Chapter 220. She Stared at Her Own Tears Like They Belonged to a Stranger
Catherine reached out again, this time placing her free hand on the table in a gesture of openness. "You don’t have to wait for anything here, Lia. There are no shoes dropping in this house. Only more bread."
Lia looked at Catherine’s hand, then at William’s steady gaze. For the first time, the pain didn’t feel like something she had to fight alone. It felt like something she could perhaps eventually heal from, if she stayed long enough to let the warmth sink in.
"Thank you," Lia whispered, so softly it was almost lost to the crackle of the fire. "For everything."
The meal continued in a slow, hypnotic rhythm of comfort. Plates were refilled without the need for a request, a silent language of care that William had learned to speak fluently alongside Catherine.
The warm glow of the kitchen lamps cast long, amber shadows that danced against the walls, creating a cocoon that seemed to push back against the darkness of the outside world.
William watched Lia with the keen eye of someone who had learned to read the subtle tells of a warrior, but he wasn’t looking for threats tonight. He was looking for humanity.
And slowly, almost imperceptibly, he saw it. Her shoulders, which usually held the tension of a drawn bowstring, began to loosen.
Her posture, always rigidly formal and braced for impact, softened by degrees. The armor she wore wasn’t made of steel but of habit, and tonight, the habit was failing her.
At one point, something remarkable happened. Lia spoke without being prompted.
"This food..." she began, her voice quiet, almost uncertain. "It reminds me faintly of something a household cook used to make."
"When I was very young... before everything changed." She paused, the admission hanging in the air like fragile glass.
Then, as if realizing she had exposed too much of her soul, she added defensively, "Not that I am certain... Memory is... unreliable."
It was in the middle of that defensive retreat that William noticed the shift.
The air in the room didn’t just cool; it seemed to vanish. Lia’s voice didn’t just trail off; it died.
Her gaze dropped to her plate, but she wasn’t looking at the food anymore. Her pupils dilated, her breathing became shallow and mechanical, and a terrifying stillness washed over her.
She looked less like a girl eating dinner and more like a statue carved from ice, frozen mid-motion.
Beside her, Catherine’s reaction was instantaneous. The warmth that had defined her features moments ago evaporated, replaced by a sharp, focused alarm.
She went very still, her hand hovering near Lia’s as if afraid that touching her might shatter whatever fragile state she had fallen into.
"Lia?" Catherine asked, her voice soft but laced with an urgent concern. "Lia, look at me."
Lia didn’t respond. Inside her mind, the kitchen was dissolving.
The amber light was being swallowed by a creeping, oily darkness. The smell of rosemary and roasted meat was being replaced by the metallic tang of blood and the stale, choking dust of the academy corridors.
’I am here,’ Lia told herself. A desperate, frantic mantra. ’I am in the dining room...’
’I am eating delicious food... and I am not alone...’
But the memory was clawing at her throat. She could feel the phantom cold of those training floors pressing against her shins.
She could hear the echoes of the silence—that terrible, absolute silence where no one asked if you were hungry, no one asked if you were tired, and no one asked if you were alive.
In that darkness, she had learned that to feel anything was to be weak, and to be weak was to die.
’Don’t let them see,’ a voice hissed in the back of her mind, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Seraphina’s. ’Don’t let them see how hollow you are...’
’Don’t let them see that you’ve never known this...’
’They will use it. They will weaponize your need for them.’
"Lia, breathe," William said, his voice dropping to a low, grounding register.
He moved to close the distance, not crowding her, but making his presence known. "Just breathe with me..."
"You’re safe, alright...? You’re in our home."
Lia’s fingers curled into the tablecloth, her knuckles turning white. A single drop of sweat rolled down her temple.
She felt like she was drowning in shallow water, the very kindness of the room threatening to overwhelm her defenses. The pain in her chest wasn’t just emotional anymore; it was physical, a grinding pressure behind her ribs as if her heart were trying to break free from the cage of her body.
"Lia, sweetheart, talk to me," Catherine urged, her hand finally finding Lia’s wrist.
The contact was warm, solid, and real. "Tell us what you’re seeing... What’s happening?"
Lia’s eyes finally lifted, but they weren’t focused on Catherine. They were unfocused, glassy, staring through the walls, through the people, and through time itself.
"It’s too quiet," she whispered, the words scarcely audible. "When it’s this quiet... something always comes to break it."
William leaned forward, the protective instinct that usually manifested as readiness for battle now twisting into something far more vulnerable. His chest tightened with a sudden, sharp ache as he looked closer at the girl across from him.
The sight was devastating. Tears had begun to leak from Lia’s eyes, not in dramatic sobs, but in silent, steady streams that tracked slow, glistening paths down cheeks that had gone deathly pale.
She looked like someone who had been struck by an invisible blade. Her expression wasn’t one of sadness; it was one of genuine, bewildered shock, as if her own body had committed an act of treason against her.
She hadn’t made a sound. Her hands still rested loosely around her fork, fingers frozen, as though her nervous system had simply malfunctioned, allowing the grief to spill out without bothering to ask permission.
’Why... is she crying...?’ William wondered, a panic rising in his throat. ’Did she remember something terrible...?’
’Did someone hurt her...?!’ The thought of someone having laid hands on her, of some instructor or fellow student breaking her spirit in the dark, made his blood simmer with a protective rage.
"Lia," William said, his voice carefully measured, though it wavered with the effort to remain a steady anchor. "Lia, talk to me... Are you alright...?"
The question was the catalyst. It was the one thing she couldn’t deflect with a formal salute or a stoic nod.
The moment the words left his lips, the fragile dam she had built around her soul—a dam reinforced by years of academy discipline, trauma, and survival instinct—fractured completely.
Lia’s hand flew up to her face, her fingers splaying across her cheek. When she felt the wetness there, her eyes widened in dawning horror.
For one suspended heartbeat, she stared at her own fingertips as if they belonged to a stranger. Then, the realization crashed over her: she was feeling.
She was vulnerable.
She was human.
And that realization was more terrifying than any battlefield.
Then, the dam didn’t just break; it exploded.
The sound that tore from her throat was something William would never forget. It wasn’t a cry, and it wasn’t a sob.
It was a raw, ragged keen—the sound of something ancient and broken finally snapping under impossible pressure. It was the sound of years of carefully maintained silence, of countless nights spent swallowing screams in the dark, of every lonely meal and every suppressed fear finally demanding to be heard.
It was primal, ugly, and utterly heartbreaking.
’I can’t stop it,’ Lia screamed internally, her mind spiraling into a vortex of shame. ’I’m breaking...’
’This... is a sign that I’m weak...’
’Seraphina was right... if you show weakness, you die...’
’I’m dying... I’m dying right here in front of them...’
She wanted to bolt, to run until her lungs burned and her legs gave out, to find some dark corner where she could disappear. But her body wouldn’t obey.
She was trapped in the light, trapped in the kindness of the room, and the kindness was what was killing her.
Catherine moved before William could even draw breath to speak. In one fluid, decisive motion, she slid from her chair and rounded the table, bypassing the untouched food and the warm candlelight.
She dropped to her knees beside Lia’s chair, not caring about the propriety of the moment or the ruined dinner. Without hesitation, she wrapped her arms around the shaking girl, pulling Lia’s head against her shoulder in a fierce, unhesitating embrace.
"I’ve got you," Catherine murmured, her voice a low, steady hum against the storm of Lia’s convulsions.
One hand pressed firmly against Lia’s back, grounding her, while the other threaded through her hair, stroking it with desperate tenderness. "You’re alright, Lia..."
"Just breathe... Let it come out..."
Lia fought it for three more seconds, her body convulsing with the effort to push Catherine away, to reassert control, to retreat into the safety of numbness. But Catherine held on like a fortress, unmoving, absorbing the impact of Lia’s grief as if it were nothing more than rain against stone.
"Let it out, sweetheart," Catherine whispered into her ear, her own voice thick with emotion but unshaken. "Whatever this is, whatever pain you’ve been carrying alone, you don’t have to hold any of it back tonight..."
"Not here... Not with us..."
"You’re safe... I promise you that you’re safe..."
William reached out, placing a steadying hand on Lia’s shoulder, joining the circle of protection. He couldn’t fix the past, and he couldn’t erase the academy’s cruelty, but as he watched Lia finally collapse into Catherine’s embrace, her sobs transforming from sharp gasps into exhausted, shuddering breaths, he knew one thing: she wouldn’t have to face the darkness alone tonight.