The room was suffocating with tension. The silence hung thick in the air. Xandria stood frozen, her heart hammering against her ribs as she looked up at the man who had sealed her fate with a single command.
The King.
She had expected him to be older, cruel-looking, draped in the extravagance of the throne. But when he stood up from where he was sitting and walked toward her, he looked nothing like what she imagined. He stood before her like a storm given human form—strong, broad shoulders and impossibly composed. His cloak of deep crimson pooled around him like spilled wine, trimmed with gold embroidery that caught the sunlight through the open windows.
He looked young, not older than his thirties. But Xandria knew that wasn't true. It had appeared in one of her dreams a few years back—he was older than he looked. In fact, he never aged. His gaze carried the weight of a thousand battles, a thousand decisions no man should have to make.
And those eyes.
They locked onto hers, sharp and unreadable, as if peeling off the layers of her soul without permission. His red eyes, deep and calculating. A gaze meant to unnerve, to command, and to bend people to his will—and it seemed to be working. His eye color was so unique that it could not be missed.
And then it finally dawned on her.
This was the stranger she had bumped into during the festival.
This isn't happening.
The thought barely registered before his voice rang out again, smooth but edged with finality.
"You are coming with me, Alexandria."
She inhaled sharply. No. No. I won't. But the words were lodged in her throat, strangled by the weight of the moment. Her entire world had been ripped from beneath her feet in an instant, leaving her hanging at the edge of something vast and inescapable.
Refuse him, Alexandria. Just say anything.
But even as she tried to summon her voice, a strange pull curled around her bones, like an unseen thread tightening, and a whisper pressed against the edges of her mind. It wasn't fear. It wasn't logic. It was something else.
The Grand Gias.
She didn't know why that was the first thing that popped into her mind, but it seemed like the only reasonable explanation for what she had just felt. She had read about it in old history books. She'd even had a dream about the first king who bore the Grand Gias.
Legends. Old stories passed down in hushed voices.
A bond woven by fate—some called it a gift, others a curse.
But those were just myths… weren't they?
Yet as he turned and strode toward the entrance doors, expecting her to follow without question, her feet moved before she could stop them. A choice she had never made. A decision that was never hers to begin with.
Her heart pounded. She should fight this. She should fight him.
But when he glanced back at her, something flickered in his gaze. And just for a second, there was a crack in his cold façade.
He felt it too.
And somehow, that terrified her more than anything else.
It was when she reached the royal carriage and was about to enter that she heard Elara calling her from behind.
She waited. Elara quickly ran toward her and wrapped her in a tight embrace.
"I thought you said you wouldn't go, Xandria," Elara sobbed into her sister's shoulder.
"I thought I wouldn't go too, Elara. But I can't fight it," she tried to explain.
"Reject him, Xandria. Renounce him. We'll bear the consequences together," Elara pleaded, her voice void of reasoning, ready to drag her sister away.
"I can't, Elara. I just… can't."
A cold voice came from behind Xandria, calm but edged with impatience.
"I'll let what you said slide just for today, but you won't be spared next time."
Maltherion's words cut through the moment like a blade. He glared at Elara with his cold eyes before turning his attention back to Xandria, who was still trying to console her sister.
"Get into the carriage," he said, then turned and stepped into it with an aura of power that seemed to darken the very air around him.
Xandria quickly followed, her heart aching. She looked toward her mother and father, who stood at the entrance of their home. Her mother wiped away a tear and gave her a trembling wave goodbye.
Before the carriage started moving, Elara rushed to the entrance of the carriage and stared at Xandria, her eyes shimmering with tears.
"I love you so much, Xandria. You'll always be my best friend."
She took off the necklace from her neck and gently fastened it around Xandria's.
"I love you too, Elara. I really do." Xandria kissed her sister's cheek, then her forehead, before letting her go.
"Can we get going?" Regan, who sat beside the coachman, asked once Elara stepped away from the carriage.
Xandria gave a curt nod, her fingers clutching the edge of her seat as the carriage began to move.
She was going to miss this place. That was for sure.
She had never envisioned another home apart from here. As she watched the carriage pull farther away from her father's house, the tears she had fought so hard to hold back finally fell. She kept sobbing quietly, trying to regulate her breathing, but she was failing.
Everything felt suffocating.
She couldn't believe her fate had changed in the span of a single day.
She stared at the passing trees. What would have happened if she hadn't gone to the festival that night?
If this was truly the fate of the Grand Gias, then one way or another, she would have met the King.
She let her thoughts spiral, hoping they would distract her from the ache in her chest.
Maltherion watched her as she gazed out the window. He knew she was crying. He could hear her heart beating wildly against her ribs. But there was nothing he could do.
She was destined to be his wife. And she must be his wife.
Back on the road behind them, Elara stood frozen, her hand still lifted from their final embrace. She watched the carriage disappear into the distance.
And as the dust settled on the path, her tear-streaked face shifted ever so slightly.
Her lips curled—not with grief—but with something else entirely.
A smile.
Not of sorrow.
Not of farewell.
But of victory. Cold. Calculated.
A secret smile, meant for no one but herself.