Chapter 3 The Breakfast War

By the second day, the scent of roasted lamb and saffron rice barely touched me. They kept delivering food, plates arranged like proposals, each one more elaborate than the last. It sat on the corner table, steaming in the cold, mocked by silence and my refusal.

Let them watch me starve.

Refusing was the only autonomy I had left. The only part of me they hadn't yet purchased, signed for, or paraded in gold.

The faucet ran cold and clean. I drank from my cupped hands like a prisoner because I was one. And I preferred steel to surrender.

I wrapped the velvet curtain around the camera, twisting it tight until the lens vanished beneath dark folds. Let them hear my footsteps, my defiance, the shatter of porcelain, but not see me bend.

The tray from the night before lay overturned, crusted remnants drying on the stone floor. I hadn't touched a bite.

I dug the silver hairpin out of my undone updo and set to work on the door. The lock was old, simple, but not compliant. I twisted until the pin bent, until my fingers bled. Until futility took root beneath my skin and started blooming.

Then, footsteps.

I turned toward the door just as it opened.

Damien.

No knock. No warning. Just him.

The tailored black suit, the gloved hands, the hair too neat for a man who had me caged like a relic. He scanned the room with a blank expression that still managed to radiate judgment. His eyes stopped on the curtains, the blood on the handle, the wrecked tray.

He said nothing.

I lifted my chin, tasting copper from where I'd bitten my own cheek.

"I don't need your food," I said. "I don't need your pity. And I sure as hell don't need you."

His face didn't change. Not even a flicker of amusement or offense. He stepped forward and surveyed the untouched plate like it was evidence in a trial.

"You'll need something," he said. "Eventually."

Then he left.

No slam of the door. Just his silence pressed into mine, thick as frost. The tray stayed behind, still steaming, like a ghost of comfort no one believed in.

I didn't eat.

But I sat.

That night, sleep didn't come easily. When it did, it dragged me into a dreamless void. And when I woke again, it was to the sound of a door opening, slow, careful. Not a servant.

Damien.

This time, he carried two coffee cups.

He walked like the halls belonged to him, because they did, and set the cups down across from one another at a long oak table. The dining hall was cold but beautiful, lit by a flickering chandelier. Frost clung to the windows, framing a forest of bone-colored trees that looked like they'd been clawed from the earth.

He gestured at the cup before me. "I didn't poison it," he said. "Though you might wish I had."

I sat. Not because I was surrendering. Because I wanted to see what he did when I didn't.

He stirred cream into his coffee, once, counterclockwise. Then sipped. Not rushed. Not expectant. Just methodical.

"You're quieter than I expected," he said, after a beat. "More stubborn, too."

"I'm not here to meet your expectations."

"No," he said, setting his cup down. "You're here to make up for what your family took."

"And what, exactly, is that?"

"Time. Lives. Honor."

His eyes narrowed. "Tell me, Valeria. What did your father promise you for this arrangement? A title? The western ports? Or did he just sell you because you reminded him too much of your mother?"

My spine stiffened.

"You don't get to speak about her."

He leaned forward, elbows on the table, his voice lower now. "Then let's talk about mine."

The room tightened around his words.

"She believed in pacts. In blood. In truth. She died protecting that ideal. My brother followed her lead."

He reached into his coat and pulled something from an inner pocket.

A photo.

He slid it toward me.

I hesitated, then picked it up.

The boy in the photo looked barely eighteen. Tall, strong-jawed. His eyes held the same silver as Damien's, but his smile, his smile didn't belong in this house. It was too wide, too human.

"Anton," Damien said.

"Your brother?"

He nodded once.

"What happened to him?"

"You happened."

The air fractured.

I dropped the photo like it burned.

"You think I killed him?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

Instead, he reached into his coat again and withdrew a pendant. Small. Silver. The Volkov crest carved into it, two wolves back to back, their throats slit in mirrored angles. Blood crusted in the crevices, dull and dried, but the scent was still there.

Old iron. Rot. Memory.

"I found it in your father's safe," Damien said, voice like ash. "Still warm."

"That doesn't prove anything."

"It proves everything."

He stood, looming now, the chair sliding back with a scrape that echoed like a verdict.

"I didn't kill your brother," I said. "And you know it."

He didn't move.

"Your name wasn't carved into his chest, no. But your bloodline signed the order. You wear the stain, even if you didn't wield the knife."

"Then take it up with my father."

"I did," he said. "He gave me you."

My stomach twisted. "Then you got a bad deal."

I shoved the pendant back across the table. It clinked against the wood and spun once before falling flat.

"I'm not your proof, Volkov. I'm your mistake."

He paused at the doorway, one hand resting on the frame like he was weighing whether to return, to punish, to rewrite something between us.

Then he said, "No, Valeria. You're my leverage."

And he stepped through the door.

The lock clicked from the outside.

And I was left alone again, with a bloodstained memory of a boy I'd never met, and the taste of betrayal settling deeper into my bones than hunger ever could.