Chapter 43 #2
“I don’t blame you, Lord Wulfbane,” she said softly. “You have Blackwood-Veyrde and the people of Lornhelm to consider. Yrenna, who still needs a match. Generations of legacy to secure. And me?” She shook her head. “I’m just a woman whose sole focus is survival. I don’t have what you want.”
Her words, so measured and absolute, broke him. They were the epitaph she was writing for them, and he could not let it stand.
“You’re wrong,” he said, the words leaving him in a rush. “What if I told you that someone powerful believed you were worth more than survival? That you were worth a kingdom’s alliance?”
He took a sharp step forward, closing the space between them. “When I spoke to King Ferdinand after you left, he told me this marriage wasn’t his idea. It was your brother’s.”
For a second, nothing. Then her breath caught—a sharp, fractured sound in the quiet. Her head lifted bit by bit, as if against a great weight. In the moonlight, her face had gone as pale as the marble behind her.
“Crown Prince ShunLi,” Alexander pressed, holding her wide, disbelieving gaze, “brokered this marriage for you himself, in exchange for a betrothal to the king’s sister, Princess Adelise.”
“No.” The word was a rasp, but it held force. A lifelong conviction. Her hand rose, trembling, to her birthmark. “That can’t be. You don’t understand. To him, I am nothing. A blemish. A disgrace. He would never—”
Her voice broke, the denial crumbling into a choked breath, as though she’d remembered something that made the words die on her tongue.
“But he did,” Alexander said, his own voice softening at the devastation unfolding before him. He was watching the walls of her reality crack and splinter. “Ferdinand had no reason to lie. He was furious with me for jeopardizing the political match he’d secured for Princess Adelise.”
She swayed. Her fingers gripped the balustrade, knuckles turning white. Her eyes had gone distant, seeing not the terrace or him, but some ghost from her past. A lifetime of being unseen, of passing in silent halls, was being violently rearranged.
“Why?” she gasped, the sound raw and full of anguish. “For what purpose?”
“I don’t know,” Alexander admitted, aching at the raw confusion in her voice. “But I know someone with power fought to put you in Tremore, and someone else stole a letter from my desk to drive you out of it.”
She was silent for a long moment, the sea wind the only sound.
“We have an enemy, JingYi. One who moves in shadows and uses our fears as weapons.”
The light from the ballroom glowed ahead of them, distant and warm, as if beckoning them to return to the celebration neither of them belonged to. For the moment, she didn’t move. But he knew, if he didn’t say a word, she’d leave.
And he would lose her—forever.
He took a half-step closer, his voice dropping to an urgent whisper. “Returning isn’t just about us. It’s about defending what’s yours. The future your brother arranged, and the people who have already claimed you as their own.”
A question crossed her features.
“The people of Lornhelm,” he said. “Annett and her baby. Ulrik. Daan and his family. They trust you. They are your people now. And the enemy who stole that letter isn’t just against us—they’re against the stability of the entire fief. Against everyone who relies on the safety we provide.”
Her brows furrowed. He saw the conflict in her—the healer’s instinct to protect warring with the survivor’s instinct to flee.
“I’m not asking you to come back for me.
” The lie scraped his throat raw. Yes, you are, a voice snarled inside him.
You’re using every honourable word you can find to dress up a selfish need.
He was using her compassion as a leash, her sense of duty as a cage.
The shame of it curdled in his chest, hot and vile.
She deserved better than his manipulation dressed as principle.
But he couldn’t stop.
“I’m asking you to come back for them. To defend the place you started to heal from the poison hiding within it. To claim the life your brother fought for you, and to protect it.”
More silence stretched between them. Alexander held his breath, watching her face for any crack in her composure, any sign that his words had landed. His heart pounded against his ribs. She studied him, her gaze steady, unflinching—and he felt exposed, like a man waiting for judgment.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said, low and weary. “Don’t ask me to pretend this is only about Lornhelm.”
She stepped back into the ballroom, her silhouette swallowed by the light and sound.
Alexander remained, unmoving. He was a small-minded, stupid, proud man.
He hated himself for using Lornhelm as leverage, but he needed time.
A sliver of grace, just enough to prove he—not just his home and people—could be worthy of her.
When he went inside, the dancers had shifted into a new formation—partners gliding beneath the chandeliers, silks and jewels catching the light.
He moved through the throng, limbs stiff, posture aloof.
He didn’t know if he was meant to look composed or haunted. He didn’t have the strength to decide.