The days that followed felt different. The air inside Blackthorn House no longer carried the same weight it once did — no longer a place of silences that suffocated. Now, laughter sometimes escaped from the corridors, soft and fleeting, like sunlight slipping between curtains. Nerine had begun to smile without forcing it, and Kael — the ever-stoic lord — had learned to let his walls down in small, unguarded moments.
It was as though they were learning what it meant to be a married couple — not out of arrangement, but out of slow, careful choice.
Sometimes, Kael would wake before dawn and watch her sleep, the morning light brushing over her hair like pale fire. And sometimes, she'd catch him trying (and figuring it out) to cook in the vast, quiet kitchen — only for the maids to panic as their lord was handling the kitchen wares himself.
They weren't ready to lose their source of income yet.
