Duke of the Beast and the Vicarious Bride - Chapter 19

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※ This work contains depictions of coercive relationships, explicit language, and other graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.

This much was unavoidable. Not only because of the Pact, but because Imperial officials had accompanied her this far specifically to confirm the deflowering. When Jayden offered an escape, he clearly had not considered such matters deeply. She still could not fathom what whim had prompted that proposal, but there was no time to ponder it. Whatever madness her capricious half-brother might spout, what Fiona needed to accomplish was fixed.

Hoo. Taking a deep breath, Fiona rose. In the vast, damp cavern, only the sound of her slightly rapid breathing filled the air.

Now, all that surrounded Fiona was a darkness so complete she could not even discern her own hand. It felt like an omen of her future, and she nearly let out a hollow laugh. Though she struggled to maintain her composure, the fear of being robbed of sight was beyond her control. A thousand distracting thoughts and imaginings took hold, freezing her in place. In this pitch-black void, it seemed any moment a terrible monster might spring forth; every sound, even the roll of a tiny pebble, made her flinch, her senses sharpened to a painful edge.

For the briefest moment, she felt an impulse to flee, to find the light. But Fiona soon managed to quell the panic rising in her heart. Taking slow, deep breaths, she summoned an image of her sister’s face, waiting for her far away in the south, and the future where the two of them would find happiness together.

‘Rose… I hope you aren’t too heartbroken that I’m gone.’

Most likely, she was getting along fine with her usual blank expression. Still, Fiona hoped that somewhere in the recesses of her sister’s mind, her presence had not been completely erased. Remember, yes, but do not yearn. That was her wish.

Thinking of her only family, Fiona steeled herself and took a step forward. Gradually adapting to the darkness, she focused her now somewhat heightened senses on the feel of things beneath her fingertips and the flow of the air. Like a blind woman, she groped along the damp cave wall, walking slowly towards the source of the chill. With every step, a primal, formless fear gripped her—was there a cliff or a pit just ahead?—until finally she was nearly crawling.

Crawling out, he said. But I’m already on all fours just getting in.

Cursing Jayden, who had brought this ordeal upon her, she took one step; complaining that her husband had been dumped in such a place, she took another. Fiona steadily pressed forward. A bride searching for her groom in a darkness where nothing could be seen. In fairy tales, was it not usually the opposite? And in such stories, the terrified bride’s husband was usually a divine being, able to see as clearly in the dark as in daylight.

‘Unlike me, who can see nothing.’

God alone knew why she, far from divine and not even ordinary, had ended up in this situation.

* * *

How long had she walked through that black cavern? By her reckoning, she had moved for a full half hour more before finally reaching the cave’s end. Her body, once chilled, was now drenched in sweat, and her limbs were covered in scratches from falling and scraping against the walls several times over.

She knew it was the end because the cave wall gave way and the air currents shifted. She could not be certain, as she could see nothing, but it seemed to be an open space. The floor was smooth, unlike the uneven stone she had been traversing, and the walls, perhaps made of dressed stone, felt polished to the touch. It was a space that brought to mind a vast stone chamber. Of course, that was merely in Fiona’s imagination.

Cast into this wide space where every step echoed, still unable to see an inch before her, the fear of the unknown grew only more immense. How was it that not a single ray of light could penetrate this place? Like the cave, it was plunged in perfect darkness. The pure, dense blackness smothered her breath like a thick quilt of cotton.

Grrrrrr…