The hallway seemed longer tonight. Every step Nyra took sent sharp, splintering pain through her thighs, her calves screaming with each reluctant movement. Her legs felt foreign, heavy, as if iron weights were strapped to her ankles, wobbling beneath her with the grace of a newborn fawn. By the time she reached her room, her fingers trembled as they fumbled for the handle. The click of the door unlocking was a small mercy, but it was the last thing her body allowed. As she pushed, the door closed behind her, her strength gave out. The cold, unforgiving floor met her knees first, then her palms, and finally her cheek, as she crumpled down, breath stuttering out of her lungs. The soreness wasn't just physical—it was layered with humiliation, with the sharp edges of Reina's words still scraping against her pride. She lay there for a long, dragging moment, not crying, not moving, just letting the silence wrap around her like a shroud. For the first time, the room felt like a cage, and her own body, a traitor.
The silence of her room was louder than the blows Reina had landed.
The world outside was cold, merciless—but here, inside this cage of glass and steel, she was left alone with the one enemy she couldn't fight.
Herself.
Her limbs ached. Each bruise pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat. But it wasn't the physical pain that hollowed her out. It was the weight of reality sinking in.
She staggered toward the bathroom, her reflection catching her off guard.
The woman staring back wasn't a victim. She wasn't a bride, or a daughter, or a pawn.
She was something in between. Half-broken. Half-born.
Her skin was slick with sweat, streaked with dirt and faint blood. Her hair clung to her temples in messy strands, no longer the polished waves Nolan once admired. Her lip was split. Her knuckles, raw.
A bitter laugh escaped her lips, sharp and humorless.
"What the hell am I doing…" she whispered.
Her knees buckled.
She barely made it to the toilet before the bile rose, violent and relentless. Vomit burned her throat, tears spilling unbidden as her body purged the fear she hadn't dared to show out there.
She collapsed beside the cold porcelain, forehead pressed against the chilled tiles, gasping.
Regret slithered in, cold and suffocating.
Why did she come back?
Why not run when she had the chance?
The memories flooded—Nolan's hands, sweet words laced with poison. Damien's cold eyes, sharp smiles hiding deeper games. Reina's staff cracking against her bones.
What if this was all she was ever going to be? A puppet being passed around between monsters, her strings pulled tighter each time?
"I should've died on that cliff…" she choked out, her voice breaking.
But she didn't die.
And now death wasn't an escape.
It was a luxury.
Minutes bled into each other before she forced herself up. Her palms slipped against the sink as she washed her face, scrubbing until her skin burned, as if she could peel off the layers of weakness.
The woman in the mirror looked no different.
But her eyes—
Her eyes were sharper.
Red-rimmed, swollen, but sharper.
The quiet knock on her door made her flinch.
For a moment, she thought Damien had come again, with his polished cruelty and veiled threats.
But it wasn't him.
It was herself.
Her future self. Standing in the reflection, waiting for her to decide.
Was she going to break?
Or bend until she became something unrecognizable?
She straightened, breath slow, deliberate.
You survive, or you're forgotten. Reina's words echoed.
Nyra didn't want survival if it meant becoming a shadow. But she couldn't go back. Not to Nolan. Not to that gilded cage.
Damien was right about one thing—betrayal was not an option.
But submission wasn't either.
She wouldn't be a weapon for him.
She'd be her own blade.
Her fingers clenched into fists.
She turned away from the mirror, limping slightly as she left the bathroom. Her body protested every movement, but her mind… her mind was finally sharpening.
The girl who walked into Reina's training was dead.
What remained was still in the making.
Still fragile.
But alive.
And that was dangerous.
Because a woman who should've died—yet didn't—had nothing left to lose.
As she sank onto the bed, the cold sheets offered no comfort.
But they didn't suffocate her either.
For the first time, she welcomed the silence.
Because in that silence, she could hear the faintest, fiercest voice whispering:
Get up. You're not done yet.