The church was colder than it should have been in early spring.
Elara stood beneath the soaring arches, motionless, her lace-gloved hands folded tightly at her waist. The scent of old stone and melting wax clung to the air. Pale candlelight flickered along the pews—nearly all of them empty.
There was no music.
No guests.
No one she loved.
Only strangers in formal black, paid witnesses seated in perfect silence, and a priest who looked more like a funeral guide than a bearer of union.
This was not the wedding she had imagined.
The man waiting at the altar was barely more than a shadow—a tall figure wrapped in silence and nobility. His name: Alaric Blackthorne, Duke of a fading legacy. His face was unreadable beneath the stained-glass light that painted him in shifting hues.
He did not smile. He did not look her way. He merely stood, still as marble.
The priest's voice rose, echoing through the emptiness.
"Elara of no noble house, do you take Alaric of House Blackthorne to be your lawful husband?"
Her breath caught for a second.
Then: "I do."
Her voice was calm, practiced—though her pulse fluttered beneath her skin like a bird trapped in glass.
The priest turned. "And do you, Your Grace, take Elara as your lawful wife?"
Silence.
Too long.
Then, at last:
"…Yes."
Just that. A single word, colder than the stone beneath their feet.
A vow without warmth. A promise without joy.
The ceremony ended without a kiss.
There was no exchange of rings, no whispered words.
When Elara placed her hand lightly on Alaric's arm to leave the altar, a strange stillness passed between them—
Not rejection.
Not connection.
Something older. Something that didn't belong to them.
And as they stepped into the aisle to walk out as husband and wife, she thought—just for a heartbeat—that the air itself shivered.
As though the church remembered a story it could no longer tell.
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Do you think she truly wanted to say 'I do'? Tell me in the comments, and step deeper into Blackthorne's secrets…
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See you in the shadows...
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