered, running a hand through his hair.
“Maybe,” she said, sitting beside him, “but you and Dora are too alike to see each other clearly. Always guarding, always sharp. I just hope you two don’t stab each other before you learn how to bandage each other.”
There was silence. Then, Cassian spoke again, voice quieter. “She doesn’t deserve to be stuck with me. I wasn’t made for… this.”
“Then unmake what they turned you into,” Mariel said. “For once, do something for yourself—and maybe, in time, for her.”
Cassian looked out into the darkness, jaw clenched.
“I don’t know how.”
“That’s the thing about marriage, Cassian,” Mariel said, standing. “It teaches you. Slowly. Brutally. But it teaches you.”
And then she walked away, leaving Cassian alone once more—except he wasn’t really alone anymore. Her words stayed.
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Dora’s Bedroom – Morvain Estate – Late Night.
The wedding dress lay abandoned across the back of a chair—lace and silk a crumpled memory. Dora sat at her vanity, her reflection staring back like it didn’t recognize her.
The house was quiet, too quiet for a girl who had spent her whole life being loud, seen, felt. The golden band on her finger caught the lamplight, and she quickly turned her hand over, hiding it.
“So this is it,” she murmured.
Not the fairytale. Not the dream. Just politics wrapped in white chiffon.
She hated how tired she felt. How heavy the silence had grown after the guests left, the music faded, the champagne dried.
Her father hadn’t even said goodnight. Just nodded once, as if sealing a business deal.
And Cassian? Cold. Controlled. Perfectly detached.
She scoffed to herself. “You’d think I married an ice sculpture.”
But the part that stung more—what left a lump in her throat—was the emptiness. She didn’t even feel victorious for ruining the kiss at the altar or refusing to look at him when they were pronounced husband and wife.
She opened the drawer of her vanity and pulled out the old pressed flower she’d kept from her teenage years—a relic from simpler days when crushes were innocent and not strategic alliances.
“I used to believe in love,” she whispered.
“Now I believe in contracts.”
A knock came at the door. She tensed, then sighed.
It wasn’t him. It wouldn’t be him.
She didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed.
When she lay in bed, she pulled the covers up to her chin but didn’t close her eyes. The house was too silent. The silence had teeth.
And somewhere on the other side of it, Cassian was probably just as alone—and just as unwilling to admit it.
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The Master Bedroom – Trent Estate – Midnight
The room was too pristine to feel lived in. Too spacious to feel intimate. White roses in tall vases lined the mantle. Gold filigree trimmed the headboard of the king-sized bed neither had touched.
Cassian walked in first. Dora followed a few paces behind, arms crossed, still wearing the second-best scowl of the evening—the first was on the altar.
He was already unbuttoning his collar, jacket tossed carelessly on a nearby chair.
“So this is the part where we pretend we’re married?” she asked flatly, not even bothering to whisper.
Cassian didn’t look at her. “I wasn’t aware we were pretending. You signed the papers, remember?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I signed under duress.”
He turned slowly, eyes cold. “No one held a gun to your head.”
“No, just the weight of my father’s ultimatum.”
She threw her shoes off one by one, heels clattering across the polished floor like miniature explosions.
Cassian crossed the room, not toward her, but toward the adjoining door that led to the second bedroom—the one initially intended for guests.
"Where are you going?” Dora asked, arms tightening across her chest.
He stopped at the doorway. “We both know you didn’t want this marriage, Dora. No need to play house for the walls.”
“You think I’d want to share a bed with someone who couldn’t even fake a smile at the wedding?”
Cassian’s jaw clenched. “Better a blank expression than a performance for a crowd.”
She laughed bitterly. “You always do that. Deflect. Pretend none of this matters to you.”
He turned to face her, his eyes sharp.
“You want honesty? Fine. I didn’t want this either. I didn’t want you. But here we are, shackled together like some 18th century merger. So let’s save the drama and sleep in separate rooms like civilized strangers.”
A silence fell between them, loud and cutting.
Dora stepped back. “Good. Because if I ever wake up next to you, I’ll know I’m in a nightmare.”
Cassian didn’t flinch. He just disappeared behind the guest room door, shutting it with a finality that echoed in her chest.
Dora stood still. Alone in her gown, in her pride, in her fury.
She hated him.
She hated this.
And worst of all—she hated the stupid ache behind her ribs that hoped maybe, just maybe, he’d have stayed.
*****
The First Night Without Dora
The silence was deafening.
Not the kind that came with peace, but the kind that echoed. Every creak of the wooden floor sounded louder, more hollow. The apartment—once vibrant with Dora’s laughter and the clatter of her heels—now felt like a hotel room Aanya had overstayed in.
She sat cross-legged on the couch, hoodie pulled over her head, a half-eaten tub of pistachio gelato melting beside her. Dora had always said gelato couldn’t solve everything—but it helped. Tonight, it didn’t.
The wedding had been... a spectacle. Aanya had smiled, clapped, played the doting best friend role effortlessly. But the moment she returned to the apartment, heels in hand, hair falling loose, it hit her—Dora wasn’t coming back.
She looked around at the familiar chaos: empty mugs on the counter, a jacket tossed over the armrest, a framed picture of the two of them at the beach leaning sideways on the wall.
She could almost hear Dora’s voice: “You need to stop living like a gremlin.”
Aanya blinked back the sting in her eyes. She wasn’t the type to get sentimental. But this? This felt like loss. Not a dramatic, soul-crushing kind of loss, but the quiet ache of change.
She picked up her phone.
No new messages.
Dora was probably busy pretending to tolerate Cassian’s breathing.
Aanya chuckled to herself, then immediately sobered.
She’d never admit it out loud, but this place wasn’t home without Dora. And now, with her gone, everything else suddenly felt off-kilter—like a table with one leg shorter than the rest.
Even gaming didn’t feel the same.
And with the black market vultures circling, Sebastian’s warnings still fresh, and the haunting mystery of Aston tugging at the corners of her world… Aanya realized something else.
Dora’s absence wasn’t just emotional.
It was dangerous.
She was alone now. And everyone knew it.
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