CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
IRIS
Three days had passed.
The mornings felt longer now. Colder too. I had gone to the riverbank each day, hoping he might be there, waiting like before. But he never was. The swings stayed still. The water kept moving.
Now I sat in the healer’s wing, the air heavy with the scent of herbs and smoke. My hands were wrapped around the book he had given me. The Song of the Willow Bride. I held it so tightly my fingers ached. The pages had started to bend from where my tears kept falling.
The guilt was unbearable. It pressed on my chest until I could hardly breathe. What I had done was cruel. I had lied to him, betrayed the only person who had ever looked at me without expectation or duty. I hated myself for it.
Raven crouched down beside me, her shadow falling over the book. She studied my face for a moment, then sighed. “You can’t cry all the time, Iris.”
I wiped at my cheeks, though it did nothing to stop the tears. “I can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can,” she said gently. “You’re not the first person to make a mistake.”
I looked at her, my voice breaking. “He hates me.”
Raven frowned, resting a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe he’s angry. But hate? No. I don’t think so.”
“He told me it was over,” I whispered. “He looked at me like I was a stranger.”
“Maybe he needs time,” she said quietly. “Men like him, they hold things close. But if he cared for you before, that doesn’t just disappear.”
I shook my head, staring down at the book. “It should. I lied to him. He deserves better.”
Raven sighed and gave a small shrug. “It’s been three days, Iris. Maybe he’s cooled off by now.”
I looked up slowly, still holding the book close to my chest. “You think so?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her tone soft but steady. “But you won’t find out if you just sit here crying over it.”
I bit my lip, uncertain. “He told me to leave, Raven. He meant it.”
“Maybe he did,” she said, standing now, brushing off her skirt. “But people say a lot of things when they’re hurt. Maybe he just needs to hear you out properly.”
I hesitated, the ache in my chest tight again.
Raven crossed her arms. “Look, I’ll cover for you again if you want to go talk to him. But only if you promise not to run away this time.”
My head snapped up, eyes wide. “You’d really do that?”
A faint smile tugged at her lips. “You think I enjoy watching you cry every day? Go fix this before you make yourself sick.”
I let out a shaky breath, my heart already beating faster. “Thank you, Raven.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “Just go before I change my mind.”
I rose slowly, my knees weak beneath me. My fingers brushed the tears from my cheeks as I straightened my headband. The air outside felt sharp, heavy with the weight of everything I had left unsaid.
I clutched the book tighter to my chest as I stepped out of the healer’s wing and into the courtyard. The light was bright and open beneath the afternoon. My breath caught at the sight of it all: the walls, the gates, the place where we had once passed each other in silence.
I told myself I would only walk to the gate. That if he wasn’t there, I would turn back. I would let it end quietly.
But I kept walking.
The light was almost blinding, the kind that made everything too clear. The air felt still, expectant, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
And then, through the glare of the sun and the shimmer of steel, I saw him.
He stood near the main gate, tall and steady in his armor. His helm was on, concealing his face, and the wind brushed through his armor. The sight of him struck something deep in my chest. Relief, fear, longing. All of it tangled until I could hardly tell one from the other.
He looked the same and yet not at all. There was something colder in the way he carried himself now, something careful, distant.
My heart lurched, but I kept walking.
For a brief moment, his eyes met mine through the slit of his helm. The look was unreadable, sharp as glass. Then he looked away.
I stopped a few feet from him, the book still clutched tight against my chest. “William.”
His voice came low and flat, all warmth gone. “Why are you here?”
“Because I want to make things right,” I said. My voice was small but steady.
He didn’t move. “Well, you can’t.”
The words stung, sharper than I expected. I could see his eyes through the slit of his helm, the brown I used to find comfort in now cold and distant. His gaze fell to the book in my hands, then back to me.
“You are about to marry a prince soon,” he said. “And still you
come to me, begging for forgiveness.”
My chest tightened until it hurt. The prince. The marriage. I had almost forgotten in the ache of losing him.
“I don’t even want to marry him,” I said quietly.
He gave a short, bitter laugh that held no humor. “And you said you didn’t want to lie to me either. But you did, Your Highness.”
The title struck like a blade. My throat burned, but I forced myself to meet his eyes. “I didn’t lie about what I feel for you.”
His expression didn’t change. “That’s not enough.”
The silence between us grew thick, the noise of the courtyard fading around us. I wanted to reach for him, to make him understand, but his armor felt like a wall I could never break through.
I took a step closer, my heart pounding. “Then tell me what I can do to make it enough.”
I reached for his arm without thinking. My fingers brushed the cold edge of his gauntlet before I could stop myself. All I wanted was for him to listen. To look at me and see the truth instead of the lie I had built.
But the moment I touched him, he turned.
His eyes met mine, and the air seemed to still. They were sharper than I had ever seen them. Not wild. Not cruel. Just quiet. Controlled. The kind of anger that came from a wound buried too deep to heal.
I froze. Not because I was afraid of him, but because I could feel the weight of his pain. It sat heavy between us, a silence thicker than words could fill.
He held my gaze for a long moment before speaking. “You can’t,” he said again, his voice low and final.
Something inside me cracked. “Please—”
The word barely left my lips before an arm snapped around my waist, strong and unrelenting, pulling me backward with such force that the breath caught in my throat.
I gasped, but the sound never reached the air. A gloved hand covered my mouth, pressing hard.
The world lurched sideways. The book slipped from my grasp and struck the ground, pages splaying open with a dull thud.
William’s expression shifted from shock to fury, but the world was already blurring at the edges.
The torchlight fractured, the courtyard fading into shadow.
And then everything went black.