Married To Darkness
Chapter 337: Down She Came.

Chapter 337: Down She Came.

Salviana was trapped.

A prisoner in a tower she didn’t recognize. Surrounded by magic she couldn’t break. Starving. Exhausted. Alone.

The weight of it all came crashing down.

Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the floor.

"Alaric!" she screamed.

Her voice cracked, echoing off the walls.

Again. "Alaric!"

Tears burned down her dirt-streaked cheeks.

Her chest heaved with sobs, and her throat was already hoarse—but she kept calling for him, over and over, like her voice alone could tear through the magic barrier and reach him.

"Please," she croaked, pressing her forehead to the cold stone floor. "Please... find me..."

She hated this—hated the weakness twisting inside her, the trembling in her hands, the sting in her throat from crying too hard.

She hated herself for breaking.

For being weak.

"I’m sorry," she whispered, though she wasn’t sure if it was to herself or to her husband—maybe both. "I’m sorry, Alaric... I’m sorry..."

Her once-elegant dress hung off her in tatters, streaked with dirt and blood from her blistered hands. Her hair clung to her face, a tangled mess of sweat and despair.

The strong, sharp-witted kind woman who had once stood beside the Demon Prince now sat crumpled on the floor of a hidden tower—dirty, desperate, and breaking apart piece by piece.

Her cries faded into soft, broken sobs as the silence pressed back in around her.

She didn’t know how much longer she could last.

Salviana sat back on the window ledge, her sobs soft but relentless — a broken rhythm of hiccups, sniffles, and raw gasps for air. Her head throbbed from crying too hard, too long, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t.

The air was cold against her skin, a biting reminder of how torn and dirty her dress had become. She was a mess — a queen reduced to a prisoner, clinging to the edge of a window like some defeated creature.

Her fingers, blistered and trembling, reached for the barrier again.

The magic was still there — invisible, unyielding — but she felt it when she touched it. A sharp zap sparked through her hand, but she gritted her teeth and pushed harder.

"Let me out..." she whispered at first.

Then louder. "Let me out!"

Her palms slammed against the unseen wall.

Again. And again.

"Let me out!" she screamed, voice cracking, the sound bouncing off the stone walls of the tower.

Her body shook with sobs, but she didn’t stop.

She wouldn’t stop.

Her hand slipped slightly off the narrow sill as she hit the barrier over and over again. She wasn’t balanced — her legs dangled off the edge, and she didn’t care.

She just kept pushing.

"Alaric!"

Another hit.

Another zap.

Her blistered palm flattened against the magic, and suddenly —

CRACK.

A sharp sound, like glass splintering, echoed through the room.

Salviana froze.

The barrier rippled.

Then—like a waterfall of shattered glass—the magic wall collapsed.

It didn’t just break — it fell, pouring down like liquid shards of light, vanishing before they hit the ground.

The force of it knocked her off balance.

Her hands, once pressing against the barrier, suddenly had nothing to hold onto.

Her grip on the windowsill slipped.

Her legs swung wildly in the air.

Her heart lurched into her throat—

And in the same second the room door burst open—

She fell.

Time seemed to slow, each heartbeat a thunderous echo in her chest.

The wind roared past her ears — violent, deafening — a cruel reminder of how fast she was plummeting. Her arms flailed uselessly, reaching for something, anything, but the sky was too far, the stone walls a blur, and the ground was rushing up to meet her.

She was falling.

She was going to die.

A sob wrenched from her throat, lost in the air whipping around her. She couldn’t breathe — couldn’t think — but her mind was screaming louder than the wind.

She was going to die, and she’d never see Alaric again.

Never hear him growl out her name in that soft way only he could — like she was both a curse and a prayer.

Never feel the weight of his arms around her or the way his lips would ghost over her neck, hesitant yet possessive, like she was a treasure he was afraid to break.

Never hear him say, I love you.

Never truly be his.

Because she’d die a married virgin.

Her stomach twisted — not from the fall, but from the bitter regret clawing at her heart. They had never consummated their wedding, and now they never would. She’d never know what it felt like to be completely his — to give herself to him, to belong to him the way he had always belonged to her.

And the garden — the garden they’d started together — the one they swore would bloom with rare black roses from his homeland...

She’d never see it blossom.

She’d never sit with him beneath its shade, laughing, bickering, stealing kisses like they had all the time in the world.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears slipped free anyway.

She wished she could fly.

Or be a vampire like her husband — his strength, his speed — so she could land on her feet instead of shattering against the earth.

If only she had his power.

If only she’d been more — done more — instead of standing on the sidelines of her own life, hoping the world would just let her and Alaric be.

But most of all...

She hated that he would be the one left behind.

That Alaric would grieve — that he’d rage and break and burn the world down in her name — and she wouldn’t be there to stop him, to comfort him, to tell him that it was okay.

He would ache for her, and she would be nothing but a memory.

Her heart cracked in two.

She was sorry.

She was so sorry.

Her chest heaved — every tear, every sob torn from her soul — and just as the ground loomed closer, the sky and tower a distant blur above her, she screamed his name one last time—

"ALARIC!"

And then—

Darkness.