23.
The room was too quiet. That was the first sign something was wrong.
No surveillance clicks. No automated morning chimes.
No fake sunlight leaking from the Dollhouse ceiling.
Just silence.
And when Isolde’s eyes opened, her body knew before her mind caught up—she wasn’t in her room anymore.
The bed was cold and hard beneath her.
The sheets weren’t silk they were linen, coarse and soaked in something that smelled like rust and perfume.
Her wrists were bound with red velvet ribbon.
Her dress was black—lace sleeves, boned bodice, long and heavy like mourning cloth.
The only sound in the air? The slow drip of water.
And breathing. Not hers. Her head turned toward the sound.
Dante stood a few feet away, in front of a wide iron-framed mirror, adjusting the cuffs of his pitch-black dress shirt.
He didn’t look at her.
“Where… where am I?” Her voice cracked.
Dry. Hoarse.
He finally turned.
And smiled.
Not with warmth. With possession.
“You’re where every bride eventually ends up,” he said.
“At the altar.”
She tried to sit up.
The ribbons cut into her wrists. “I didn’t agree to this—!
”
Dante approached slowly, a soft-closing blade in one hand.
“That’s the beauty of it, dove. Consent is a luxury you lost when you tried to run.
”
He sliced through the ribbons—not roughly.
Deliberately. A lover unwrapping his gift.
But when she touched her wrists, she gasped.
Burn marks.
Fine script had been branded into the skin there while she slept.
Each wrist bore a Latin word. Mea. Tua.
Mine. Yours. Branded like cattle.
She was pulled to her feet by two guards in ceremonial masks bone-white, eyeless.
They said nothing as they led her down a narrow hall lit by candles wedged into broken stone sconces.
The air stank of incense and something far older.
Death. It wasn’t a wedding hall. It was a crypt.
And in its center stood a twisted altar: black marble streaked with blood veins, with a basin at the base filled with red liquid too thick to be wine.
To the side a man in crimson robes, his eyes milky, holding a heavy book bound in human-skin leather.
The symbol on the cover was Dante’s crest.
There were no witnesses.
No music. Just the dead.
And them.
Dante approached her and ran his thumb beneath her eye, catching a tear before it could fall.
“I want you to understand what this is,” he said softly.
“Not just a marriage. A forever binding ritul.”
She trembled.
“You’re insane.”
He held up a gloved finger.
“No. I’m devoted.”
He removed a thin silver chain from his pocket linked to a bone-carved ring, soaked in blood.
He slid it onto her finger.
The priest began chanting.
Latin words fell like knives.
She didn’t understand every line.
But she caught fragments: “Flesh given… soul tied… blood claimed… will severed…”
Then came the knife.
Not for him—for her.
The priest handed Dante a ceremonial blade.
He took her hand, gripped it hard, and cut into the soft flesh beneath her thumb.
She screamed. It wasn’t shallow.
He carved a spiral into her palm, ending in a sharp line across her lifeline.
She fought to pull away. The guards held her tighter.
Then he cut his own hand, and pressed it to hers, blood mixing.
They were bound flesh to flesh.
He whispered the final vow into her ear “I marry your pain, Isolde. I wed your rebellion. And I vow to love you harder every time you try to leave me.”
But it wasn’t over.
He didn’t lead her to a bed. He led her deeper.
Down another corridor. To a door with thirteen locks.
The room beyond was circular, lit by firelight, its walls lined with mirrors—each cracked at the center.
In the middle stood a chair.
Iron.
Bolted to the ground. Straps at wrists and ankles.
On a tray beside it a brand, shaped like a twisted heart pierced with his initial.
Dante looked at her calmly.
“Sit.”
She backed away.
“No.”
He gave a nod. The guards seized her.
She kicked. Screamed. Bit. But they strapped her down.
The fire roared behind her as Dante lifted the brand from the coals.
“You think this is punishment?” he asked.
She sobbed, struggling against the metal.
“This is permanence.” He pressed the brand to her left shoulder, over the blade of her collarbone.
She screamed so loudly her voice broke mid-howl.
The scent of burnt flesh filled the chamber.
When it was done, she passed out from the pain.
Later....She awoke in his arms.
Wrapped in a fur blanket, her body raw and shaking.
He cradled her like she was breakable.
Like he hadn’t just broken her.
He kissed her forehead.
“You’ll never forget today,” he whispered.
“Because no matter what happens next… even if you forget your name… you’ll always remember that you said ‘I do.’”