Chapter 19 – How Do We Walk This Path?
221 Words
The hall was emptying out, the air still holding the faint scent of ink and paper.
Lucien stood in the shadow of the steps, watching her walk down.
Lucien: “You went somewhere you shouldn’t have last night.”
MC: “I just walked down a road.”
Lucien: “That road… no one comes back from it.”
MC (smiling faintly): “And yet, here I am.”
Lucien (stepping closer, his voice low): “You think that’s something to brag about?”
MC: “I’m not bragging. I’m just alive.”
Lucien (holding her gaze for a few seconds, his tone softening): “Then stay that way. Don’t go to the place marked on that map.”
MC (lifting her chin): “Is that an order?”
Lucien (the corner of his mouth curling almost imperceptibly): “It’s… that I don’t want to have to collect your body.”
He reached out and pulled her coat collar higher, his fingertips brushing over the red thread at her wrist.
For a moment, his hand froze.
Lucien (quietly): “Don’t make me have to look for you again.”
She didn’t answer, just turned and kept walking.
Behind her, she could still feel his gaze, like a thin line stretched taut between them—one wrong step, and it would snap.
- Writer
