The dungeons beneath the Crown Prince's east wing were colder than the snow falling outside.
Gerffron lay on the bare stone floor, wrists chained to the wall above his head, blood still trickling from the split in his lip and the gash on his shoulder. Every breath sent sharp pain through his ribs where the guards had kicked him. The iron cuffs bit into his skin, but the real pain was deeper — the knowledge that Styrmir was gone, safe for now, but the price had been paid in full.
He had known this moment would come.
He just hadn't expected it to hurt this much.
The heavy iron door creaked open.
Gorgina stepped inside alone.
She was still in her ball gown — deep burgundy velvet now stained at the hem with snow and mud. Her burgundy hair had come half-loose, strands clinging to her tear-streaked face. The golden-amber eyes that had looked at him with hunger and fear only hours ago were now shattered.
She stopped three feet away and stared down at him.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then her voice came out small and broken — nothing like the Duke who had once threatened to chop him into pieces.
"You did it," she whispered. "You really did it. You took him. You freed the boy I sold."
Gerffron lifted his head slowly, blood dripping from his mouth. "Yes."
A single tear slipped down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away.
"I loved you," she said, voice cracking. "I was falling in love with you. The man I bought as a tool… I started dreaming about keeping you. About a life where you chose me back."
She took one step closer. Her hands were trembling.
"And you used me. You let me hold you. You let me kiss you. You let me believe that maybe… maybe you felt something too."
Another tear. Then another.
Gerffron's voice was hoarse but steady. "I never lied to you about what I was, Gorgina. You knew I was never just a consort."
She laughed — a broken, ugly sound that echoed off the stone walls.
"I knew. But I hoped. I hoped you would choose me over him. Over that boy you barely knew."
She stepped forward again until she was close enough to touch him.
Her hand rose.
The first slap cracked across his face so hard his head snapped sideways. Blood sprayed from his split lip.
"You promised me," she screamed, voice raw. "You promised you wouldn't leave me!"
The second slap followed. Harder.
"You made me feel things I've never felt before! You made me weak!"
She hit him again — open palm, then closed fist. The blows rained down on his cheek, his jaw, his chest. She wasn't holding back. Each strike carried months of obsession, of fear, of the love she had never asked for and now couldn't stop.
Gerffron took every blow without fighting back. The chains rattled above his head. Blood filled his mouth. His vision blurred.
Gorgina was sobbing now, tears streaming freely as she struck him again and again.
"I loved you!" she screamed between hits. "I loved you, you bastard! And you chose him! You chose that broken boy over me!"
Her fist connected with his ribs. Pain exploded white-hot. Gerffron gasped but didn't cry out.
She hit him one final time — a weak, exhausted slap — then collapsed to her knees in front of him, hands fisted in his torn robe, forehead pressed against his bloodied chest.
"I loved you," she whispered, voice shattered. "I loved you…"
For several long minutes, the only sound was her broken sobbing and the drip of blood on stone.
Then something inside her shifted.
The sobs slowed.
Her breathing evened.
When she finally lifted her head, the tears were gone.
The Duke had returned.
Her golden-amber eyes were ice-cold. The warmth, the vulnerability, the love — all of it had been locked away behind the same steel wall she had worn on their wedding night.
She stood slowly, wiping the last tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.
"You are no longer my husband," she said, voice flat and emotionless. "You are a traitor. A thief. A liar who used my bed and my body to free a slave that belonged to the Crown Prince."
She turned toward the door.
"Guards."
Two men stepped inside immediately.
"Take him deeper. No food. No water. No visitors. Chain him so he can't even sit properly."
She looked back at Gerffron one last time.
The woman who had kissed him with desperation only hours ago was gone.
In her place stood the cold, aloof Duke of Wadee — the same woman who had once threatened to chop him into sixty-nine pieces and feed him to the fishes.
"You made your choice, Gerffron," she said quietly. "Now live with it."
She walked out without looking back.
The guards dragged him deeper into the dungeons.
The iron door slammed shut behind him.
And in the darkness, Gerffron Wadee — bloodied, chained, and completely alone — smiled through split lips.
The heartbreak had come.
The cold had returned.