Chapter 221. I Will Bring Her Home, However Long It Takes, However Painful the Path
Lia’s hands flew up, fingers clawing at Catherine’s shirt, gripping the fabric in white-knuckled fists as if she were a drowning woman and Catherine’s embrace was the only solid thing left in a world made of water.
The dam hadn’t just broken; it had disintegrated. The sobs that tore from her lungs were deeper now, more guttural, each one carrying the weight of years of suppressed trauma, of midnight meals eaten in silence, of the hollow ache of being utterly alone in a crowded academy.
The careful, disciplined girl, the one who moved with lethal precision and spoke with measured formality, was gone, dissolved entirely into the warm, amber glow of the kitchen.
"I don’t—" Lia gasped, her voice breaking into something unrecognizable, a sound of pure agony. "I don’t understand why... I’m..."
"I’m so sorry... please, I didn’t mean to... I’ll fix it... I’ll—" Her words were frantic, desperate attempts to reassert control and to apologize for the ’weakness’ of her own humanity.
Even as her body betrayed her with uncontrollable shaking, her mind was still trying to follow the academy’s brutal calculus: ’Emotions are a liability...’
’Vulnerability is a flaw...’
’Apologize for the malfunction...’
"Shh, stop... Just stop, Lia," Catherine interrupted, her voice firm but layered with an unshakable tenderness.
She didn’t let go; instead, she pulled Lia closer, tucking the girl’s shaking frame against her own chest. "You don’t need to apologize..."
"Do you hear me? Not for this... and not for any of this..." Catherine caresses her hair. "You aren’t malfunctioning, sweetheart..."
"You’re just finally breathing..."
Catherine’s hand continued its hypnotic rhythm against Lia’s back, a steady anchor against the storm. "You’re allowed to feel it... All of it..."
"The anger, the sadness, and the emptiness you don’t have to carry it alone anymore... Not tonight... and not here."
William stood a few paces away, frozen. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to intervene, to grab her, to fight whatever invisible demon was tearing her apart.
His hands twitched at his sides, muscles coiled as if anticipating an enemy he couldn’t see. But as he watched Catherine, the way she offered nothing but unconditional acceptance, he realized that his instinct to ’fix’ her was the wrong approach.
Lia didn’t need a soldier right now; she didn’t need someone to fight her demons. She needed someone to sit with her in the dark until the demons left.
’She’s been starving for this,’ William realized, a sharp pang of guilt twisting in his own gut. ’Not for food, but for this...’
’For someone to see her shatter and not turn away...’
He moved with deliberate, quiet steps, making sure his presence was known so as not to startle her. He didn’t crowd them; he didn’t intrude on the sacred space Catherine was creating.
Instead, he settled into the chair beside them, close enough to offer heat but far enough to respect her need for air. He reached out, placing a single, steady hand on Lia’s shoulder.
His palm was warm through her shirt, a silent vow of protection.
’I’m here,’ his touch said. ’I’m not going anywhere...’
’I’m not judging you... and I’m not leaving.’
Lia’s breathing remained ragged for a long time, each inhale a battle, each exhale a surrender. Inside her mind, the screaming had faded to a dull, exhausted ache.
The walls she had built, the iron-clad discipline that had kept her alive through years of isolation, were lying in ruins around her, but for the first time, the ruins didn’t feel like a defeat.
They felt like an opening.
’They didn’t leave,’ she thought hoarsely, her consciousness flickering like a dying candle. ’I broke, and they stayed.’
’Why did they... stay...?’
The question was too heavy to answer.
They stayed like that for what felt like hours, though it was likely only minutes. The dining room light remained warm and steady, indifferent to the emotional earthquake that had just leveled the girl at the table.
The dinner, the food she had praised, and the stew that had warmed her sat abandoned and cooling, forgotten in the face of something far more nourishing. Gradually, the violent convulsions of her sobs began to subside, giving way to small, hiccuping gasps.
The storm was passing, leaving behind only the raw, exhausted wreckage of a girl who had finally learned that she didn’t have to be strong alone.
...
By the time Lia finally slipped into the fragile, dreamless sleep of the utterly exhausted, the house had fallen into a heavy, watchful silence.
She lay in the small guest room down the hall, her breathing shallow and uneven, worn down to the very marrow of her bones by the emotional cataclysm that had shattered her composure.
In the dining room, the aftermath of the evening lingered like smoke. The amber glow of the lamps now felt melancholic, casting long, distorted shadows across the table where the meal remained cold, half eaten, a silent testament to the interrupted ritual of normalcy.
William and Catherine sat across from each other in the dimness, their voices reduced to hushed, reverent whispers as if speaking too loudly might shatter the fragile peace they had managed to carve out of the night.
Catherine was staring at her own hands. They were still trembling slightly, the ghost of Lia’s desperate grip still imprinted on her palms.
"I’ve never seen anyone hold that much in for that long," she said finally, her voice scarcely more than a breath. "Not even me, William..."
"And I spent eight years building walls so high I forgot what the sky looked like." Her throat constricted. "To hold that much pain inside without letting it poison your eyes... it’s not human... It’s impossible."
William watched her, his own heart feeling like it had been bruised by what he had witnessed. "Yeah..."
"She’s had more practice at self-destruction than you ever did," he replied grimly, his jaw tightening. "She started younger..."
"She learned to weaponize her own numbness before she even knew how to properly articulate fear..."
"At the academy, feeling wasn’t just a weakness, but it was a death sentence."
A flash of something dangerous flickered across Catherine’s face, a raw cocktail of grief and a cold, simmering fury that made her appear suddenly older, more formidable.
"I do hope you can fix this," she said, the words cutting through the quiet like a blade.
She looked up at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears and desperate conviction. "I know how unfair that sounds, but... I know you can’t simply patch a broken soul like you’d mend a torn tunic."
"I know healing something that deep is a slow, agonizing process that doesn’t care about our desires."
Her voice cracked, but she pushed through. "But William, I need you to try..."
"I need you to reach into whatever hell she’s retreated to and pull her out... I need to drag her out of that family’s shadow, out of those academy corridors, and out of that suffocating darkness entirely."
"Because if I have to watch her carry that weight for one more day... if I have to watch her shatter like that again without knowing how to stop it... I don’t think I can bear it." Catherine bites her lips. "And I don’t even know what ’stopping it’ looks like."
The vulnerability in her request struck William harder than any physical blow ever could. He saw the exhaustion in her shoulders, the terror beneath her strength.
He reached across the table, his large hand enveloping hers, squeezing gently but with an unshakable firmness. He wanted to transfer his own steadiness to her, to give her something solid to lean on.
"I’m going to try," William promised, his voice dropping to a register of absolute certainty. "I promise you that, Catherine..."
"Completely, without reservation, and without retreat."
He paused, feeling the gravity of the vow settling into his bones, transforming from a simple statement of intent into a sacred oath. The flickering lamplight caught the intensity in his eyes, the look of a man who had found something worth fighting for that had nothing to do with swords or strategy.
"This stopped being about duty a long time ago," he continued, his grip tightening. "This stopped being just another teaching responsibility somewhere between the first day in the archives and the moment I saw her break tonight."
"This has become personal..." William gritted his teeth. "This has become something I cannot, will not, walk away from."
"I intend to see this through to the end, Catherine... However long it takes, and however painful the path becomes... I will bring her home."