Three nights had passed since Sonia's disappearance. That evening—like the ones before—Marius sat in the armchair in her bedroom, leaning back with his gaze fixed on the empty bed. Moonlight spilled through the half-drawn curtains, casting cold, pale shapes across the abandoned sheets. She had vanished from his grasp—like a fleeting shadow.
He lifted the handkerchief he'd once embroidered for her—a small golden bird stitched with meticulous care. The fabric was worn, faded from being clenched too often. He brought it to his lips, inhaling faint traces of her scent, his fingers trembling.
"Why did you leave me, Nia?" he whispered. His voice cracked, and his eyes narrowed, a pulse of frustration rising in his throat.
In the silence that followed, memories surfaced—unwelcome and sharp. They pulled him backward, to the day everything began.
Marius had been seven when they dragged him to the grand estate. The scent of rain on cobblestones clung to him as his small hands tightened around his mother's cold, unmoving fingers. Her lifeless body lay in a crude wooden casket, unclaimed and disregarded by the world that had already forgotten her.
The high gates rose in front of him, cold and unwelcoming. Above, servants stood behind curtained windows, whispering to each other, their contempt barely hidden. Marius felt it like a chill slipping under his skin. He shuddered but stayed where he was, caught in a confusion he couldn't quite name, and a fear that wouldn't let go.
Then a woman appeared—elegant, striking, every inch a queen in bearing. But her beauty was sharpened by the disdain that curled her lips and darkened her eyes. The duchess. She sneered at the boy, then shot a glare at the duke.
"You expect me to raise that thing?" she hissed, her voice laced with venom.
The duke did not bother to look at Marius. "His mother is dead. He's my son."
The duchess scoffed, pulling her fan tighter. "If you insist on keeping him, then at least keep him out of sight. I won't have him staining our reputation."
From then on, Marius lived among the servants, tolerated but never welcomed. The cook slapped him for breaking plates, the stable boys kicked at him when he moved too slow, and the older servants mocked him for his unruly hair and dirty clothes.
"Bastard brat," they called him, shoving him into the mud.
When bruises formed on his arms and welts marked his back, he learned not to cry. He knew that no one would comfort him. The duke's cold, indifferent eyes did not see him. The duchess's harsh words wounded deeply, and the wounds inflicted by them would never heal.
Marius learned to survive through silence, hiding, and toughening his heart. He would occasionally wish that his mother would return and rescue him, but he knew that she was gone—for good.
When Marius was ten, the duke and duchess told him that he would be presented to society at the annual autumn ball. They forced him into a stiff, elegant suit that itched his skin and polished his unruly hair until it hurt.
"You will smile and behave," the duchess warned, squeezing his shoulder until he winced. "Or else."
In the grand ballroom, the clinking of glasses and polite laughter felt suffocating. The duke introduced him with a polished smile, presenting Marius as his and the duchess's biological son—one who had been kept out of the public eye for years due to "certain circumstances." A convenient story, wrapped in noblesse and whispered lies.
His resemblance to the duke was so striking that it left little room for doubt about his paternity. Yet there were murmurs about the duchess—whether she was truly his mother or merely complicit in a deception. Marius endured the burden of every suspicious gaze, every whispered question behind covered mouths about why a rightful heir had been hidden for so long.
When he couldn't bear the scrutiny any longer, he slipped away, pushing through the heavy doors to the garden. The crisp autumn air hit his face, and he let out a shaky breath.
A rustling sound made him pause. By the fountain, a girl knelt, cupping a kitten in her hands as she fed it bits of roasted chicken. Her wavy pink hair shimmered in the twilight, and she laughed softly when the kitten licked her fingers.
He took a step closer, and a twig snapped under his foot. She turned, her emerald eyes widening in surprise, but there was no fear.
"Oh!" she said. "Did I startle you?"
He shook his head.
The girl smiled—a soft, radiant curve of lips. "I don't believe we've met."
For a moment, he couldn't find his voice. "I... I'm Marius."
She beckoned him over. "I'm Sonia. This little one was starving. Isn't it cute?"
Hesitantly, he approached, keeping his distance. Sonia patted the spot beside her on the stone bench. "Sit with me?"
He sat, shoulders hunched. They spoke about the kitten, about how it must be hungry and lonely. Marius couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken so freely, his words tumbling out awkwardly but unguarded.
At one point, Sonia noticed a bruise on his wrist when he shifted his sleeve. Before he could hide it, she reached for his hand, her touch gentle.
"Did somebody hurt you?"
He did not know what to say. Nobody had ever posed that question to him. She frowned, and pulled out a tiny jar from her pack.
"It's only ointment. It may do some good," she whispered. She reached out and gently touched him with her warm, soft fingers. Marius didn't flinch. For the first time, he felt something other than cold indifference—he felt cared for.
When they returned to the ballroom together, the duchess noticed, casting Sonia a calculating look.
"You're Count Mitford's daughter, aren't you?"
Sonia nodded, offering a polite curtsey.
The duchess smiled—a forced, saccharine smile. "Lovely to meet you."
As the adults chatted, Marius couldn't help sneaking glances at Sonia, his heart pounding. She caught him staring at one point and smiled. His face reddened, and he immediately turned away.
The ball was over, and they bid each other farewell. He hadn't spoken to her again that night, but that brief moment—the sympathy in her voice, the radiance of her smile— sank deep into his heart.
Days passed, but the memory never left.
One night, lying on his hard, narrow bed in the servant quarters, Marius clutched the handkerchief he'd embroidered with a yellow bird. The fabric felt coarse against his calloused fingertips, but the stitches—small, careful, almost trembling in their precision—were soft in a way he couldn't put into words. He had sewn each one slowly, tracing Sonia's voice in his mind, remembering how she'd said yellow birds looked like bits of sunlight fluttering through trees. That single, offhand remark had stayed with him, warming a part of him he didn't know could be warm.
Thoughts of her spun gently through his mind, like wind stirring curtains—quiet, persistent, pulling him away from the ache that clung to him day after day, like the damp air sneaking in through the cracked windowpanes.
She had touched something in him no one else had noticed. Her voice, her hands, the way she'd seen his bruise and hadn't looked away. It had felt like something out of a story—too soft, too kind to be real. And yet it was real. She was real. In that moment by the fountain, she hadn't just seen him—she had cared. And that memory lived in him now, bright and fragile, untouched by the duchess's scorn or the world's coldness.
No one had ever treated him that way before. Not even the few servants who didn't actively torment him showed such genuine care.
Marius curled up tighter, squeezing the handkerchief to his chest. He could still hear the whispers from the ballroom—the shallow, poisonous praise the duchess had showered upon him. He had wanted to scream at them all, to break something, anything, but Sonia's presence had anchored him.
For the first time, he had felt something more than anger or numbness. He didn't know how to name it then, but it felt like hope.
To be continued