The Fall of Caitlyn Kiramman
“Please, Maddie—”
THUD!
Caitlyn hit the floor hard. The cold marble tiles met her shoulder with a sickening thud, the impact sending her carefully styled hair tumbling free from its elegant curl. Pain lanced through her wrists where Maddie had grabbed her, fingers like iron, already leaving dark bruises against her pale skin.
Above her stood the woman she once loved. The woman she was supposed to marry.
Maddie Nolen looked down at her with disdain, her gaze sharp and unforgiving. Cold fury simmered in her eyes, rage so potent it seemed to drain the very air from the room.
There was no love in that look. Not even recognition. Just raw, unchecked hatred.
Caitlyn’s breath caught in her throat.
Beside Maddie stood another woman. Delicate, poised, draped in icy elegance. Margot. Quiet, unreadable, her arms curled loosely around Maddie’s like she belonged there. Pale as fresh snowfall, with features too perfect, too untouched. There was a softness in her expression, but her presence was commanding, like a ghost haunting a throne.
Margot didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. Her silence was enough.
Caitlyn’s eyes flicked back to Maddie, but she already knew. The shift had happened long before tonight. And now, it was laid bare for all of Piltover’s society to see.
“You make me sick,” Maddie spat, each word slow and deliberate, meant to wound.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
Caitlyn heard laughter. Whispers. The sharp clinking of glasses, the click of heels on the marble floor as the socialites watched, eyes gleaming, the drama unfolding before them like a well-rehearsed scene in one of their operas. No one moved to help her.
Maddie’s voice dropped lower, silk over steel. “Don’t ever lay those filthy hands on me again.”
Caitlyn swallowed hard, fighting the sting rising in her throat. She had stood through firefights. Negotiated peace talks. Walked into the heart of Zaun, into bullets, for Maddie, more times than she could count. But this? This was worse.
“Maddie, I—”
“You don’t get to call me that,” Maddie snapped, venom curling around each syllable. “You selfish, vindictive bitch.”
The words hit harder than Caitlyn expected. She flinched, but forced herself to meet Maddie’s gaze. There had to be something left, some part of the woman she loved still buried beneath all that anger.
But Maddie looked at her like she was dirt. A stain on her life. Something to be scrubbed out and forgotten.
Caitlyn’s fingers curled against the polished floor, her nails scraping the cool surface. Anger stirred low in her chest, mixing with the heartbreak. She had bled for Maddie. Lied for her. Burned bridges for her.
She’d given everything.
And in return? She was cast aside like nothing.
Maddie’s eyes narrowed, her gaze disdainful as Caitlyn lay crumpled on the floor like discarded clothing.
How had she ever called this woman a friend?
Once, Caitlyn had been steady. Thoughtful. Quietly driven. But time had peeled back that polished exterior, revealing something else. Maddie now saw only obsession. A woman consumed by control, disguised as devotion.
Disgust swirled beneath Maddie’s composed face.
She had tolerated the jealousy at first. Secretly, she even relished it. Who wouldn’t want to be desired by someone so meticulous, so put-together? But Caitlyn had crossed a line when she’d gone after Margot, when she let her temper spill into threats and veiled warnings.
That had been unforgivable.
“The puppet doesn’t pull the strings,” Maddie said coldly. “You should’ve known better than to defy the puppeteer.”
Caitlyn didn’t move. The weight of the room, of the stares, of Maddie’s words, pressed into her chest like a vice.
Maddie stepped closer, not out of concern, but to twist the knife deeper.
“My parents may have seen you as a future partner,” Maddie continued, her voice like sharpened glass. “I see you as a cautionary tale. Take my kindness as a warning, Caitlyn. Stay away from me. Stay away from my wife.”
The word hung in the air like poison.
Wife.
Caitlyn’s vision blurred at the edges. Wife? She wanted to laugh. A mistress wrapped in silk, adorned like a jewel, still wasn’t a wife, not when every door in the Nolen estate had slammed shut behind her. Not when the bloodlines whispered of bloodlines.
Margot was many things, but "wife" was a fiction.
Still, Maddie held her like something sacred. The cold, beautiful creature at her side didn’t speak, didn’t flinch as Maddie’s fury crackled like static in the air.
“Are you listening?” Maddie snapped, her voice rising in pitch. She dropped to a crouch, seizing Caitlyn’s chin in her hand. The grip was harsh, fingers digging into flesh.
Caitlyn winced but didn’t pull away. She met Maddie’s stare, bruised, betrayed, but not broken.
“I said, stay away from Margot.” Maddie repeated, her voice now too quiet. Too quiet.
A hush swept over the gallery. Even the murmurs of gossip faltered. The room had gone icy.
But something shifted in Caitlyn. A flicker of defiance stirred in her stomach. Raw, unsteady, but rising. Anger gave her breath. Anger reminded her she was still standing, even on the floor.
“And if I don’t?” she said, voice low.
The answer came before she could draw another breath.
SMACK!
The sound of the slap echoed like a gunshot. Caitlyn’s head snapped to the side. The crowd gasped.
A Kiramman had been struck.
Caitlyn’s cheek stung with a white, hot burn, her jaw rattling from the force. Her vision blurred. She didn’t cry, she wouldn’t. But her hands trembled as she pressed them against the floor, breath catching in her throat.
The room seemed to hold still, until Margot moved.
“Damn,” she gasped, her voice soft and ethereal, like snow falling over graveyards. “You hit harder than I thought.”
Margot gently cradled Maddie’s hand, red and raw from the strike. She brought it to her lips, exhaling cool air over the fingers before brushing them with delicate touches.
Caitlyn stared in disbelief.
Maddie’s gaze softened immediately, her arm curling around Margot’s waist like she was holding a rare gem.
“I’m fine, darling,” Maddie murmured, her voice suddenly tender.
Caitlyn’s stomach twisted. The same hands that had just shattered her face were now being treated with a reverence she had never once received, not in their years of history, not even in their supposed love.
She nearly laughed.
But the sound that clawed its way up her throat wasn’t laughter.
It was the scream of a heart breaking.
“Let’s not waste breath on her,” Margot said softly, her voice smooth as summer rain after a dry season. “She’s not worth the pity.”
The words were gentle, but they struck like a blade. Not because they were cruel, because they were sincere.
Maddie’s gaze softened instantly. “Whatever you say, my love,” she murmured, brushing a strand of silver-blonde hair from Margot’s cheek like she was handling porcelain.
Maddie always obeyed Margot. There was no room for pride in the way she loved her. It was all-consuming, worshipful, a devotion that bordered on obsession. Caitlyn used to believe it was infatuation. That it would fade with time. That this was nothing more than the dizzying high of a honeymoon phase.
But deep down, she knew better.
This wasn’t fleeting.
Maddie loved Margot in a way she had never loved her.
Caitlyn clenched her jaw, forcing the bile back down her throat. Her mouth wanted to stay shut, but her heart screamed to be heard, even if it was the last thing it ever did.
Her pride was ash. Her family had turned their backs. The people she grew up with, the ones who once whispered her name with reverence, now laughed behind their glasses of wine. Her title, her honor, her image, gone.
What more was there to lose?
Something hot slid down her cheek. Not sorrow. Not regret.
Rage.
Maddie blinked, catching the shift in Caitlyn’s expression. Her smirk faltered just a little. For the first time, she saw something new in Caitlyn’s eyes. Not love, not grief.
Something unrecognizable.
Something dangerous.
She thought she had broken her. But Caitlyn’s stare said otherwise.
Caitlyn rose to her feet slowly, her knees trembling, but her spine straight. Like a soldier with nothing left but the battlefield. Like someone reborn, not from light, but fire.
She saw red.
And in that crimson haze, a whisper slipped into her ear.
“Stay down.”
The voice wasn’t Maddie’s. It wasn’t Margot’s.
It was her own.
Caitlyn turned, and saw herself.
A mirror image stood just beside her, identical in every way except for the eyes. The other Caitlyn looked hollow. Tired. Older.
“Don’t fight back,” the reflection whispered. “You’ll lose everything.”
Caitlyn stumbled back, breath hitching in her throat. She reached out, and her hand passed through the image like smoke.
She gasped.
Then the ground gave way.
There was no scream, only silence as the world fell out from beneath her.
The ballroom vanished. The mocking stares, the champagne flutes, the hush of scandal, all gone. Maddie and Margot disappeared like a mirage, their laughter echoing faintly in the distance.
Caitlyn stood alone in an abyss of shadow.
No light. No sound. No anchor.
Just herself.
She didn’t know when it all went wrong.
But as the void swallowed her whole, she knew one thing with absolute certainty:
This was the moment the fall began.
And whatever came next, she wouldn’t be the same.