Chapter 4 Ayra's Despair

The cold hit Ayra hard as she was dragged back into the mansion, but it was nothing compared to the chill in her chest.

Her father's iron grip on her arm, his men trailing like shadows, and the oppressive silence, crushed her.

She didn't cry. Didn't scream. She wanted them to believe she'd spent all her fight in her escape attempt. Now she was a shell of the determination she once carried.

The mansion loomed in the dark like a silent judge. Its halls, so familiar, felt foreign and sterile.

She barely registered her father's clipped, furious whispers to the guards. All she could feel was the weight pressing down on her.

Oh, she knew the escape attempt would have failed - she had planned for it to fail, after all, as her father was simply too cunning a fox that a singular attempt would see her free - but perhaps deep down inside her, she had wished he would have let her go. Just... turned a blind eye.

The days blurred into a suffocating haze of monotony. Ayra's room was no longer her sanctuary.

It was a gilded cage - spacious and luxurious, certainly, with towering windows that overlooked the sprawling lake behind the estate. She had always thought it beautiful, but recently, the beauty rang hollow.

Her father didn't bother with pretense. The day she was dragged back, he took everything-her phone, her journals and even the half-formed nonsense she'd scribbled in the margins, anything that could connect her to the outside world really.

The staff avoided her like the plague, their stiff movements betraying their fear of her father and most importantly, Lucian.

New servants replaced the ones she had grown up with and ever more unfamiliar men strutted around the premises as security.

Meals were delivered like clockwork, polished and perfect, but she could hardly savour the taste on her tongue as she ate.

Her room, with all its luxury, was nothing more than a cell. And every time she tried to push back, the bars of her invisible cage closed in tighter.

She had known this would happen to some extent but it still hurt that it did.

.......

Trapped, with nothing but her own thoughts, Ayra felt the walls close in. She'd stand by the window for hours, hands pressed to the cold glass, watching the grounds below.

Guards patrolled in stiff, mechanical routes she had memorized by the third day. It didn't matter-every door to her room was locked, bolted tight from the outside.

That was a slight hiccup with her overall plan.

A second escape was meant to be the main deal, the first serving just to throw her father off her trail for long enough during the second escape - a way to plant preconceived notions in his mind, if you will.

By the time she fled for real, he would be looking for her in the wrong places. But she hadn't expected security to be tightened to this level.

No matter what she did she could see no way out of the fortress her home had become and she felt more and more suffocated as the wedding day arrived.

What was even worse was the silence.

Without a clock or a phone, time stretched endlessly. Ayra tried to measure it by the way sunlight poured through the window, but even that felt meaningless.

It... WAS meaningless.

Her once-cozy room, filled with books and small tokens of her life, was stripped bare. The emptiness echoed her own feelings-isolated, hollow, trapped. There was no hope in sight.

....

She was allowed outings.

These were carefully controlled. A walk through the gardens here, always with an escort; a brief trip to another wing of the house there, her father's gaze burning into her back.

Uncomfortable didn't even begin to cover it. But still, she bore it with a dull, bitter numbness.

Nights were harder. The numbness gave way to fire. To rage and white hot anger.

She paced endlessly for hours only to fall back asleep when despair and the reality of her situation hit her. And her father's words from the car ride would haunt her slumber.

She did not want to marry Lucian. Literally anyone one else would have done but to marry the Director himself?

Ayra knew a one-way ticket to death and despair when she saw one.

....

The cadre of free cities that dotted the Ian peninsula basically had a dominant family that called the shots there and Sostch - the city Ayra lived in - was basically ruled by the Cyrus family.

They were a business family in name and in cooperation with other influential families formed The Orrery Consortium or, as it's more commonly known, simply The Consortium.

It was the most influential conglomerate in the world by a long shot and the Cyrus family had always been the directors of the enterprise.

While the Cyrus family in general had no stain, rumours abound about the Director.

Their dealings were all shady - and quite necessarily so, as maintaining their grip on the steering wheel of the Consortium would always involve the use of the more unsavoury parts of society.

Not to mention the sheer ruthlessness that seemed to historically be a part of all the Directors throughout history.

And Lucian Cyrus was no different. He was cold, and his methods either left you speechless in shock or burying your head under a pillow in fear.

Hence one can see why Lucian is a man Ayra would loathe to marry. Even rumours made him out to be more a devil than a man.

She hadn't seen him since that afternoon in his office, but his presence loomed as if he were watching from the shadows.

And perhaps he was. Ayra suspected that it was his men who patrolled the estate, the dark-suited guards who made her skin crawl with tension.

She wasn't just her father's pawn anymore it seemed; she was Lucian's as well. The thought made her stomach twist in horror.

Lucian, with his enigmatic eyes and quiet authority, seemed an infuriating man.

Did he think of her at all? Did he know she was being kept like this? Did he care?

She thought not.

The iron bars on her window mocked her. She tried appealing to a maid once, but the woman fled the moment Ayra hinted at needing help, her fear palpable. Her father was thorough. Or perhaps Lucian was.

Thoughts of the both of them drove her mad.

Some nights, the weight of it all crushed her. She'd sit by the window, staring at the iron bars, and let the tears come.

The memories of her mother haunted her, a bittersweet echo of warmth and safety. What would her mother think now? Would she be disappointed in her husband-or would she understand?

......

Her father visited sometimes but they were mercifully rare.

Once he'd entered her room with the swagger of a man who thought he'd won.

"You're a smart girl, Ayra," he said once, his voice dripping with false patience. "Why fight this? Lucian is a good match for you."

She bit her tongue so hard it bled, refusing to respond.

Even after he left, the words stuck in her head, gnawing at her. A good match? For what? Power? Status? It certainly wasn't for the life she wanted-a life she could choose for herself.

Then one drab morning, good news greeted her ears. Lucian had postponed the wedding. Indefinitely.

Small mercies.

The person who brought the news, however, was less than welcome. Her elder sister Lisbeth stood at her door, sharp eyes scanning the room with a predatory glare.

"What do you want?" Ayra asked, sounding tired and depressed.

Lisbeth raised a brow and sneered.

"Came to see my little sis, is all," she replied. "Your wedding was postponed is what I actually came to tell you, but now I can't help but want to gloat."

Ayra did not fancy the conversation that would follow.