Scars of Three Years

"I am warning you one last time. Keep your mouth shut when you leave."

The steward’s voice cut through the freezing air, sharp and grating. He stood by the heavy iron gates of the penal camp, a cruel sneer twisting his rough face. He glared down at the frail woman standing before him.

"Whatever happened in the past three years, bury it. Forget it. Got it? Do not think being the biological daughter of a duke's estate means someone is going to back you up!"

"There never was anyone before, and there sure will not be in the future," Rosalind Ashbourne replied. Her face was a pale, deadened mask. Her voice carried no emotion, sounding hollow and dry, like dead leaves scraping across stone. She gave a slow, meek nod. She did not dare defy the steward. She did not dare look him in the eye.

Leaning heavily against the cold stone wall for support, she dragged her body forward. Step by agonizing step, she made her way out of the camp.

Years ago, she had lit up Valcrest City with her dazzling dance. She had been a vision of grace, turning heads wherever she went. Now, her knees were ruined. Years of untreated injuries had worn the joints down to grinding bone. They could barely hold her meager weight. Without access to medicine, her own knowledge of healing was useless. She was a broken shell of the girl she used to be.

Just outside the sprawling camp, the bitter wind whipped her thin clothes. Over the howling gusts, she heard someone call her name.

Rosalind flinched. Her narrow shoulders hunched inward by reflex. She lifted her head, her movements hesitant and fearful.

A majestic steed stood on the dirt path. It was a royal gift, towering and pristine. Astride the beast sat the Marquis of Langford—Alistair Stanhope. The famed Lion of the empire.

He sat tall and poised. His broad shoulders tapered down to a lean waist, his posture radiating power and authority. His face remained striking and flawless, untouched by the grit of the world. Even here, at the edge of a hellish penal colony, he carried that same air of noble elegance.

This was the man she had loved for three long, agonizing years. When she first arrived at the camp, she had clung to his memory. She had seen this exact scene in her dreams countless times—Alistair riding up on his horse, his eyes full of warmth, finally coming to take her home.

Staring at him now, a sudden wave of pressure built in her chest. Her eyes filled with hot tears. She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat clamped shut. No words came.

Because it was him.

The man sitting atop that horse was the very same man who had thrown her into this dark, rotting hell. He was the one who had coldly ordered the guards to "teach her a lesson."

Alistair looked down at her from his saddle. The cold indifference in his eyes struck her like a physical blow, making her shattered heart tremble all over again.

"I can take you home," Alistair said. His eyes were like ice, his tone as sharp as a drawn blade. "But tell me—do you finally admit you were wrong?"

Rosalind stared at the dirt, her breathing shallow.

"If you had not poisoned the pastries back then, Ophelia would not be living with a chronic illness," Alistair continued, his voice dripping with righteous anger. "She still needs daily medicine to survive. You only suffered three years of punishment, but Ophelia will suffer for the rest of her life. You owe her forever!"

When Rosalind remained silent, a muscle feathered in Alistair’s jaw. He snapped, "Answer me! Do you admit your guilt?"

The sudden, explosive sharpness in his voice made her jump. Panic flooded her veins. Reflexively, she squeezed her eyes shut. She dropped to the dirt, wrapping her thin arms tightly around her head, curling into a tight, trembling ball.

"I admit it!" she cried out, her voice cracking with raw terror. "I was wrong! I will never do it again! Please!"

She braced herself, waiting for the crack of the whip. She waited for the burning sting of leather biting into her back. But the lash never came. The dirt path remained quiet, save for the snorting of the horse.

Only then did she remember where she was. She was not in the interrogation yard. The man above her was the Marquis of Langford. A man of his stature would never lower himself to beat a wretched creature like her with his own hands.

Still, kneeling in the dirt, she realized he was right about one thing. She truly had been wrong.

She was wrong to care. She was wrong to love. She was wrong to give her heart to people who treated it like dirt under their boots.

When she had first been thrown into the penal camp, she still harbored a fragile shred of hope. She had thought, *My fiancé cannot really be that heartless. He has protected me since our engagement. He risked his own life to spare me from harm.*

She had also thought of her parents in the duke's estate. *Surely, they will investigate. Surely, they will come for me. I have been framed.*

So, she waited. She waited through the blistering heat of summer and the bone-chilling frost of winter. What came instead was nothing but relentless torment. Merciless, brutal degradation, day after day, at the hands of the camp soldiers.

She was a noblewoman by blood, not a camp whore. The guards did not dare claim her in bed, but that restriction only made them more creative in how they broke her spirit.

Sometimes, they dragged her out and beat her with slender whips designed specifically for disciplining women. The cruel tools cut deep, leaving her pale flesh in bloody tatters. Other times, they stripped her bare and tossed her out into the deep, freezing snow, locking the doors until her lips turned blue and her pulse faded.

They were waiting for her to beg. They wanted her to give in. They wanted her to offer her body in exchange for a warm blanket, a bite of stale bread, or just a few days of peace.

But she never did. She kept her mouth shut and took the beatings. Because she refused to submit, their torment grew nastier and more degrading with every passing month.

Eventually, she stopped fighting back. She stopped screaming. Not out of obedience, but because the hunger and the pain drained the last drops of strength from her bones.

"Rosalind, what game are you playing now?" Alistair frowned. His tone was sharp, thick with disdain.

He stared down at the cowering woman and wondered, *Three years of discipline, and she has ended up this pathetic?*

The once-glowing beauty of her face was gone. Now, her skin was sickly pale and stretched tight over hollow cheeks. Her waist, once soft and full in her elegant dresses, had thinned down to nothing. She looked so frail she might snap under a strong breeze.

Alistair scoffed quietly to himself. *Trying to act pitiful? I am not falling for it.* He had personally ordered his men to take good care of her. He meant they should keep her alive, ensure she learned humility, and guard her from the worst elements of the camp. In his mind, there was no way she had truly been mistreated.

Turning his gaze away in disgust, Alistair dismounted his horse with a fluid motion. He took a step closer and reached out a hand toward her. "Get in the carriage."

The moment his shadow fell over her, she recoiled like a wounded, cornered animal. She scrambled backward in the dirt, clutching her head. Her eyes went wide and blank.

"No," her voice trembled violently. "Please do not... do not touch me..."

"That is enough," Alistair snapped, his patience wearing thin. "Still pretending to be pitiful?"

His voice turned colder, laced with mocking disbelief. "What, is this your way of making me feel guilty?"

The words pierced through the haze of Rosalind’s panic. She slowly uncurled, her mind returning to the bleak reality of the dirt path. Her throat was painfully dry. She let out a hoarse, hollow laugh, heavy with self-mockery.

In front of Alistair—and in front of her parents—she had never once had the right to feel wronged.

If any of them had ever truly felt guilty, they would not have waited three years to pull her from this hell.

Thirteen years ago, her birth parents finally tracked her down and brought her home to the grand duke's estate. That was the day she discovered the cruel joke of her existence—she had been swapped at birth.

The greedy, selfish couple who raised her had traded her away, leaving her to suffer five bitter, poverty-stricken years while their own flesh and blood lived in luxury.

When Rosalind finally stepped through the doors of her real home, she thought she was stepping into a world of love and acceptance. Instead, she hit a wall of coldness.

Her parents and brothers barely looked at her. They looked at the dirt on her shoes, the calluses on her hands, and saw a stranger.

Whenever Ophelia Ashbourne—the impostor who had stolen her life—felt sad or neglected by the sudden changes, the family rushed to comfort her. They coddled Ophelia as if she were the fragile victim, the real daughter.

Little by little, Rosalind was pushed into the shadows of her own home.

They constantly reminded her, "You are the older sister. You should be the mature one. Be patient with Ophelia. Do not fight with her. Do not compete for attention."

Wanting so desperately to belong, Rosalind swallowed her pride and did exactly as she was told. She gave way in everything. She stepped aside, letting Ophelia take the spotlight, the affection, the best dresses, the warmest smiles.

Three years ago, trying one last time to bridge the gap, Rosalind made pastries by hand to please her sister.

Hours later, Ophelia was vomiting blood.

The estate erupted in chaos. Their parents were furious. Standing in the grand hall, they declared that Rosalind's years away in the slums had corrupted her to the bone. They screamed that she was vicious, jealous, and unworthy of carrying the Ashbourne name.

Egged on by Ophelia's quiet sobs and gentle whispers of false forgiveness, the duke and duchess decided to banish Rosalind from Valcrest City forever.

Even her brothers, who had once bought her sweets and patted her head, turned their backs on her. They looked at her with disgust.

"Ophelia might have enjoyed your life for over a decade, but she is innocent," her eldest brother had said. "How could you use such cruel tactics just to win our parents' attention? We do not have a sister as heartless as you."

No matter how hard Rosalind cried, no matter how desperately she tried to explain her innocence, no one believed her. Not a single person.

The moment Ophelia shed a single tear, all blame crashed down on Rosalind.

In the end, it was Alistair who stepped in to stop the permanent banishment. But he did not save her. He simply had her quietly dumped in the penal garrison, telling the family that after enough suffering in the dirt, she would finally learn her place.

A sudden gust of wind swept across the path, lifting the tangled, filthy strands of Rosalind's hair. The harsh light revealed her emaciated, almost unrecognizable face.

Alistair scowled at the sight, his jaw tightening. "Get up. We are going back to the estate."

Rosalind pressed her bleeding hands into the dirt and tried to push herself up. But her ruined knees screamed in protest. Her legs gave out instantly, and she crumpled back to the ground in a pathetic heap.

Alistair turned back, his eyes flashing cold steel.

"If you would rather not go back... then drag yourself back into that camp."