Chapter 17 Gilded Cage
The bars arrived two days later. Ornate iron scrollwork that the servants called decorative but Lila knew was a cage. They installed them while she sat on her bed, watching her last connection to the outside world become permanently sealed.
Maya supervised the installation with a tight expression. When the workers left, she stood at the window running her fingers over the cold metal.
"They're beautiful, at least." Her voice was hollow. "If you have to have bars, better they're pretty ones."
Lila said nothing. Words felt impossible lately. Her throat was always tight, her chest heavy, her whole body weighed down by exhaustion that had nothing to do with physical tiredness.
"I brought fresh bread. Your favorite kind with honey." Maya set a tray on the bedside table. "And soup. The cook made it special for you."
The food might as well have been stones. Lila looked at it without interest.
"You have to eat something." Maya's voice carried desperation. "You haven't touched a meal in three days. You're disappearing, my lady."
"Good." The word came out flat.
"Don't say that." Maya sat beside her on the bed. "Don't give up like this."
"Why shouldn't I?" Lila finally looked at her. "I'm locked in a tower with bars on my windows and guards reporting my every movement. I can't leave. Can't escape. Can't do anything but exist in this cage until I waste away. What's the point of fighting?"
"The point is living." Maya grabbed her hand. "The point is not letting this situation destroy you."
"It already has." Lila pulled her hand away. "I'm already destroyed. This is just my body catching up to reality."
Maya tried for another hour, coaxing and pleading and eventually crying. But Lila had nothing left to give her. No reassurances. No false promises. No energy for pretending things would get better.
After Maya left, Lila lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She didn't sleep anymore. Not really. She drifted in and out of consciousness, her mind fuzzy and distant. Time lost meaning. Day and night blurred together into gray sameness.
Guards checked on her every few hours. She heard them outside her door, murmuring to each other about how bad she looked. How she wasn't eating. How they were worried. But they had orders from the King himself. Keep her contained. Keep her safe. Don't let her escape.
Through the bond, she felt Adrian's constant presence. His frustration with council meetings that ran too long. His exhaustion from pretending to care about things that didn't matter. His divided attention always pulling back to her, checking through their connection to make sure she was still breathing.
She started blocking him again. Building walls in her mind that kept his emotions at bay. It was easier than feeling his concern. Easier than knowing he watched her deteriorate through the bond while doing nothing to actually help.
Days passed. Maybe a week. Maybe more. Lila stopped counting. Stopped caring. She stayed in bed most of the time, too weak to stand for long. Her body felt like it belonged to someone else, distant and unimportant.
Maya came and went. Sometimes she brought food. Sometimes she just sat in silence, holding Lila's hand, her face wet with tears. Sometimes she brought healers who poked and prodded and declared nothing physically wrong except malnutrition and exhaustion.
"She needs to want to live." One healer told Maya in a low voice, not realizing Lila could hear. "Her body is giving up because her spirit has given up. I can't heal that with medicine."
Good, Lila thought. Let her body give up. Let this all finally be over.
The bond screamed at her. Not Adrian's emotions anymore since she'd blocked those. But the bond itself, the connection between mates, howling that this was wrong. That rejecting her mate was killing her. That she needed to accept what the Moon Goddess had given her or die from the rejection.
She chose death. Passive. Quiet. Just stopping eating and sleeping until her body couldn't function anymore. It seemed easier than continuing to fight for a life that held nothing but pain.
Adrian felt it. She knew he did. Even through her walls, the bond carried enough information that he understood she was giving up. She felt his panic spike, felt him trying to reach through their connection, trying to pull her back from wherever she was drifting.
But she was too far gone. Too tired. Too broken to care anymore.
On what might have been the tenth day, or maybe the fifteenth, Lila woke to find her door being forced open. Not unlocked. Forced. The wood splintered as someone broke through the lock.
Adrian appeared in the doorway, wild-eyed and desperate. He took one look at her and crossed the room in three strides.
"No." He pulled her up from the bed. "No, no, no. Lila, look at me."
She couldn't focus. Her vision swam. Her body felt like it weighed nothing and everything at the same time.
"What did you do?" His hands shook as he touched her face. "What did you do to yourself?"
"Let go." Her voice came out barely a whisper. "Just let me go."
"Never." He cradled her against his chest. "Do you hear me? Never."
"Tired." The word took all her remaining energy. "So tired."
Through the bond, his terror crashed into her. Not just concern. Not just worry. Pure, absolute terror that his mate was dying in his arms and he couldn't stop it.
"Maya!" He shouted toward the door. "Get the healer. Now. Tell them it's an emergency."
Footsteps ran. Voices called out. The palace came alive with sudden activity. But it all felt distant to Lila. Unimportant. She was floating somewhere above her body, disconnected and peaceful.
"Stay with me." Adrian's voice cut through the fog. "Lila, stay with me. Don't you dare die on me."
"Why not?" The question floated out. "Nothing to live for."
"Me." His voice cracked. "Live for me. If you won't live for yourself, live for me. Because losing you will destroy me. The bond, the throne, the kingdom, all of it means nothing if you're gone."
"You'll survive." She was so cold. When had she gotten so cold?
"I won't." His arms tightened around her. "My wolf will take over completely. I'll abandon everything and go feral. The kingdom will fall into chaos. Celeste and the baby will suffer. Everything will fall apart." His forehead pressed against hers. "Please, Lila. Please don't leave me."
She wanted to care. Wanted to feel something other than this peaceful numbness. But her body was shutting down, her consciousness drifting further away.
"Don't you dare die on me." Adrian's voice broke completely. "If you won't live for yourself, live for me. Live because the bond demands it. Live because I'm begging you. Just live."
The last thing she felt before darkness took her was Adrian's tears falling onto her face, and his desperate plea echoing through the bond.
"Live. Please, Moon Goddess, make her live."