Chapter 7
856 Words
Darkness had fallen deep across the land.
When Draven returned, the villa stood blazing with light. He stepped inside and heard a man's laughter drifting through the hall.
Zoren sat close beside Cressida. He looked up and smiled that familiar, easy smile the moment he saw Draven.
"Draven, you're home! My new film began shooting today, and the set is not far from here. I'd never cared much for hotels, so Cressida kindly invited me to stay here. I trust you won't object?"
'Home?' Draven thought. This place… had truly never been his home, not even for a single day.
Zoren's belongings were already scattered across the living room, filling every corner with what had once been meant as Draven and Cressida's marital home.
Draven parted his lips to speak, but before a word could pass, Cressida answered for him.
"He does not mind."
Draven closed his mouth, pulled a faint, hollow smile to his lips, and nodded. "No. Stay as you please."
It made no difference. None of this would belong to him much longer anyway.
"I am so glad to hear it!" Zoren settled comfortably into the role of master of the house. "You've not eaten yet, have you? Come, join us for dinner."
Draven glanced across the table, heaped high with rich, fiery dishes swimming in spice.
The smile upon his lips turned sharp and bitter. He had suffered from a weak stomach his whole life; he could not tolerate even the faintest touch of heat or spice.
And all these years of marriage… Cressida had never once noticed.
"I have no appetite," he said quietly. "Please, enjoy your meal."
He turned and walked slowly up the staircase. Cressida watched his lonely retreat, her eyes calm and unreadable, betraying nothing of what lay within.
Draven reached his bedroom and lay down upon the bed. Moments later, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He opened it and found a newly posted update from Zoren.
Several photographs showed the villa from every angle. The caption beneath read: The garden swing. The gardenias in bloom. The home you promised me… it was always here waiting. I am so moved.
Draven's chest tightened painfully. His breath caught in his throat.
And suddenly, every question he had carried in his heart, every confusion he had never been able to untangle, all made perfect, terrible sense.
He understood now why the fairytale wallpaper clashed so sharply against the villa's quiet, elegant design, yet Cressida had never once allowed it to be changed.
Why had she flown into such a rage the one time he had sat upon that garden swing, forbidding him ever to set foot in that part of the grounds again.
Why fresh gardenias stood always in the hall, renewed every single day without fail through every season.
This house… this wedding home they had shared… had never been meant for him.
It had been built, furnished, and kept waiting from the very beginning, for Zoren.
Draven's heart, long since turned numb, felt as though it were being pierced through with a thousand needles all at once.
He locked his phone, stared at his pale, worn reflection on the black screen, and laughed, a soft, bitter sound full of nothing but sorrow.
Slowly, the laughter faded from his face.
Let it be so. This house, this woman… they were never his. It was time he returned everything to where it truly belonged.
He drew a long, steadying breath and walked quietly into the study. There he printed two documents.
The first was a Deed of Dissolution, a formal agreement ending their marriage.
Without hesitation, he signed his name in bold, clear strokes.
The second was a Final Declaration, written in his own hand.
Its words were few and plain:
I, Draven Corwyn, declare this to be my final wish. When my life ends, I shall not rest among the Corwyn family dead, nor shall I be buried with the Fairmoor kin. I belong to no one.
When both were signed and sealed, he placed them carefully inside a carved wooden box.
He'd just turned to head back to his bedroom when he heard the voice of the person Cressida was on the phone with, drifting through the half-cracked door of the next room.
"… Psychiatric care? Yes. The Corwyn family intend to send Draven away to the Sanctuary Retreat, to be kept in quiet seclusion until he recovers his senses," the caller said, voice tense.
"It makes perfect sense, does it not? He has loved you with such desperate, unhinged obsession. To all the world he appears truly ill. And once he is formally declared unfit, your family will give you every blessing to end this marriage. You will finally be free of him.
"And then, you and Zoren may at last be together. Congratulations in advance. May you find your happiness at long last!" the voice finished, heavy with implication.
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