Chapter Thirteen :Shadows of the Past
Lyren sat in her dimly lit chamber, tears cascading down her cheeks as she hugged her knees to her chest. The quiet of the room enveloped her, yet the echoes of her past screamed in her mind, a tormenting reminder of the life she had been forced to endure.
Her father had been a powerful man, but his heart was twisted. With six daughters, he had run the household like a cruel tyrant, but it was Lyren he despised the most. She was not his child; she was born of his brother, a legacy that had cast a shadow over his own daughters. Lyren, with her beauty that blossomed like a forbidden flower, became the object of wrath instead of love.
"Why can't you be more like your sisters?" he would bark, a tone laced with disdain that cut deeper than any sword. She could still hear the venom in his voice. Each insult etched into her heart like a brand.
Lyren's mother had been a silent observer, consumed by her own fears, too distracted to intervene. She had watched as her husband's hand fell upon Lyren like a summer raincloud — frequent, merciless, and without reprieve. The beatings had come for beauty alone—the beauty that should have blossomed in love but instead grew heavy with sorrow.
It was a facade, Lyren thought as she wept. A facade of royal decorum, masking the pain within. But as strong as her mother had to appear, she was fragile. When Lyren's father fell in battle, slain by the very man who lusted after her mother, the world crumbled around her. The tides of fate had turned, leading to devastation that ripped apart the only semblance of family she had.
Lyren could remember the day her mother died, vividly. The musty scent of blood and despair hung heavy in the air as she found her mother on the floor—cold, lifeless, a knife buried deep in her chest. It had been labeled an assassination, the trust of common folk twisted by deceit. It was not an assassin's blade that struck her mother down but the betrayal of a love gone wrong and unspoken truths she could never bear. In those final moments, all Lyren had felt was the suffocating weight of abandonment. The fragile world she inhabited slipped away, leaving her alone and haunted by the ghosts of her family's history.
Now, as the days morphed into an endless cycle, the reality she had fled from beckoned her back. The specter of her stepfather loomed larger every day, a reminder of the power he wielded over her life. Seated in the grand sitting room, his laughter chimed through the air like a chilling melody.
"Ah, my sweet Lyren," he proclaimed, eyes glinting with triumph. "Soon, your fate shall be sealed with the marriage that will elevate our family into unimaginable heights. I can hardly wait!"
Lyren clenched her fists, heart pounding in defiance. The scornful laughter that spilled from his lips filled her with nausea, the man who now ruled her life, eager to sell her off to a husband who lurked in the shadows, its desire palpable as he licked his fingers with sickening satisfaction.
"Do you like your future husband's fortune, my dear? He has riches beyond imagination!"
Lyren bit her tongue to suppress the rage boiling inside. She could hardly comprehend why her stepfather reveled in her impending misery. The visions of a life shackled by greed and expectation seeped into her mind like poison.
"Your mother would have loved to see you wed, wouldn't she?" he continued, weaving his lies like a silk thread, unaware of the memories that tormented Lyren. Of the loved ones she had lost, of the love that had never been shown to her, and the family that had become her prison.
With every mocking comment, Lyren felt the weight of history closing in around her. The laughter of her stepfather echoed like ghosts of the past, entwining her fate with the man who would take her from her hopes of freedom.
As she gazed out the window, tears spilling anew, she knew she had to escape before the world her mother had warned her about enveloped her like the night. Nothing would stand in her way. Not again.