Chapter 24 #2
"Livia," I said, taking another step closer. "Do you think I care about that? Do you think I care what you've had to do to survive?"
She looked up at me, and I could see the war playing out behind her eyes—love and hurt and anger all tangled together.
"I don't know what to think anymore," she whispered. "I don't know who you are."
That cut deeper than anything else she could have said, because it meant I'd failed completely. In trying to protect what we had, I'd destroyed the very foundation it was built on.
"I'm the same man who held you when you had nightmares," I said desperately. "The same man who taught you to swim, who stayed up late with you talking about how we would set things right in the world. I'm the same man who loves you more than his own life."
“Then why didn’t you tell me? Not at first, but later?” she asked again, her eyes wide as I looked down at her. “When you knew me, knew you could trust me.”
“Because then I loved you, and you told me you loved me. And I was ashamed.”
“Of me?” Her eyes flashed in annoyance, and I fought the urge to smile.
“No, of me. Of who I was. Of who my father was. I was ashamed.”
She looked up at me and shook her head.
“You can’t help who you were born to.”
“I know that,” I said. “But I stood by and watched as he bullied people, had people beaten, imprisoned, even killed. I learned early on that my father held no affection for me, and as long as the bruises could be covered, he never held back, even with his own son.”
I sighed, reaching for her hands. She let me take them, and I pressed them against my heart.
“Before the battle, I tried to refuse the promotion.
I said I would not be part of this genocide.
My father led me down below the palace and showed me the hundreds of Talfen prisoners he already held in pens there.
He told me there were many more places like it all over the city.
Men, women, children. All crammed into cells barely fit for animals.
He told me that if I refused the promotion, if I didn't play my part in his grand spectacle, he'd have them all executed immediately. Not in the arena for show, but right there in the dungeons, forgotten and unmourned. My submission, my acceptance of the promotion was the price I paid for their lives.”
"He would have killed them all." She turned to face me then, and the devastation in her eyes nearly brought me to my knees. "That's what you're saying, isn't it? That your father would have murdered hundreds of innocent people just to punish you for defying him."
I nodded, unable to trust my voice.
"Gods," she breathed. "What kind of monster raises a child to believe that? What kind of father uses mass murder as leverage against his own son?"
I watched her process this and saw the conflict playing out across her features. The revelation didn't excuse what I'd done, but it explained it. It gave context to the impossible position I'd found myself in.
"So you accepted," she said finally.
"I accepted. And I hated myself for it every single day." I brought her hands to my lips, pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles. "I told myself I was buying time, that maybe I could find a way to save them. But mostly I was just too much of a coward to watch them die for my principles."
"That's not cowardice," she said fiercely, and some of the ice in her voice had thawed. "That's... that's impossible. No one should have to make that choice."
"Shouldn't they?" I asked bitterly.
I watched the blood drain from her face as the full horror of what I'd just told her sank in. “The prisoners… they’re the ones he plans to kill at the games, aren’t they?”
I nodded. “When I didn’t return from battle, he must have assumed I was dead.
I thought he would keep his word, but with me seemingly out of the way, he just doesn’t care.
” The words tasted like ash in my mouth.
"Children, women, elderly—it doesn't matter to him.
They're all just props for his grand spectacle.
But if this plan works, we can stop him, Livia.
We can save them all and stop this war."
"You're the son of the man who destroyed everything I ever loved."
"I know," I said, and the words felt like glass in my throat. "And I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make amends for that. Starting with helping you end his reign of terror."
She took a deep breath, then reached up and touched my cheek, her fingers tracing the red mark she'd left there. "I'm sorry I screamed at you."
"I deserved it.”
One corner of her mouth turned up in a slight smile. “Yes, you did.”
I smiled back, hardly daring to hope she might actually forgive me.
Her hand slid up into my hair, and she pulled me down to her.
“But you deserve this too,” she whispered and kissed me.
It was gentle at first, tentative, as if she was testing whether this was real or just another lie I'd fed her.
But when I responded, when I kissed her back with all the desperate relief flooding through me, she deepened it.
Her other hand fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer as if she was afraid I might disappear.
When we finally broke apart, both breathing hard, she rested her forehead against mine.
"I hate you," she whispered, but there was no venom in it now. Just exhaustion and pain and something that might have been love struggling to survive beneath the rubble of betrayal.
"I know," I said, my thumb brushing away a tear that had escaped down her cheek. "I hate myself too."
"Good." She pulled back to look at me, and I saw something shift in her expression. The raw fury was still there, but it was tempered now by understanding. "Because if you didn't, if you thought this was all justified somehow, I could never forgive you."
"Does this mean you might?" I asked, hardly daring to hope.
She was quiet for a long moment, studying my face like she was seeing me for the first time. "I don't know yet," she said finally. "But I want to try."
The relief that crashed over me was so intense I nearly fell to my knees. Instead, I cupped her face in my hands, memorizing every detail as if this might be the last time she'd let me touch her.
Her dark eyes searched mine. "The man I fell in love with—he's still here, isn't he? Under all the lies and the royal blood and the impossible situation?"
"Yes," I said without hesitation. "Everything I felt for you, everything we shared—that was real. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, and I know it might never be possible…”
"I don't want that to be true," she said, and I heard the pain in her voice. "I love you, Jalend. Despite everything, despite the lies and the betrayal and who your father is—I still love you.”
"I love you," I said, the words torn from somewhere deep inside me. "Whatever happens in that arena, whatever comes after, I need you to know that.”
"And after that?" she asked, her hands still fisted in my shirt. "What happens to us after we murder your father?"
I had been dreading this question, though I'd known it would come eventually. What did happen to the son of a deposed emperor? What kind of life could I possibly offer her when this was all over?
"I don't know," I admitted. "I've never thought past killing him. Never imagined there would be an 'after' for me."
"Well, you better start thinking about it," she said fiercely. "Because I'm not losing you to some misguided martyrdom complex. We're going to survive this, Jalend. All of us. Because I need you all, and he’s not taking any more from me than he has already."