Author Note

The room was silent, time moved forward, indifferent to the two figures sitting on opposite ends of the table. A single sheet of paper lay between them, heavier than fate itself.
Inara's fingers tightened around the pen, the cold metal pressing into her skin. Her heart pounded violently, but her face remained impassive. She had spent her life fighting battles no one knew of, carving her own path with nothing but determination and the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. She was never the girl who bent easily.
And she wouldn't start now. But this wasn't a battle she had prepared for.
This was a war she had never meant to fight.
Qays sat across from her, his posture relaxed, yet his eyes razor-sharp. The weight of his presence was suffocating, the arrogance in his silence louder than a thousand words. His reputation preceded him-aloof, untouchable, the man who held the world in the palm of his hand yet never seemed to care for it.
Born into privilege but bound by chains of expectation, he was a paradox she couldn't quite unravel. Qays was a man who had never cared for attachments, never wasted words on meaningless conversations. He had never even looked twice at a girl, let alone spoken to one-until Inara.
And now, they were about to be bound in a way neither of them had foreseen.
The ink glistened under the dim lights as he signed his name with effortless precision, as if this-this moment, this choice, this destruction-meant nothing to him. A secret. A bond forged in silence. A marriage neither of them wanted. Her name inked beside his on the paper, sealing their fate.
When she finally looked up, her eyes locked with Qays's. A silent war raged between them, unspoken yet deafening.
They were not lovers. They were enemies trapped in a vow neither could escape.
And what was worse-neither of them was willing to break first.
Because hatred burned just as fiercely as love.
And sometimes, fate was cruel enough to blur the lines between the two.