The Dragon King's Hated Bride
Chapter 14: Safest Home

Chapter 14: Safest Home

>>Aelin

I found myself back in the room where I had once stayed. The space was the same as I remembered—quiet, forgotten, tucked away in a corner of the castle no one will ever come to visit. I closed the heavy metal door behind me softly, the faint click echoing in the silence.

This room had been a strange sort of sanctuary for me once. Not because it was comforting—no, it was far from that—but because of the two things that had kept me mildly amused during those long, suffocating days.

The first was the small library next door. I had spent countless hours there, flipping through pages, losing myself in the words. I had read almost every book on the shelves, devouring them one by one. But the ones on the top most shelf had always remained out of reach.

I had no ladder here and the stool wasn’t high enough to help me grasp what was just beyond my fingers.

Right next to the library was my room and in that room is the second reason.

The window, its view both beautiful and haunting. From there, I could see the forest on the castle grounds, its dark green expanse stretching out endlessly. And in the forest there, rising above the trees was a lone tower, distant and isolated, standing apart from the rest of the castle.

I could only ever see the top part of the tower. The rest was swallowed by the dense canopy of the forest, hidden from view. Still, it had always intrigued me. On rare occasions, I had seen movement behind the tower’s old, cracked windows. A shadow here, a flicker there. But every time I had asked someone about it, their answer was always the same.

’The tower is abandoned.’

Now, as I stood in the center of the room, I let my gaze wander, taking it all in for what I knew would be the last time. The faint scent of parchment from the library lingered in the air, mingling with the faint chill of stone walls.

I walked over to the shelf that held the books I had already read, trailing my fingers along the spines. They were worn now, familiar in a way that nothing else in this castle had been.

But the books couldn’t help me anymore. Their stories, their words, had run out long ago.

I turned back to the room, my eyes scanning it slowly.

Even though the isolation was unbearable and how coldly I was treated hurt. I think this is the place where I was the safest in my entire life.

My lips curled up slightly to form a sorrow-filled smile

My eyes moved mechanically, devoid of emotion, as they swept across the bed, the desk, the corners of the room. My hands hung loosely at my sides, and my breath came slow and steady. There was no panic, no fear, no hesitation.

There was also no life.

Not a single shard of it remained within me. I was tired. So, so tired. And this room—this forgotten corner of the castle—was the perfect place to let it all end.

I locked the door with trembling fingers, the sound of the bolt sliding into place echoing faintly in the stillness. I didn’t know why I bothered locking it. No one ever came here. No one would bother. That thought, oddly enough, brought a flicker of calm as I turned back toward the room.

I kept searching, methodically, for something—anything—that would do the job. My eyes swept over the furniture, the sparse belongings, the heavy bed that was set near the window. Finally, in the farthest corner of the room, hidden beneath a discarded blanket, I found it. A rope.

The frayed length of it rested in my hands, rough against my skin. It wasn’t long, but it would do. That thought made me pause, staring at it for a moment longer than necessary. My chest felt hollow, like the void inside me had spread too far, consuming everything.

I dragged the stool to the bedframe and climbed up, the air growing colder the closer I got to the ceiling. My movements were mechanical, my body a puppet to my own despair. The fan above the bed creaked faintly when I tied the rope securely to its base. I yanked it a few times to test its strength.

It held.

Climbing back onto the stool, I slipped the noose into place and tightened it around my neck. My heart should have raced, shouldn’t it? My breathing should have quickened.

But there was nothing. Just the emptiness.

I closed my eyes and was about to push the stool from under me but that’s when it happened.

The banging started.

Bang! The metal door shuddered with a force so strong it seemed to reverberate through the entire room.

!!!

The sound startled me, sending a shock of vibration up the stool, and I wobbled dangerously before falling backward, my neck slipping out of the rope. I hit the ground hard, the noose swinging uselessly above me as the banging continued, relentless and desperate.

"Open the door!"

That voice—his voice—pierced through the haze.

Draegon!?

"Please!" He begged, his tone raw, unlike anything I’d ever heard from him before. "I need to tell you something!" He rattled the door, trying to open it but I had locked it, bolted it shut.

I stayed where I had fallen on my butt, staring blankly at the swinging rope above me. The sound of his voice seemed far away, even though it wasn’t. My fingers dug into the cold stone floor, trying to ground myself, but I didn’t move.

The banging grew louder, fiercer. It wasn’t stopping. The force of it made the door shake violently, the vibrations rattling the very air in the room, "Aelin!!" He called my name

!!!

I had never heard him call my name.

A thud from behind me broke through the chaos. I turned my head, disoriented, to see a book had fallen from the topmost shelf in the library next door. It lay closed on the ground. I stared at it for a long moment, astonished at how strong the banging on the door had to be to be able to manage that.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The door creaked, the sound of bending metal slicing through the air. The frame splintered under the assault, "Talk to me!" He yelled, "Please!!!"

!?!??!

I looked at the door, I saw the bends on this side and then a blast of magic which made me flinch

And then, suddenly, the banging stopped.

...

The silence that followed was deafening. It pressed down on me harder than the noise had, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, something broke through the fog in my brain.

I pulled myself to my feet, my movements sluggish and unsteady, and took a hesitant step toward the door.

The weight of Draegon’s silence hung on the other side, as suffocating as the rope had been around my neck.

I placed a trembling hand on the cold metal handle, unlocked the door and opened it.