The Smile Beneath the Sand

Chapter 14

Livia

Looking at him after that was the worst part.

Worse than my father’s words. Worse than the future he tried to force into my hands. Worse than the certainty settling like a stone in my chest.

Because Kael knew.

I saw it the moment our eyes met in the corridor—just a fraction of a second, just enough. His expression did not change. The Wolf remained intact. Controlled. Obedient.

But something behind his eyes broke open.

He had heard.

My breath left me in a slow, trembling sigh as I turned away and walked back toward my chambers, each step heavier than the last. The house felt endless, its corridors stretching and folding like a maze designed to exhaust hope.

I needed my mother.

The ache for her was sudden and sharp, like grief made new again. She would have known what to say, how to place her hands on my shoulders and remind me that love was not something to be ashamed of—even when the world called it impossible.

And my aunt.

Aurelia would understand. She always did. She would see through the lies dressed as duty, the cruelty masked as protection.

But neither of them was there when I reached my room.

I paced. Back and forth. Back and forth.

My thoughts ran in tight, merciless circles. Kael standing silent. My father’s voice—someone worthy. A future laid out like a prison with silk curtains and a pleasant name.

I would not survive it.

The next day came too quickly.

My father was calm—too calm—when he introduced me to the man chosen for me. He was polished, well-spoken, proud in the way men were when they had never been denied anything. He looked at me not with curiosity or warmth, but with possession already assumed.

He did not look back when I spoke. Did not listen. Did not ask.

He spoke of heirs.

Of alliances.

Of what I would bring to his house.

I felt myself recede inward with every word.

I preferred death to this.

The thought was not dramatic. It was simple. Clean. Certain.

I preferred death to a life beside a man who would never see me.

I preferred death to breathing in a world where Kael existed beyond my reach forever.

That truth settled quietly, without panic.

That night, I wrote.

My hands were steady as I pressed ink to parchment. The letter was not long. I did not explain—I did not need to. Kael understood silence better than anyone I had ever known.

I folded it carefully and pressed it into the hands of Nivia, my most trusted servant. My friend.

“For him,” I said.

She frowned. “You look pale.”

“I’m tired,” I replied. Another almost-truth.

She hesitated, then nodded, tucking the letter away as if it were nothing more than another errand.

When I was alone, I drank the potion.

I will not describe it. There is nothing poetic in the body shutting down, nothing beautiful in choosing not to continue. There was only the hope of quiet. Of rest. Of an end to wanting what I could not have.

I remember the floor growing distant.

Then voices. Hands. Panic that did not belong to me.

Darkness closed in.

And then—against my will—I woke.

Light hurt. Sound hurt. Living hurt.

I learned later that Nivia had sensed something wrong. That she had run for help. That my aunt had been summoned in the chaos, her face white with fury and fear. That my father had stood at my bedside in silence, shaken in a way I had never seen.

I did not ask how close I came.

I did not need to know.

Because the worst pain was not waking.

It was knowing that I had lived.

And knowing—deep, unshakable—that the letter had already left my hands.

That Kael would read my goodbye.

That he would believe, even for a moment, that I had chosen death over a world without him.

And perhaps—

perhaps that was the cruelest truth of all:

That even in failing to die, I had still hurt the one person I loved more than life itself.