Elias's voice was low—too low.
"Who were you speaking to, Xu Meilin?"
She stood, her hands hidden in the long sleeves of her pale pink hanfu, the edges now brushing the scattered stones. Her expression had shifted—serene, unreadable. She didn't answer.
Not even a flicker of her gaze met his.
That silence struck a nerve.
"Answer me," Elias said again, his voice now sharp, cold like steel just pulled from the forge. "This is not a place for childish games."
Still, nothing.
She stepped back, making her way to the door without a word.
And that's when he moved.
In a flash, his hand gripped her wrist and twisted it behind her back—not brutally, but firmly, enough to stop her. Enough to remind her who she now belonged to.
"What is this act?" he asked, voice grazing her ear like a blade. "You defy me in my own house, speak to things you shouldn't, and walk away without explanation?"
Her breath hitched.
His grip was like ice. Controlled, but unforgiving.
And that angle—her arm twisted behind her like this—something in her mind screamed. Her siblings had done it like that. Joking, then not. Twisting harder and harder until she cried. Until it left bruises no one cared to see.
"Let go," she said softly. Not commanding. Pleading.
He noticed the tremble in her body, but mistook it.
"You're hiding something," he muttered, his hold not loosening. "Are you your family's doll even now? A perfect wife on the surface, but sent here for something else?"
Meilin's heart thudded in her throat.
He thought she was a spy.
Of course he did. No one ever believed someone could be powerless and still dangerous.
Her body tensed. She tried to wriggle free, but his hand pressed firmly between her shoulder blades, keeping her steady. In trying to twist away, she took a step backward, her slipper catching on something hard.
A stone.
And they both fell.
The room spun for half a second.
Elias landed first—on the wooden floor, breath forced from his lungs—and Meilin landed atop him with a quiet, broken gasp. Her long black hair spilled across his chest, and her sleeve slipped from her wrist in the tumble, revealing pale skin marked faintly by the shadow of old bruises.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
His hand was still on her back, her wrist between them. Their faces too close. Her chest against his.
But it wasn't closeness that stopped him—it was what he saw in her eyes.
Fear.
Not fear of him, but fear pulled from memory. A ghost she hadn't expected to meet again.
And guilt—for the first time in years—touched Elias's chest like frost.
Meilin pushed herself up, breathing hard, trying to pull her sleeve back up, her hand shaking.
He caught her wrist again—but this time, not to restrain. He turned it gently, inspecting the faint discoloration. Her pulse fluttered under his fingers like a trapped bird.
"...They did this to you?" he asked quietly.
She didn't answer.
Her lips were pressed together, her eyes turned away.
Elias's jaw tightened. He let her go at last.
She moved quickly—scrambling to her feet and pulling her hanfu tightly around her. She bent to collect her stones in silence, her fingers trembling. Not once did she look at him.
When she finally rose, holding the stones to her chest, he said, "If you're hiding something—"
She turned to him sharply. "I'm not."
That was the first time she cut him off.
"I don't care what you think. Call me a spy if it gives you peace. Call me cursed. Unwanted. I've been those things before." Her voice cracked—but it didn't fall. "But don't twist my arm like that again."
She turned and walked out of the room.
This time—he let her go.
But his gaze lingered on the door long after she disappeared.
And on the stone she left behind.
One that pulsed faintly beneath the floorboards… whispering secrets he could not hear.
....
The corridor was quiet, but the silence didn't soothe her. In the Blackwood estate, silence was never empty—it was filled with whispers.
Meilin descended the grand staircase alone, her slippers brushing over the marble steps like soft feathers. The walls loomed high and dark, adorned with oil paintings of Blackwood men—sharp-featured, cold-eyed. Men who seemed carved from frost and stone. Men who had passed on their cruelty as though it were a birthright.
But today, the silence didn't just weigh heavy.
It spoke.
She paused near the second-floor landing, placing her palm against the wallpapered wall—an old instinct. The kind she'd kept secret since childhood. It was a whisper, at first—like the echo of a dream.
"He's the last of the line. And like the rest, he cannot touch her."
Meilin froze.
Her breath caught.
The voice was faint, crumbling like dust behind the paint and plaster. But it was real.
"Poor thing doesn't know. None of them tell the women. Why would they? The curse ensures their line dies with them."
Her heart thumped in her chest. Her fingers slid across the surface of the wall as she took another step down, hand trailing along the grooves of the frame.
"She is gentle. Perhaps that's why he keeps away. Afraid to hurt her. Afraid of what will happen to him."
What curse?
Her mind echoed back the question, but the wall had already moved on, shifting into another room, another murmur. She pressed her other hand to the cold bannister, listening harder.
"No heir born. Not for four generations."
"They burn. Flesh blisters. Blood boils. At the first touch of true intimacy."
"The Blackwood blood rejects women like poison. Even if the heart desires, the body betrays."
Meilin gripped the railing, mouth parting slightly.
They can't… touch their wives?
Not fully.
The curse didn't strike with handshakes or glancing touches. That's why no one ever suspected. But if a Blackwood man took a woman to bed—if he gave in to desire—his body would reject her. Agonizingly. Horribly. As though love itself had become a slow, fatal poison.
No wonder…
No wonder Elias had kept his distance.
No wonder the castle was so empty of feminine presence.
No wonder the servants averted their eyes whenever she passed.
It wasn't her they hated.
It was pity.
She descended the last steps and stood in the foyer, blinking up at the high stained-glass windows. They cast colors across the floor—amber, sapphire, blood red.
The house was beautiful.
And cursed.
Just like its master.
A slow chill ran down her spine.
Was that why her family gave her away so easily? Because they knew? Had they known their quiet, powerless daughter—unfit for marriage in their own house—was perfect for a man who could never truly have a wife?
She felt suddenly cold despite the sunlight streaming in.
The whispers faded now that she'd stopped listening, sinking back into stone and shadow. But one lingered, just long enough for her to hear.
"She might be different."
"The quiet ones always are."
She turned sharply, but there was no one behind her.
Just a hallway, and the rustling of a curtain as if the house itself was exhaling.
Meilin stepped away from the wall slowly, her hand falling to her side.
So that was the Blackwood curse.
Not just a punishment—but a sentence of solitude. Of fear. Of denying your own hunger, year after year, until love rotted and desire became dangerous.
And Elias… was the last man left with that curse in his blood.
Her heart beat faster. Not with fear—but something stranger. A question she didn't want to say aloud.
Would it hurt him... if he ever truly wanted her?