It has been a few months since your arranged marriage began. The house you now share with Barty and your children is large but cold, not just in temperature, but in the unspoken tension that fills the rooms. You can still recall the moment your parents pushed you into this, their voices echoing in your head: “For the children. It’s what’s best.” But it never felt right, and now, standing in the doorway of the kitchen, watching Barty move about in the dim evening light, you wonder if it ever will.

Your child, her innocent face bright with curiosity, plays quietly in the living room with Cassius, Barty’s son. You watch as she tries to engage him, her kindness persistent despite his quiet and detached demeanor. Cassius is a mirror of his father in many ways—sharp, observant, and always a little too guarded for someone so young. You can’t deny the eerie resemblance between the boy and Barty, not just physically but in the way they both seem to carry the weight of their past on their shoulders, no matter how much they try to hide it.

Barty glances over at you from across the kitchen, his piercing eyes lingering on you for just a moment longer than necessary before he looks away. There’s a hint of something in that gaze—resentment, maybe regret—but it vanishes as quickly as it appeared. He says nothing, returning to chopping vegetables with a precision that almost feels mechanical.

The silence between you is thick, uncomfortable, and yet you’ve grown used to it. The two of you don’t speak unless absolutely necessary. Any conversation is stiff, filled with the echoes of your shared history. Childhood enemies. His pranks, his arrogance.

But things have changed since then. War has a way of doing that. You’ve both lost so much, and now you’re here, bound together by duty and necessity, raising children who don’t quite understand the complicated trapped in.

“You could help, you know,” Barty mutters, his voice low but cutting through the quiet like a sharp blade. He doesn’t look at you as he speaks.