Chapter 37
VIVIENNE
Auren is the king. The words settle over me, heavy and inescapable, pressing against my chest until it’s suddenly hard to breathe.
I stare at the man I have slept beside and trusted with every soft, unguarded part of me. At the man whose arms I woke in, whose mouth I kissed… whose promises I believed. And for a heartbeat, I don’t recognize him at all.
Auren doesn’t deny it. He only sits on the edge of my bed, his dark hair falling across his forehead, his eyes full of sorrow.
“You’re the king.” Fighting back a sob, I gaze down at my hands, because I don’t know where to look. If I look at him, I’ll see the man I love… the same one who lied to me. “All this time…”
“I’m sorry.” His voice is thick with emotion. “Please forgive me, Vivienne. Hurting you is the one thing I never wanted to do.”
The words drive deep, twisting something raw inside my heart until it aches to breathe around it. Instead of taking away the pain, they only make it worse.
I swallow against the lump rising in my throat and press my hands into my lap, gripping the sheets.
I feel as though I have awakened in some foreign life…
one where everything I thought I understood has shifted beneath my feet.
I force myself to lift my eyes to his. “So the poor soldier I married never existed at all, did he?”
“Vivienne, I—”
A brittle laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “What a ridiculous question.” My eyes burn, my vision blurring as I fight to keep the tears from spilling over. “He never existed because he was a lie.”
Memories of our meeting, our wedding, and our journey rush back to me at once. My mind recalling each one through a new lens.
I think of the ballroom, and his amused look when I dismissed him as a common soldier.
The garden bench where he sat beside me and let me believe he served some distant, unseen king.
Every mile of road we traveled, every fire he built…
every time he looked at me with that quiet, patient devotion that made me believe, gods help me, that I had stumbled into something real and rare and precious.
“I imagine it was all rather amusing to you, wasn’t it?
” I ask bitterly. “Watching me upset, believing I was being handed off to a common soldier. I trusted you.” My voice quavers as I fight back tears.
“I loved you, and you let me go on loving you while every moment between us was built on something false.”
“It wasn’t false,” he states firmly, his eyes searching mine. “Every moment with you was real, Vivienne. The only lie was my name, not my heart. I never lied about loving you. Not once.”
“I don’t understand. Why did you even lie to me in the first place, Auren?”
“Would you have married me if I’d asked you as the King of the Dark Elves? Or would you have rejected me like you did all the others?”
I hadn’t expected this question, and I give him the only answer I can. “I… don’t know.”
The lie burns my tongue because I do know what I would’ve done. I was angry at everything and everyone. Especially at the suitors who came for my hand. They were all men of high status and wealth.
Instead of seeing them as my salvation from the bargain, I saw them as someone else who would have control over me… the power to take away my freedom. And I resented them for it even though they’d done nothing to earn my disdain.
“You’re right to be angry,” he says, voice rough. “I lied to you, and I hurt you. But I will not lie about this.” His gaze holds mine, steady and unflinching.
“If the choice was between losing you to a monster like the Goblin King and you hating me for the rest of your life, I would still choose to keep you safe.” His jaw tightens. “Because losing you was never an option.”
My breath catches.
“You can hate me. You can tell me you never wish for me to speak or touch you ever again, and I will honor it. But know this: Lie or truth, it changes nothing about what I feel for you.”
He brings his fist to his chest, directly over his heart. “I was yours the first moment I saw you, and even when I cross from this world to the next, I will still be yours. I will never love another. There will only ever be you.”
He shakes his head. “You have the choice to annul our marriage if that’s what you want.
But I ask you to consider carefully.” He pauses.
“I will never ask anything of you that you are not willing to give. I beg you: do not dissolve our marriage. Use it. Use me to protect you from the Goblin King’s bargain.
Even if it is in name only… let me protect you. ”
His words are far from what I expected. I want him to fight me. I want him to tell me I’m being cruel. I want something from him that is not this terrible acceptance of blame. Because if he takes my anger like this, I’ll have nowhere to put it but back inside my own aching chest.
He drags a hand slowly through his hair. “There is something else you need to know.”
“What now?” I ask, blinking back tears. “What other part of my life has been arranged without my knowledge?”
His jaw tightens. “We received a message from the watchtower yesterday. It was a summons.”
Cold seeps through me. “From whom?”
“The Goblin King,” Auren says, the words spoken with quiet bitterness. His gaze drifts to the scroll on the table next to him. “He’s demanding that you come to his court.”
A chill slides down my spine. “But… I’m married.”
“That may not matter.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
He draws in a slow breath, as though choosing his words carefully. “The bargain may not recognize the marriage as complete. Not yet. That could explain why your nightmares didn’t stop after the wedding.”
Anger wars with grief as I realize what he hasn’t said aloud… what he refuses to say because my heart is still bleeding from everything else. So, I say it for him. “Are saying our marriage is not complete because we haven’t consummated our vows? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“Yes. If the Goblin King believes the bargain still stands, then he may try to enforce it. I don’t know whether the old magic will allow him to do so, but I know enough not to dismiss the threat.”
“And?”
“And I will protect you.”
The words are spoken with such certainty that they almost sound like one of his old promises, the ones I used to sink into like warmth after cold.
Except now I know what it is to be warmed by a lie, and a terrible thought forms in my mind before I can stop it. “And I suppose you’re proposing to fix that, by magnanimously offering to consummate our—”
“No,” he snaps, cutting me off. “I know you have every right to hate and despise me, but understand this: I would never use this against you. Not now. Not ever.”
My heart squeezes in my chest at the conviction in his words.
“We can remain married in name only. I will still protect you. But more importantly, as Queen of the Dark Elves, you will have an army behind you. I will shield you from the bargain. But I will not press you into my bed to secure your protection.”
He meets my gaze evenly. “Even if you want an annulment, you still have my vow that I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe. I will go to war with the Goblin kingdom if I must.”
For a moment, all I can do is look at him as my heart shatters all over again at the unbearable truth. He is kind and honorable. He’s the man I love… but I don’t know if I can forgive him.
I draw in a shaking breath. I just want to go home. I want to return to my father’s castle and try to pretend my life hasn’t been completely upended.
My family. Ice fills my veins as I recall that day in the throne room—my father’s ultimatum.
“Did my father and brother know who you were?” I ask, praying that I’m wrong.
My heart sinks as he gives me a pitying look. He closes his eyes briefly before answering. “Yes.”
That one word breaks something open inside me, and I can hardly breathe through the pain.
My father knew. My brother knew. Everyone knew but me.
Devastation fills me as I choke back a sob.
My father. The man who kissed my brow when I was small, who told me stories when storms frightened me… who said he only wanted me safe.
My brother. The one who walked with me through the grief of losing our mother, who laughed with me and became my confidante… He stood beside our father and watched me be handed over.
“They knew,” I whisper, more to myself than to him as the awful truth settles deep in my bones. “Of course they did.”
I thought the pain of Auren’s lie was the worst of it, but I was wrong. This is worse. Every person I loved most in this world has lied to me.
I swipe tears from my face with shaking fingers, furious with myself for crying in front of him.
He starts to reach for me but stops when I jerk back. And it hurts even more because some traitorous, miserable part of me still wants him to come close, and I hate myself for it.
I can hardly bear to look at him and see the love that still burns in his eyes. Because that is the cruelest wound of all… because even now, with my heart split open and bleeding, I still love him.
It makes me feel weak, and foolish, and lost. Swallowing hard, I turn away from him.
Silence settles between us before he finally says, “We must leave for the mountain in the morning. If the Goblin King tries to come for you, you’ll be safer there.” He pauses. “Will you come with me?”
I close my eyes, struggling to hold back more tears as I consider my answer.
Where would I go? Back to my father, who bartered me with lies? To my brother, who let it happen? To the Goblin King, who would claim me as a debt for his bargain?
Bitterness fills me. When I open my eyes again, I look at Auren and say the only truth I have left. “Where else would I go?” The words come out hollow. “Everyone I trusted has already betrayed me.”
He jerks back as though physically struck.
Good. I want it to hurt him. I want him to carry even a fraction of what is tearing through me now. And yet the moment I see it, I feel even worse, because deep down I don’t truly want to cause him pain. I only want this not to hurt so much.
His luminous blue eyes meet mine, so full of despair and love that I have to look away before it undoes me completely. I don’t want to break in front of him. “I want to be alone.”
He swallows hard. “As you wish,” he says, rising from the edge of the mattress.
As soon as he leaves, I collapse on the bed, pressing my face into the pillow as silent sobs rack through me. My ribs scream in protest as I curl inward, but I don’t care.
All I can think of is Auren.
I was so happy and so full of hope for a beautiful future that I’d never imagined before him, but now wanted with all my heart. One with a cottage full of laughter, and children with gray-blue skin, dark hair, and blue eyes like their father.
Another sob rises in my throat, muffled by the pillow. I was a fool who gave away her heart and never even knew the truth of who she handed it to.
I cry until my chest burns and my throat feels raw and my whole body aches with the force of holding in what I could not allow Auren to see. And still the tears keep coming.
Because the worst of it—the cruelest, most unbearable part is that even now, beneath all the hurt and humiliation and grief… I cannot deny that I love him.