“Oh my, from childhood friends to fiancés- just look at how sweet they are together.”

“Isn’t it wonderfully romantic?”

No. Not even close.

“They’ve been inseparable since their academy days, haven’t they?”

Well, at least that part wasn’t a lie.

It all began at the Academy, where I was drowning in an endless flood of marriage proposals. Each day brought another hopeful suitor, another practiced speech, until that moment when everything changed.

“Then how about me?”

“What about you?”

“As a marriage partner.”

Those four simple words from Aivert changed everything. Before I knew it, I had signed away my freedom in an elaborate dating contract with my closest friend.

We crafted the perfect illusion – the inseparable couple, so in love we couldn’t breathe without each other. I would have bet my life we were nothing more than friends.

As time slipped through our fingers, the contract’s end loomed closer. I should have felt something – regret, perhaps? Instead, my heart sang with one thought:

“Finally, I will be free soon!”

Just when I thought we could finally end this embarrassing charade…

Fate had other plans.

—Clank.

The sound echoed like thunder in my ears as I stared, dumbfounded, at the handcuffs binding my wrist to Aivert’s.

Of all the twisted turns my life could take…

***

“Well,” Rodella thought, trying to be practical, “since we’re stuck together, we might as well make the best of it. This should make our act more convincing, right?”

How naïve she was.

The key to their freedom dangled from Aivert’s fingers as he tilted his head, his expression shifting into something she’d never seen before.

“What if I were to destroy it – would you be disappointed?”

Rodella’s eyes grew wide. Before her stood not the timid and cautious childhood friend she remembered. This was someone else – familiar yet strange, wearing an expression that stirred strange emotions within her.

“You said it yourself. That madmen need to be restrained.” he murmured, the chains rattling softly between them. “If these chains come off…”

If I become distant from you, if I lose this chance.

“I think I might go mad, so what should I do?”

Aivert’s gazes were intense and unyielding, demanding an answer to a question that went far deeper than mere handcuffs.

And for the first time since this charade began, Rodella found herself completely speechless.

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