Ash's Pov:
*The frantic shouting cuts through the morning silence, a jarring intrusion that pulls me from a fitful, dreamless sleep. I sit up, my heart already hammering against my ribs. The voice—Liam's—is raw with panic. I scramble out of bed, my limbs heavy and leaden from exhaustion, and quickly pull on fresh clothes,.*
*I follow the sound of his panicked pacing through the gallery. The usually serene halls echo with his shouts. I push open the door to his study to find a scene of chaos. Liam is a caged animal, his study in disarray. Books have been knocked from shelves, papers are scattered across the floor. He's shouting at two of the guards, his face flushed, his eyes wild.*
"Where is she?! Find her! Search every inch of this estate and the grounds! Don't come back until you have her!" *he roars, his voice cracking with fear.*
*A bitter, cold satisfaction warms my veins for a fraction of a second. To see him, the source of so much of my recent torment, so utterly undone, so completely powerless... a dark part of me whispers that he deserves this. Maybe Onyx finally saw him for what he was and cast him out. Maybe his perfect world is finally breaking. The thought is a fleeting, bitter poison.*
*But then his words slice through my vindictive haze like a blade of ice.*
*He stops his pacing, his wild eyes snapping to me. The panic in them is so raw, so absolute, that it chills me to the bone. He looks at me, truly looks at me, for the first time, and in his gaze I see no scheming, no arrogance—only sheer, unadulterated terror.*
"Who are you searching for?" *I ask, my voice barely a whisper, the question feeling heavy and wrong.*
*He doesn't hesitate. The name he gives me is a physical blow.* "Onyx,"
*The name hangs in the air between us, a single, sharp word that detonates in my mind. Onyx. Gone. The world tilts. The cold satisfaction I felt a moment ago evaporates, replaced by a cold, creeping dread that coils around my heart and squeezes.*
"She's gone," *Liam repeats, his voice cracking. He's not just panicking anymore; he's unraveling. He runs a trembling hand through his hair, his composure completely shattered.* "She never got to her room. We found this on the front door."
*He holds up a small, delicate object. A bracelet. I recognize it instantly. It was the bracelet she wore lsst night. The sight of it, so small and insignificant, yet holding the weight of her absence, is like a punch to the gut. My knees feel weak. I stumble back a step, my hand flying to my mouth to stifle a gasp that threatens to become a sob.*
*The world dissolves into a low hum. I can't hear him. I can't process the words. It can't be true. It has to be a lie. A cruel joke. My vision tunnels, everything narrowing down to Liam's face, his wide, panicked eyes. In a single, violent motion, I cross the space between us. My hands, fists clenched so tight my nails bite into my palms, shoot out and grab the front of his shirt. I yank him toward me, my body shaking with a force I didn't know I possessed.*
"Tell me you're lying!" *I roar, my voice tearing from my throat, raw and ragged. I shake him, a desperate, violent gesture.* "Tell me this is a fucking joke!"
*Liam doesn't fight back. He doesn't even seem to register my hands on his collar or my fury. He's completely submerged in his own private ocean of terror, his gaze distant and unfocused. He stammers, his words tripping over each other.*
"Tears of joy." *The words, spoken so calmly by the guard, land in the room like a bomb detonating in slow motion. The phrase hangs in the air, thick and suffocating, and the meaning crashes down on me with the force of a physical blow. Tears of joy. I was the cause of those tears. My cruelty, my rejection, my slammed door... they were the catalyst for this. I am the reason she ran out into the night. The reason she's gone.*
*My grip on Liam's collar slackens. My hands, which were moments ago shaking with rage, now tremble with a different kind of horror. I let go of him as if his shirt has burned me, and I take a staggering step back, my hand flying to my mouth again. The air is knocked from my lungs. I can't breathe. I can't think. All I can see is that bracelet, all I can hear are her sobs, and all I can feel is the crushing weight of my own guilt.*
"she told me she had an headache and needed to rest, I agreed. After the party, i chose not to go to her room, fearing , she was asleep and that i would wake her up, so i left her alone to rest. Then this morning, she is no where to be found." he stutters , more to himself than to me .*
*Liam's words hang in the air, a litany of mistakes that mirrors my own. He left her alone, assuming she was safe. I sent her away, assuming she would be fine. We are both fools, blind to the danger we helped create. The shared guilt is a tangible thing in the room, thick and suffocating. He looks at me, his panic momentarily eclipsed by a dawning, horrified realization. He sees the same reflection in my eyes that I'm sure is in his—the face of a man who has failed her completely.*
"I left her alone," *he whispers, the words a curse.* "I thought... I thought she just needed space."
*He turns to the guard, his voice gaining a sliver of its former authority, though it's still frayed with fear.* "Find her. Now. Search every inch of the grounds. The woods, the stables, the river. Bring me news the second you find anything. Go!"*
*The guard's voice cuts through the fragile silence that had fallen, his words a splash of ice water in our faces. He stumbles over his words, his eyes darting nervously between Liam and me.* "They saw... the Miss—" *He stops, catching Liam's murderous glare and quickly correcting himself.* "I mean, the lady of the house, last night about twenty minutes after she left the party. She ran by them, crying. They thought it best not to intervene... they thought it was tears of joy."
*The confession hangs in the air, heavy and damning. The two guards, who were supposed to protect her, saw her in distress and dismissed it. The sheer, staggering incompetence of it all makes my head spin. I look at Liam, and the fury that had been directed at me moments ago is now refocused, burning in his eyes as he turns his full attention to the hapless guard. He looks as though he might physically tear the man apart with his bare hands.*
*The silence that follows the guard's report is absolute, a vacuum that seems to suck all the air and sound from the room. I can hear my own blood rushing in my ears, a frantic, panicked drumbeat against the silence. I look from the terrified guard to Liam, whose face is a mask of pure, unadulterated rage and fear. The pieces click into place with horrifying clarity.*
*My rejection. My cruelty. It wasn't just a private moment between us. It was the public spectacle he was referring to. The crying. The running. She ran from me. From this house. Into the night. Alone.*
*My stomach churns. I feel sick. The satisfaction I felt moments ago is gone, replaced by a cold, hollow dread that threatens to swallow me whole. I am the reason she's gone. I pushed her out that door. The guilt is a physical weight on my shoulders, and I can barely stand under it. I have to find her. I have to fix this.*
*His words are a desperate mantra, a feverish attempt to build a reality that no longer exists.* "She can't run away after agreeing to be my bride," *he insists, but his voice lacks conviction. He's trying to convince himself more than anyone else. He slams his fist onto the polished surface of his desk, the sound echoing through the room.* "She finally accepted to be mine. Our love story can't end like this!" *His voice cracks, a raw, wounded sound that cuts through the panic. He's a man coming apart at the seams, his carefully constructed world shattering around him.*
*His mind, even in its turmoil, is already searching for a culprit, an enemy to blame.* "Guest check the list of the guests that were invited. Many were angry with me for stopping the trade. Perhaps they took it out on me by kidnapping her?" *He's grasping at straws, but the possibility is terrifyingly real. In this world of wealth and power, enemies are everywhere.*
"They won't get away with this. No one touches my bride, Goddammit!" *He roars, the words filled with a possessive fury that is almost more frightening than his panic. He slams his fist down on the desk again, the impact making the inkwell jump.* "Go now!" *he barks at the remaining guards, who scramble from the room.*
*The moment the door closes, the furious energy seems to drain from him all at once. His body sags, and he sways on his feet. He brings a hand to his nose, and when he pulls it away, it's smeared with blood. The sight is so jarringly normal, a sign of his fragilty he tries to hide, that it cuts through the haze of my own shock.*
*Without thinking, my feet move me forward. I grab the tissue box from the corner of his desk and tear a few sheets off. I step closer, my movements careful, hesitant.*
*I ignore the voice in my head screaming that I should leave him to his fate. My hands, of their own accord, reach out and take the tissues from the box. I gently press the soft paper to the bridge of his nose, applying just enough pressure to stem the flow. The gesture is automatic, muscle memory from a thousand such moments in our early youth.*
*I remember the first time it happened. We were barely sixteen, training for hours in the salle. He'd pushed himself too hard, his face pale with exhaustion, when a thin trickle of blood had started from his nose. I'd panicked, but he'd just laughed, a rare, genuine sound, and told me it happened when he was toi stressed and pusjed to his limit. From then on, it became my unspoken job to watch him, to ease his burdens before they could manifest as a nosebleed. I was the only one who knew.*
*My thumb brushes against his skin as I dab at the corner of his nostril, my touch impossibly light.*
*The scent of his blood, metallic and sharp, fills my senses, cutting through the cloying smell of old wood and polish in the study. It's a smell I haven't encountered in years, not since we were younger, and it brings a flood of memories back with it—late nights studying, fierce arguments that left us both trembling, and the quiet, tender moments in between when the world felt simple. The weight of his head in my palm is familiar, grounding me even as the situation spirals around us.*
*My voice, when it comes, is low and steady, a stark contrast to the chaos of the last few minutes.* "You're bleeding," *I state the obvious, my tone devoid of judgment. I hold the tissue there, waiting for him to pull away, to reclaim his composure, or to lean into the comfort I'm offering. The choice is his.*
*He leans into my touch, his head dipping slightly as his body succumbs to the exhaustion and stress. For a fleeting moment, he looks like the boy I grew up with, the loyal friend who trusted me completely. A small, sad smile touches my lips, a reflexive response to a ghost of the past.*
*But the feeling is fleeting, crushed under the weight of what he has done. The friend I see now is the one who led me down a path of self-destruction with Diana. The one who encouraged my worst impulses, who egged me on until I was drunk on power and arrogance.*
*The one who stood by and watched as I shattered Onyx's heart, not caring about the collateral damage as long as he got what he wanted. And now, because of that carelessness, because of his arrogance and my own, she's gone.*
*A cold, hard knot of fury forms in my gut, a desire to strike out, to hurt him as he has hurt me.*
*The fury is a live wire inside me, hot and sharp, threatening to arc and burn everything in its path. I want to hurt him. I want to make him feel a fraction of the pain I'm feeling right now. But then I look at him—truly look at him.*
*The arrogant, untouchable Lord of the Manor is gone, replaced by this trembling, bleeding man who is falling apart. His eyes, when I meet them, are wide with a terror so profound it's almost childlike. He's not a schemer right now. He's just a man who has lost everything.*
*I take a slow, deliberate breath, forcing the venom back down. My knuckles are white where I'm gripping the edge of the desk to stop myself from doing something I'll regret. Now is not the time. My own feelings, my righteous anger, they don't matter right now. There is only one thing that matters.*
*My voice comes out low, steady, and devoid of all emotion.*
*My voice cuts through the thick silence, a blade honed by desperation.* "Don't worry," *I say, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. I'm not comforting him. I'm trying to convince myself.*
"We will find her." *The words are a promise, a vow, and a threat all rolled into one. My jaw clenches so tight I can feel the muscles in my neck strain.*
*I pull my hand back from his face as if I've been burned, the tissue ball now stained with his blood. I turn away, needing to put space between us before I give in to the violent urge to strike him. I walk toward the window, my gaze fixed on the grey, overcast sky. The world outside looks as bleak as the one inside my head.*
*The thought comes unbidden, a whisper in the dark recesses of my mind.* "And Onyx is mine.... Mine alone." *I mutter it under my breath, the words a desperate claim on a reality I'm no longer sure exists.*