Chapter 200. Not a Savior Who Wields Her, Just Someone Patient Enough to Stay
"It gets worse," William said, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper that seemed to scrape against the walls of the room. "It wasn’t just the comparisons, Catherine..."
"It wasn’t just the emotional hollows they carved out. It was... physical, systematic, and even deliberate."
He leaned forward, the lamplight catching the fresh hollows beneath his eyes, making him look like a man who had seen a massacre. "I found reports from the training hall logs that read more like prison manifests than family records..."
"There were entries about children being kept in the sparring pits past supper, left alone in the dark until they met some impossible quota of strikes or forms."
"If they failed... and they always failed because the bar was rigged." William gritted his teeth. "They were left there, shivering and exhausted, until dawn."
He paused, his throat working as he swallowed the bile of disgust. "And the meals. God, the meals..."
"There were notations about meals withheld without explanation. Not once, not twice, but as a recurring disciplinary measure."
"And then there was the silence." His hands shook slightly. "Entire days, sometimes entire weeks, where the family would simply... stop acknowledging their existence."
"No words, no glances, and no recognition. After any perceived failure, they would simply erase the child from the household’s attention."
"Can you imagine that?! Being alive, breathing, bleeding in a house full of people, and being treated as though you have already died?!"
Catherine’s breath caught audibly, a sharp intake of air that sounded like a sob she refused to let escape. Her hand shot out beneath the blanket, finding William’s.
She gripped it with such ferocity that her knuckles went white, her nails digging into his palm. William couldn’t tell if she was clinging to him for strength or if she was trying to anchor herself before she shattered.
Probably both.
"They starved her," Catherine said.
Her voice was terrifyingly low, dangerously even. It was that particular brand of calm. William had learned to fear the stillness before a storm breaks, the quiet of a predator coiled to spring.
"They didn’t just withhold affection... they used food as a weapon against a child." Catherine felt her pain. "And silence... They used the absence of human connection as a blade."
"According to the records," William answered grimly, "that’s precisely what they did."
"They treated her body and her mind like livestock that needed to be broken."
"And they called that preparation." Catherine’s voice cracked on the word, a raw splinter of disgust and grief tearing through her composure. "Necessary hardship... Building character... All that sanctimonious language noble families love to vomit when they want to dress up cruelty as virtue."
"I’ve heard it before, William... I’ve heard the echoes of it in my own family’s halls. They weren’t this monstrous; they weren’t this sadistic, but I recognize the shape of that excuse."
"I recognize the stench of it."
William nodded slowly, his gaze fixed on hers. He watched her process the horror, seeing the way her eyes burned with a protective fury that made him wonder if she would burn the Valestria estate to the ground if she could.
"There was a line," William continued, his jaw clenching so hard it felt like his teeth might crack. "A formal statement in the archives, responding to some old inquiry about their methods."
"It said, ’Discomfort in pursuit of excellence is not cruelty; it is preparation. We make no apology for demanding greatness from those who carry our name.’"
Catherine’s expression didn’t soften; if anything, it turned to stone.
"That’s not a philosophy, William," she said flatly, her eyes cold and unforgiving. "That’s a justification they’ve rehearsed so many times they’ve convinced themselves it’s holy!"
"It’s not greatness they’re demanding... It’s submission!"
They sat in silence for what felt like hours, though it was likely only minutes. The weight of the revelations hung between them like smoke from a funeral pyre, choking the air in the small bedroom.
The lamplight seemed dimmer now, unable to penetrate the darkness that William had dragged into the room with his words. The horror of the Valestria archives wasn’t just a story anymore; it was a living thing, a ghost sitting at the foot of their bed.
Finally, Catherine spoke. Her voice had lost its edge of fury, softening into something quiet and achingly certain.
"You’re going to fix this," she said. It wasn’t a question. "Aren’t you?"
"That’s what’s kept you awake... It’s not just the horror of what they did to her, though that’s enough to break anyone; it’s that you’re already standing in the wreckage, trying to figure out how to rebuild."
William let out a breath that sounded like a wounded animal’s whimper. He stared at his hands in the amber glow, seeing not the calluses of a warrior but the helplessness of a man facing an enemy he couldn’t cut down with steel.
"I don’t know if ’fix’ is the right word, Catherine," he admitted, his voice cracking. "This isn’t a broken blade I can forge anew..."
"This isn’t a sword form I can correct with better footwork or a stronger stance, but this... This is worse."
"This is years of conditioning, built deliberately, layer by excruciating layer, deep inside her bones."
"They didn’t just train her; they rewired her soul. How do you undo something that was designed to be permanent?" William felt disappointed with himself. "I don’t even know where the wound ends and the person begins..."
The admission tore at him. ’How do I teach her to trust her own heartbeat when they taught her that every pulse was a potential failure?’
"You’ll figure it out." Catherine’s voice cut through his spiraling thoughts with the absolute conviction of a vow.
When he turned to look at her, he saw something fierce in her eyes, not anger this time, but a profound, unshakable belief. "I watched you do it with me, William..."
"Don’t you dare pretend you don’t know what you’re capable of."
William opened his mouth to protest, but she pressed on, her grip on his hand tightening.
"I spent eight years convinced I was nothing but a coward who ran when things got hard..."
"I convinced myself that surviving the things I lost made me unworthy, that I was hollow, tainted, a ghost pretending to be alive. And you... you didn’t fix that with some grand speech."
"You didn’t perform some miraculous feat of strength... You were simply there." Catherine held his cheek. "You were patient when I was impossible..."
"You kept showing up, day after day, believing in me even when I had burned every bridge to my own self-worth."
"You waited until I could hear my own voice again." She leaned closer, her breath warm against his cheek. "If you could drag me back from that darkness, I have absolutely no doubt you can find her in hers."
A strange sensation uncoiled in William’s chest, a fragile, tentative warmth that began to push back against the cold numbness of his despair.
"You make it sound simple," he whispered.
"It wasn’t simple... God, it wasn’t simple at all." Catherine shifted, sliding closer until she could rest her head against the solid muscle of his shoulder. "It took months of silence, months of anger, and nights where I genuinely believed you were wasting your time on someone who was already broken beyond repair."
Her voice dropped to a gentle murmur, almost reverent. "But it worked..."
"Because you never once treated me like a problem to be solved efficiently..." Catherine smiled. "You never tried to ’fix’ me like you were repairing a piece of equipment."
"You treated me like a person worth the time it took to heal properly..."
"You gave me the one thing they never gave Lia: the permission to be imperfect."
She looked up at him, her eyes reflecting the last dying embers of the lamp. "That’s what she needs, William..."
"Not a savior to wield her like a weapon, but just... just someone patient enough to keep showing up, even when she tries to push you away."