"Rai..." Eli began, her voice hesitant, but Rai cut her off, his eyes burning with anger.
"Don't. Don't try to make me feel better about any of this." He motioned to his scars, the prosthetic hand, his battered body.
"Your family sent me off to die, Eli. They threw me into the front lines, hoping I wouldn't make it back. It was all because of the feud between my father and yours. My father led the military, and your father, Duke Matheris, saw him as a threat to his position. So, he eliminated him—and me. The only reason I'm still here is by dumb luck. But when I returned, everything was gone. My father was dead, and there were whispers... whispers that your father had him killed."
Eli's heart clenched. She had heard the whispers, but she had never wanted to believe them. Now, as Rai laid it all out before her, the weight of those rumors crashed down like a tidal wave. The tension between them thickened, their shared history twisting and warping with each revelation.
"I know why you married me," Rai muttered, his voice low and bitter. "You pitied me. You felt guilty. And I was stupid enough to think that would be enough." He let out a dark, humorless laugh, shaking his head. "Turns out, I'm wrong about a lot of things."
The silence that followed was suffocating, both of them trapped in the weight of unspoken truths and painful realities. Eli tried to explain, to tell him that her intentions weren't just about guilt, that she had done it to protect him from the enemies that had risen in the wake of the war. But Rai's sarcasm, his biting words, made it clear—he didn't care. The distance between them had grown too wide.
"And here I was, thinking I could handle this." Rai's voice softened, a sad, broken edge creeping into it. "But I can't, Eli. I thought I could be okay with this arrangement, but I was wrong. I want out."
Eli blinked, confused for a moment, before his words hit her like a truck. "What?"
"I want a divorce." His voice was cold, detached, as though he had already made peace with the decision. Three words that shattered her world.
"No." Her voice came out as a whisper, a plea. "You can't leave me, Rai. I need you." Her hands reached out, trembling as they grasped at his arm.
But Rai pulled away, his face set in grim determination. "I'm done, Eli. I can't be your crutch anymore. I can't be the man you look at and feel guilty about every time you see my face."
Eli's chest tightened, panic rising. "I'm not—Rai, it's not like that."
"Isn't it?" He shot back, eyes cold. "You're still waiting for Adira to show up, aren't you? Still clinging to the hope that he's alive somewhere, and when he comes back, I'll just… what? Disappear? You'll be free of me, and you'll get your perfect ending."
His words tore through her, but she couldn't deny the truth in them. For so long, she had been waiting, hoping that Adira was still out tjhere. She hadn't even realized how it had impacted her relationship with Rai.
"You can't just walk away," Eli begged, tears threatening to spill. "I can't lose you too."
But Rai was already turning, already pulling away. "I'm not the one you're losing, Eli." His voice was soft, but the finality in it was devastating.
And with that, he left, leaving her alone in the dark, the weight of her choices crashing down on her.
*
Weeks passed, and despite Eli's constant efforts to mend her relationship with Rai, the distance between them only grew. Every time she tried to get closer, to talk to him, Rai withdrew, keeping an emotional and physical distance she couldn't breach. It was as though an invisible wall had risen between them, with Rai guarding it fiercely.
Whispers about their crumbling marriage began circulating among the elite. Eli could feel the weight of the rumors, hear the cruel remarks when she attended events or even in passing conversations. "A woman like her, so beautiful and accomplished, the daughter of a Duke—there's no way she could ever truly love a monster like him," they'd say.
Rai's physical scars, from his prosthetic hand to the half-mask that covered the mangled side of his once-handsome face, were the subject of endless mockery at the banquets and galas. His reputation wasn't spared either. With his father, the former head of the military, dead, Rai had lost all his privileges. Stripped of his rank, his status, and even his dignity, he was now nothing more than a broken soldier—a nobody in the eyes of the elites. He didn't belong in their world, and they never let him forget it.
"You can see why she married him," one noblewoman sneered at a party Eli attended. "Pity. There's no other explanation."
"Pity, or duty," another man remarked, swirling his drink. "She wouldn't dare go against her family's word. But love? Impossible. Not for someone like him."
Eli clenched her fists but said nothing. The words stung more than she'd admit. They were cruel and untrue, but no matter how much she wanted to deny it, they echoed the same doubts Rai had expressed to her time and time again.
Then, one day, news arrived that shook her to her core—Adira, her first love, was rumored to be alive. The man who had vanished after the nuclear war, the man she thought she'd lost forever, might still be out there. The information came from a source she hadn't expected, and it left her reeling.
Despite her dedication to the lab and her research, Eli couldn't ignore it. She had to know if it was true. With a heavy heart and an even heavier conscience, she dressed herself up, discarding her usual lab attire for something elegant and sophisticated. It was time to attend the elite social circles again, this time in search of answers.
*