alone

alone
I waited.
The fire in the hearth had burned down to embers, but still I sat on the edge of the bed, listening for footsteps, for the creak of the door, for any sign of him. Aiden had stormed out hours ago—at least, it felt like hours—and every passing moment without him pressed down heavier on my chest.
‘did he really leave?’
I told myself he would come back. This was first time i was having such an interaction with him, but so i did not know what to expect, but i was torn. A part of me, the reasonable part knew that it was a smart idea to leave, but the other part, the part that craved him did not care what consequences would be. I tried everything, talking to myself over and over to let the other part of me be at peace if he had already gone
But it didn’t care, did not listen.
The silence stretched on, broken only by the occasional snap from the fire. My thoughts circled endlessly, chasing themselves until I could hardly breathe. What if he had left for good? What if he was out there, alone, carrying the weight of my rejection and my silence?
A knock shattered the quiet.
I bolted upright, heart leaping to my throat. I didn’t even think. I rushed to the door, my hands fumbling with the latch, my chest tight with relief. It had to be him. Who else would—
But when the door swung open, it wasn’t Aiden.
The silver-haired man stood there, the one who had shifted in front of us earlier. His piercing golden eyes studied me, unblinking, hard as the steel of a drawn blade. He filled the doorway with his presence, tall and broad, his expression carved in grief and suspicion.
For a heartbeat, I couldn’t move. Disappointment clawed through me, sharp and bitter, but before I could speak, his voice cut through the room.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing,” he said, low and rough, each word edged with warning. He had this threatening Aura that made me take a step back.
“But whatever your plan is, girl, keep my daughter’s name out of your mouth. And my granddaughter’s, too.”
The words struck me harder than a physical blow. My breath caught, and my mouth opened to answer, to tell him the truth—that I wasn’t invoking Samantha or her child as some ploy, that I was his granddaughter, his blood. But he gave me no room, no chance to speak.
His eyes burned with the weight of old wounds, of grief not yet scabbed over. “Samantha was mine. My little girl. And i would accept that i was not the best father our there to her. But she and the babe she carried… the one she swore would change everything… they are gone.” His voice broke slightly on the last word, but his stare never wavered. “Do not dishonor their memory by using their names as tools for your schemes.”
I shook my head, the words trapped in my throat, desperate to spill out. I am her. I’m the granddaughter you lost. But the silver-haired man’s fury was a wall, his grief a chasm too wide to cross in that moment.
He leaned closer, his shadow stretching across me in the firelight. “You may fool the others with your calm eyes and your silence. But not me. Whatever you are—whoever you are—remember this: Samantha and her child are not yours to claim. You are not even worthy to call their name and by the goddess, if you dare call their name again!” he said, grounding his teeth together while looking at me like he was going to snap my head off.
I stood frozen, my hands clenched at my sides, trembling with the words I couldn’t speak. My chest ached, my throat burned, but no sound left me. He gave me no space for truth, only condemnation.
Then, without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away, the heavy weight of his footsteps fading down the hall.
The door clicked shut, and the silence that followed felt unbearable. I pressed my back against the wood, sliding down until I was sitting on the cold floor, my breath ragged.
He didn’t know. He couldn’t see.
But he had looked me in the eyes, and in them, he had denied me.
For the first time, I wondered if the truth of who I was would matter at all—if anyone would ever believe it when the people who should have recognized me most already saw me as a stranger.
And still, Aiden hadn’t returned.
Here’s a chapter in Advika’s POV, past tense, first-person, focused on her emotional collapse after that painful confrontation:
I tried to swallow it down—the sting in my eyes, the tightening in my throat—but it was useless. The weight of his words pressed down on me until I couldn’t keep it in anymore. My chest heaved, and before I realized it, tears spilled down my cheeks.
It wasn’t just his warning. It was the way he had looked at me, the finality in his voice when he said Samantha and her child were gone. As though I wasn’t standing right there in front of him, proof that they weren’t. As though I was invisible in the very place I belonged.
My arms wrapped around myself, holding tight as if I could keep the pieces of me from scattering across the floor. But the ache inside me was too big, too loud, a storm I couldn’t contain.
“I’m right here,” I whispered into the empty room, the words breaking as they left me. “I’m right here, and you don’t even see me.”
The sobs came harder then, shaking my whole body until I collapsed forward onto my knees. The floor was rough beneath me, but I barely felt it. All I felt was the drain, like every shred of strength I had clung to had been stripped away in a single moment.
I thought of Aiden. Of the way he had left without looking back. Of the promise in his voice when he said he wouldn’t lose me again, and the sting of being the one to push him away. I was the one to do it, but it still hurt
The fire had burned low, shadows curling higher along the walls. I stayed curled on the floor, my tears drying into tracks on my skin, my body heavy and hollow all at once.
I had never felt more drained. More unseen. More alone.
And still, the truth pressed against my chest, sharp and suffocating. If I couldn’t even tell them who I really was—if no one would believe me when I tried—then what was the point of being here at all?