Chapter 269

AURELIA’S POV Two days. That was all Darius had asked of me. Two days and the rumors would die, he’d said. Two days and he’d show me the truth wasn’t as cruel as it seemed. And for those two days, I tried. I swallowed my doubt. I folded my fear small and tucked it into corners where it wouldn’t choke me. I told myself to wait, to breathe, to endure. But fate has never cared for promises. I didn’t want to hope this time. I want to trust Darius, my heart wants to hope once again but my brain-it wants to shut down. I have hoped for too long, expected too much but at the end I was the only person who got hurt. I guess Love, hope, expectations, these things are priceless in my family’s eyes. I felt suffocated inside the four walls of my own home, so I decided to step out for a moment and that’s when everything shattered. The night it happened was deceptively calm. The manor hummed with its usual rhythm—guards on rotation, servants finishing chores, Seraphina tucked in her wing pretending to