“How could you not have reported this?” Cassius roared, his voice a booming echo against the silent walls. “Do you have no sense of duty? Do you not know who I am?” His words were venom, every syllable dripping with cold fury as he grabbed a servant by the collar and shoved them aside.

He reached your chambers, the door left ajar, the scent of broken glass and shattered wood already wafting through the air. His hand slammed into the door, pushing it wide open with a force that rattled the frame.

The sight that met him made his breath catch in his throat.

There you were standing amidst the wreckage of your own mind. The room, once regal, now lay in ruins—furniture splintered, vases overturned, paintings torn from the walls. And you, standing there, trembling, blood streaking across your skin from the shards of glass that littered the floor. Your eyes were wide, unseeing.

Cassius took one long, ragged breath, the sharp, venomous fury fading into something else. Something softer.

“Oh, you poor darling,” he whispered, his voice suddenly hushed, reverent. His hands moved slowly, carefully, as if you were the most fragile thing in the world.