Chapter 24 #3
Her fingers lifted my chin, tilting my face upward with practiced precision. Her touch was cool. Clinical. The way a healer touches flesh they intend to cut.
“And you,” she said, eyes narrowing just enough, “were never meant to be part of that.”
I thought of that night in the Shadowlands, and something in me went feral with rage. Rhydian’s arm heavy around my waist, grounding, sure, like it was an unbreakable fact. The way my body had finally unclenched, the way sleep had come like mercy for the first time since Aeliana died.
I’d let my guard down so completely it still made me sick.
I’d stopped bracing. Stopped counting exits. Stopped listening for footsteps. Stopped preparing for the next blow, because I thought I’d finally found the thing everyone promised existed, the thing I’d started to think was a myth.
Safety.
It wasn’t just that he’d betrayed me.
It was that he’d watched me soften and still chose to do it anyway.He’d felt my body relax against his like trust was a gift, like it meant something, and he took it. He took it like it was his to spend.
It had never been sanctuary.
It had been a pause.
A pause before the knife.
A pause before the fall.
A pause long enough for me to forget I was bleeding, so it would hurt worse when I remembered.
A breath held before the plunge. A kindness measured carefully so it would not interfere with what came next.
“No,” I said suddenly, the word breaking free of me with more force than I expected. My chest heaved, heat flooding my face as something wild and furious surged up from beneath the numbness.
Marisella’s brows lifted slightly, more curious than surprised.
“I hope the lie you created lodges in your throat, Your Majesty.”
The words came out of me like a punch. Not brave. Not elegant. Just pure, ugly truth.
The room went so still I could hear the crackle of the torches and the faint shift of armor as someone behind me tensed.
Marisella’s brows lifted a fraction.
Good.
Let her be intrigued. Let her collect my defiance like it was entertainment. I had plenty to spare.
“I will not die quietly for you,” I said, voice shaking with heat. “I won’t make it easy. I won’t make it clean. If you want me dead, you can do it in front of everyone and you can watch them see what you really are.”
Marisella’s mouth curved, faint and indulgent. Like I was a child threatening to bite.
I laughed. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you think the chains made me polite?”
Her gaze narrowed just slightly.
I leaned forward anyway, chains clinking, shoulders burning where the cuffs had rubbed raw.
“You don’t get to explain me,” I snapped.
“You don’t get to decide what I was. What lie you forced upon my back.
You don’t get to turn me into a story you can package and sell to your court like you’re fixing a problem. ”
My chest heaved. My face went hot. My body felt too small for the rage it was holding.
“I bled for this kingdom,” I said, voice rising. “I burned for it. I stayed when everyone else ran because I thought that’s what a good person did. I held your princess while she died.”
The air changed.
Aeliana flared inside me, like a blade pressed to the back of my tongue.
Say it, she urged. Say it so they hear you break.
I didn’t break.
I smiled.
The kind of smile that made men step back without realizing they’d moved.
“And you want to call me an imposter?” I asked. “Fine. Call me whatever makes you sleep at night. Call me a monster. Call me a mistake. Call me a whore who got too close to a crown.” I shrugged, chains rattling. “Just don’t call me quiet.”
Rhydian didn’t move, but I snapped my head toward him. “And you.” My laugh was vicious. “Don’t look so noble. You delivered me like a scroll strapped to an icehawk. Congratulations. I hope her old bones keep you warm at night.”
Nothing.
Not even a flinch.
I turned back to Marisella, my voice dropping into something colder.
“You want to correct the narrative?” I asked. “Go ahead. Dress it up. Put me on a platform. Tell them I’m a lie with a mouth.”
I leaned closer, eyes burning. “But when you stand there talking about order and duty and tradition, remember this. I am the one who stayed with Aeliana in the fire. I am the one who walked out of the crypt when it should’ve swallowed me whole.”
My throat tightened around the words, but I forced them out anyway.
“And if I’m a mistake,” I said, “then I’m the kind you’re going to choke on.”
Marisella regarded me for a long moment.
Then her smile arrived, small and precise and satisfied. Like she’d been waiting for me to perform.
“How emotional,” she said softly. “And how utterly irrelevant.”
She stepped back, already finished with me. “We will begin correcting the narrative tomorrow,” she said calmly. “You’ll be presented properly. Explained. Placed.”
I swallowed my rage and smiled again, all teeth.
“Place me wherever you want,” I said. “Just make sure everyone can see.”
Because if she thought I was going to go quietly, she’d made one fatal miscalculation.
And I couldn’t wait to show her.