Chapter 3

A pale shaft of light slipped through the cracks in the curtains, stirring her awake.

For a moment, she did not know where she was—the ceiling soaring high above, the silence of the house pressing against her like a weight. Then memory rushed back: the vows, the rules, the emptiness of her first night as a bride.

Her limbs felt heavy, her mind fogged. Yet she could not shake the lingering sensation that had followed her into sleep—the faint brush across her cheek, as soft as a feather. She had dreamed of it, or at least thought that she had. A hand cupping her face, fingers ghosting along her jaw. It had been so vivid that even now, her skin burned with the memory.

It couldn’t have been real. She had been alone. She had to have been alone. But then again she felt someone entering her room in yesterday’s darkness.

The creak of the door broke her thoughts. Two maids entered—young, with their heads bowed, their steps careful as though they feared disturbing the very air of the chamber.

One carried a silver tray set with breakfast, the other a basin of steaming water and fresh linens.

They worked with quiet efficiency, polite in their bows but their faces unreadable. They did not chatter or smile. Their silence was as thick as the walls of the mansion itself.

“Good morning, Your Grace,” one finally murmured, setting the tray upon the small table.

Lilith hesitated, fingers tightening on the coverlet. Her voice was barely above a whisper when she asked,

“Did… did someone enter my room last night?”

The two exchanged a brief glance, quick and subtle. Then, the one with the basin nodded.

“Yes, Your Grace. His Grace visited your chamber last night.”

Her breath caught. The words slammed into her chest with both fear and disbelief.

“The Duke? He—he was here?”

“Yes,” the maid answered softly, lowering her gaze as though even speaking of him was forbidden.

“He came after midnight. He did not stay long. At dawn, he left.”

Her hand lifted unconsciously to her cheek—the very place she had felt that phantom touch in her sleep. So it had not been a dream. He had been there. Watching her. Touching her.

‘But why had he come only to leave again before morning? Also he hated her presence, so much so that he imposed those rules to avoid meeting her even by mistake. Then again he came and touched her when she was asleep… it doesn’t make any sense.’

The questions churned inside her, but the maids offered nothing more. They helped her rise, bathed and dressed her with efficient hands, their silence leaving her futher alone with her thoughts.

She wanted to ask more, to demand why he came and what he wanted, but she sensed they would not answer. Perhaps they could not.

And so she swallowed her questions, the weight of them pressing harder than ever. Lilith was desperate but she was bound by rules.

‘Those damn rules! Sooner or later I will unreveal everything.’

Her resolve was strong. She was not a weakling after all. Though she didn’t had much influence against The Duke Magnus Asher Dreadborne but she was still from a powerful noble family.

Lilith would have stayed as quiet as a rat but now when the duke himself made contact to her, married her voluntarily, touched her, then she had all rights to be involved actively in her marriage. After all she was now his wife The Duchess, Lilith Agnes Dreadborne.

* * *

Far from Lilith’s chambers, beyond the forbidden west wing of the manor, the Duke stood before the tall windows of his study, the pale light of dawn casting his profile in sharp relief.

Duke Magnus Asher Dreadborne.

The world knew little of him, and what it knew was whispered in half-truths and fearful rumors. Few remembered the truth of his bloodline. He was born of a emperor but denied his place among royalty. The son of a favored mistress whose beauty had once rivaled the empress herself.

But beauty was dangerous in courts built upon envy.

His mother’s death had come quietly, like a candle snuffed out in the dark. A sudden illness, the whispers said. Yet those close to the court knew better. The empress’s hand had moved in silence, and the mistress who had threatened her throne was gone before the boy was old enough to remember her smile.

Magnus had grown not as a prince, but as a shadow. Raised in secrecy, whispered about as though he carried the taint of his mother’s disgrace. An illegitimate child. A royal mistake.

And yet, even stripped of title, he bore the bearing of nobility. Tall, broad, a figure carved from both elegance and danger. His silence only made the world more afraid of him, for silence can hold a thousand secrets, and his eyes—storm-dark, unreadable—betrayed none of them.

Now he stood at the heart of Dreadborne Mansion, master of a kingdom built of stone and shadows. Lilith’s husband by law, though not by choice.

And yet, though he had turned from her at the altar, though he had set rules to keep her away, he had not been able to resist the pull of her presence, she was within his vicinity now. She was accessible to him. She was ‘His’ wife.

Thus even in the stillness of night, he had gone to her.