Page 14 of Bound to the Dreadlord

A small, careful reach toward the goblet. The stem of it delicate between her fingers, her lips parting as she lifts the rim?—

She stops.

The goblet hovers just short of her mouth, a hair’s breadth from obedience.

She sets it back down.

My nails curl against the table, slow, measured.

The silence between us does not break in the hours that follow.

I do not move her from the dining hall.

I do not excuse her.

She sits there. Still, quiet, waiting.

I see it now—the faintest shift of her shoulders, the subtle tension in her fingers as she clenches them beneath the table.

She is tired. She is weakening.

I stand without a word, my chair scraping against the stone. Her gaze flicks up, just briefly, before dropping again.

Good.

"Leave it," I murmur, glancing at the untouched meal.

The servants stationed along the walls immediately lower their heads, stepping back, awaiting my next command.

I step past her, pausing just long enough to feel the distance between us crackle with something raw and unspoken.

Her breath is shallow now.

She is close.

Not broken. Not yet.

I will enjoy the moment she shatters.

I will savor putting her back together.

7

SERA

The wind wails beyond the stone walls of House Drazharel, threading through narrow corridors and towering spires like a ghost searching for a way inside. The night presses thick and silver against the windowpane, a wash of moonlight stretching across the polished marble floor.

I sit at the window, knees drawn to my chest. I’m back in my room, staring out at a world I do not know. The servants brought me back after that suffocating interaction in the dining hall.

Here, I can relax because Veylan Drazharel is not around. I enjoy watching the mysterious world outside.

A distant stretch of darkness sprawls beyond the fortress walls, a sea of jagged mountains and rivers of shadow, but somewhere beyond them—beyond this cage—there must be something else. Something wide and endless, something untamed and free.

Something I have never seen.

But I dream of it.

The sound of waves crashing against a shore I have never touched. Salt-laced winds threading through my hair. A melodywoven into the tides, calling for me, whispering my name in a tongue I do not understand.

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