Chapter Fifty
I ’m not sure what I expected, but this response is harder to stomach. He’s clearly surprised, but takes it in stride as if it’s just a typical night and I’ve asked to stroll through the garden with him when the other option is to dance amidst the crowded ballroom floor. Is this how a ruler responds, all mind and no heart?
I take a breath and stand taller, trying, but failing to emulate this practiced ruler in front of me. “I am not asking for forgiveness; I know what I’m doing is unforgivable. But perhaps, some understanding?”
“But I don’t understand, we fit together. I thought you were sent from the stars specifically for me. An answer to my prayers.” His words are poetic, something that in any other time of my life would’ve surely unlocked my heart. He takes a hesitant step toward me, the shadows playing across his beautiful face, a face I’ve come to know so well. I take a step back, straight into a table behind us, and a crash sounds. I jump and swirl around. My sword still out and ready, but it’s only a vase. The roses scatter across the floor and a sharp pain shoot through my foot. A shard of vase grazes my skin, and now the blood mixes with the water spilt everywhere, staining the white petals red.
As I look from the ground to him, each of our walks brush through my mind in one breath. Even from the start, I knew there could be no love between us, but somehow he broke through the walls I put up. His pointed questions and the way he listened, unmatched and unheard of in any man I’ve known before this.
If only there was a better way to do this. “I’m sorry, Lysander.” The hurt and disbelief in his eyes wars with the set of his jaw, but he remains as if there’s more to say.
His reaction hurts more than the glass shard grazing my foot. I want to take back my words, do whatever is needed to fix what I’ve broken between us. On the inside, my heart wants to bend, collapse into what he wants me to be.
But this time, I can't waiver. There is too much at stake. “I wish there was another way. Where we could make a go of this, and together do something good for our people.”
“Then why?” He takes my hands, clasping them tightly as if he knows if I let go there’ll be no future between us.
“Don’t you see? Hadeon has made a mess of Everguard. I have to put the broken pieces back together before we can be of any help to the lands surrounding us. Otherwise, we leave ourselves a weak, broken realm for someone else to pick up. I have to do it before someone else makes it their mess to put back together. This is my land, in more ways than one.” His grip loosens just a little. “This is bigger than me, Lysander, or I would go with you in a heartbeat.”
I can feel him slipping further away as each silent moment ticks by. And I’m torn in two. It was so clear we would’ve been a good match. He knows it. I think I know it, too.
He searches my eyes, but whatever’s reflected there causes him to sigh. The rims of his eyes redden and his blond hair falls into his face. Finally, he drops his grip on my hands and steps back; his expression unreadable in the shadows of the room.
“We’re through. You have no ally here.” He takes a step back, drawing a line between us. “And between our realms as well. You’ll regret this, Rowandine of Merula.” As he leaves the ballroom he brushes past me, his shoulder barreling through my own without a second glance. His footsteps echo through the empty ballroom where we were supposed to celebrate our nuptials hours later, the streamers and flowers seeming to wilt with his retreating form.