Chapter 62
ALEXANDER
Alexander remained on the pier long after the ship had vanished into the horizon, until even the sails were no more than a seagull’s memory against the steel-grey sea. And still, he stood.
The space where her vessel had been was now empty water, a hollow in the world that pulled the air from his lungs.
He had agreed to this distance, this harsh, necessary separation.
Yet watching it solidify felt less like a strategy and more like a slow unravelling of his soul.
Each crash of waves against the pilings chanted the two truths that had become his prison: You love her. You let her go.
It was the hardest thing he’d ever done. Harder than the two-story fall. Harder even than bearing his family’s disgrace.
He’d known it was coming the moment she’d shattered in his arms—not just from the pain of her wounds, but from the sheer relief of being seen. He had felt her, in that embrace, trying to memorize him. As if she were saying goodbye.
In the raw quiet after, with her sleeping in his arms, he had pieced together the truth she couldn’t yet fully voice.
She wasn’t leaving him. She was fleeing the ghost of the woman who had been shipped away as a political placeholder.
She needed to face the land that had exiled her, to dig into the poisoned soil of her family’s betrayal and their silence.
She needed to discover if anything of her old self remained, or if she could build something entirely new from the ashes.
She needed to do it alone. Not as Lady Wulfbane, but as JingYi.
And he needed to break the marriage clean—like a bone that must be shattered completely to set straight, to heal stronger than before.
Still, a primal part of him had raged against letting her go. It urged him to corner her, kiss her, keep her in his bed and pleasure her until she forgot her own name. Until his child grew in her womb and bound her to him by something stronger than her doubt.
But that was the fear of the hollow man he’d been before her. She hadn’t fallen in love with that man. She’d fallen in love with the man she believed he was: honourable, steady, good. To chain her with love, however desperately given, would be to betray that man.
So he’d given her the only gift she’d accept from him: his blessing on her solitude. His faith in her journey. His silence, even when the rest of him wanted to beg her to stay.
Footsteps pounded behind him, quick and uneven.
“You’re really letting her go?” Conrad’s voice was sharp with disbelief, his breath ragged from the sprint. “After everything, you’re just letting her sail away?”
Alexander didn’t turn. For a long moment, he didn’t speak. The question was a stone thrown into the void inside him.
“This is the only way it can be,” he said, his voice flat with the effort of control.
“No, it isn’t! That’s a load of cow’s dung, if you ask me—”
Alexander turned. The raw grief on Conrad’s young face was a mirror he couldn’t bear to look into for long. He clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder, a gesture meant to steady them both. “Come, pup. We have work to do. No time to waste.”
Conrad blinked, his frustration warring with a dawning, wild hope. “I knew it! You have a plan, don’t you? You’re going after her!”
Alexander didn’t answer. He simply began walking, his long strides eating up the planking, a physical manifestation of a decision already made.
At the end of the pier, Darion gave a dry, knowing scoff. “Didn’t you hear what he said, lad? Keep up. The truth will show itself soon enough.”
But Conrad scrambled after him, hissing only softly at his healing injuries. “No—don’t do that thing where you say something cryptic and then ride off. Just tell me. Are we getting her back?”
Alexander stopped and turned. For a moment, looking at Conrad’s earnest, worried face, a warmth cut through the cold numbness in his chest. This boy had seen the truth when Alexander himself had been blind.
“I didn’t believe you when you first questioned Tedric,” he told the boy.
“And it nearly cost us everything. You saw something I refused to. You were brave enough to act.” He gripped Conrad’s shoulder.
“I won’t fail you like that again. From now on, you’ll be given the responsibilities, and the trust, you’ve earned. ”
Conrad’s mouth parted, speechless, his anger washed away by the tide of those words.
Alexander’s smile was slight, but it reached his chest for the first time that day. “Now, move. There’s much to prepare.”
“Prepare for what?” Conrad called after him, struggling to match his pace.
Alexander didn’t slow.
“My lord! Are you going to tell me?!”
Beside him, Darion chuckled. “He’s not going to tell you.”
“Please tell me!”
The breeze off the water stirred the hem of Alexander’s cloak, carrying the salt-tang of her absence. He didn’t look back at the empty horizon. Instead, he lifted his gaze to the road ahead.
There were matters to resolve. An estate to run. Limyerite mines to restore. Loose ends to tie, and only so much time to do it in.
Before he could embark on the only journey that mattered.