There was a knock at the door.
Not a magical chime. Not a whisper from Arbor. A physical knock. Dull. Solid. Real.
It didn't register the first time. Or the second.
By the third, Malvor blinked, slowly lifting his head from the floor. The sound echoed oddly in the silence, foreign, unwelcome, tangible in a world that had slipped into the abstract.
He stood, moving like someone half-formed, a god without structure. His feet dragged. His hands hung limp at his sides.
He opened the door.
And the world stopped again.
Annie stood there.
Barefoot. Wrapped in a thin white sheet barely clinging to her shoulders. Her hair a tangled mess, makeup smeared down her cheeks like war paint. One eye swollen. Her lip split, crusted with blood. Bruises bloomed across her arms, her collarbone, her thighs. Blood still trickled down the inside of one leg.
Malvor's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
She didn't speak. Just lifted her trembling hand and held out a note. Her fingers were shaking, her knuckles white from the grip.
He took it instinctively.
And she walked past him.
No glance.
No words.
She did not go to their room.
She went to the guest room, the one she had first stayed in when she arrived. The one she had not entered in weeks. Not since the first time they slept together.
She shut the door quietly behind her.
He stared after her. Not breathing. Not thinking. Just...staring.
Then he looked down at the note.
The handwriting was unmistakable. Elegant. Precise. Disgusting.
It read:
You always liked broken things. So I broke your favorite toy.—Aerion
The paper crumpled instantly, his grip crushing it as if it might scream.
Rage.
Sorrow.
Pain.
His breath hitched. His body burned. He could feel the chaos rise like bile. But beneath it, there was something worse.
Nothing.
No pull.
No flicker of her emotions in the back of his mind.
No thread tying them together.
Their bond was gone.
Severed. Silenced. Or worse… shut.
His chest seized.
"Annie?" he called, but his voice cracked.
He turned to her door. Reached for the handle. Stopped.
He could hear nothing inside.
The connection, the one that had hummed quietly ever since she had come to him, was utterly, horrifyingly still.
He lowered his hand.
Stepped back.
The note, now crushed in his hand, disintegrated into ash as chaos burned through it.
He stood in the hallway like a man who had died twice.
Because she was home.
But she was not with him.
And whatever Aerion had done, whatever had happened—
She was more gone now than when she had vanished.
And he did not know how to reach her.
He did not try the door again.
He did not call her name.
He simply sank down, back pressed to the wood, knees bent, arms limp at his sides. And there he stayed.
For hours.
The hallway remained dark. Arbor did not light the sconces. The house, ever sensitive, dimmed itself in mourning.
Malvor leaned his head back until it knocked softly against the door. He listened.
Every creak of the house made his heart stop. Every imagined sound from inside the room made his breath catch. But there was nothing. Not a rustle of sheets. Not the creak of a floorboard. Not even the sound of her breathing.
He pressed his palm flat to the door. As if that might bring her closer. As if she might feel him and remember something. Anything.
But their bond, still gone. The absence of it was like losing a limb. Phantom pain ached where her presence should have been.
Time dragged in strange, distorted shapes. Seconds felt like eternities. Minutes like lifetimes. He could not tell how long he sat there, only that the night did not end.
He whispered her name. Once. Twice. Then he stopped, afraid the sound might break whatever fragile thread was left between them.
His thoughts turned violent. Vicious. Back to Aerion. To that note. To the image of her on the doorstep, bloodied and bruised and silent.
He gripped his hair, teeth gritted, shaking with the force of emotions he couldn't release. His chaos writhed beneath the surface, begging to be unleashed. But he wouldn't let it out. Not near her. Not again.
So he curled forward, arms around his knees, forehead pressed to the wood of her door.
He did not cry this time.
He could not.
There was nothing left.
Only waiting.
Only agony.
He prayed, not in the way of gods, but in the way of the desperate. To anything. Anyone. Himself.
Let her be okay. Let her come back to me. Let her speak. Let her scream. Let her break things. Let her hate me. Just let her feel something again.
But the door stayed shut.
And the silence never broke.
Not once. All night.
He stayed.
The next morning came and went, unnoticed.
He had not moved. Not an inch.
His legs were numb. His spine ached. His head throbbed. But he did not care.
The world could have burned down around him, and he still would have sat there, like a ruined sentinel, guarding a door that would not open, watching over the only thing he still loved and could not reach.
He stared at the wall across from him. Blank. Pale. Mocking.
Sunlight tried to crawl through the hall windows, golden and soft, but it felt wrong. Too gentle. Too warm.
She was behind that door, and the sun dared to shine?
He clenched his fists, nails biting into his palms. They broke skin. Blood pooled in the crescents, dripping onto the floor without fanfare.
Images blurred through his mind.
Her face when she laughed. That tiny smile she tried to hide when he did something stupid. The way she rolled her eyes at his pet names. The coffee stains on her favorite shirt. The soft tch of her tongue when he teased her in the morning.
Her eyes, the first time she looked at him like he might be good.
He saw them now, vacant, dulled, glassy.
Bruised.
Gone.
He pressed his forehead against the wood again, hard. Harder.
Maybe if he hurt himself enough, it would undo the hurt she had suffered.
Maybe if he bled, it would matter.
You failed her.
He ground his teeth, rage boiling beneath the surface. But it wasn't hot. Not anymore.
It was cold. Bitter. Like frostbite. Like the stillness of a grave.
He pictured Aerion.
Smug. Cruel. Proud of his handiwork.
I will tear his limbs from his body.
Malvor's chest heaved.
I will drag him into a realm made of nothing but agony. I will drown him in mirrors of his own face. I will carve her pain into his soul and let it rot.
The magic in the hallway shivered, the walls flickering under his aura. But still, he did not move. Not from the door. Not from her.
I will take everything from him. Slowly. Thoughtfully. I won't burn him alive. I will keep him alive. I will make eternity feel like a prison with no walls and no end. I will make him beg me to finish it. And I will smile when I say no.
His nails scraped against the wood floor, leaving bloody gouges.
But the door never opened.
And she never called.
He stayed there through the second night. The hallway now cloaked in shadows.
His body slipped between moments of unconsciousness and jarring wakefulness. He dreamed of blood. Of Annie's voice, distant and unrecognizable. Of laughter that turned to screams.
Each time he jerked awake, his hand reached for the door. He did not dare to open it. He could not.
She had chosen to close him out.
And she had every right to.
The failure sat on his shoulders like a shroud, suffocating.
He had played god. He had danced. He had smiled.
While she was broken.
While she was being hurt.
His face twisted, hollow with fury.
I will not be forgiven for this.
His voice was nothing more than a rasp. "But he won't survive it either."
And still, he did not leave.
Because if she ever opened the door—
Even once—
He would be there.