Chapter 11 #2
She exhales shakily. “This is the way of kings,” she says, as if repeating something she’s been told all her life.
“They take comfort where they wish. It doesn’t mean they love their wives any less.
You should focus on what he gives you—and what you give him.
You can still have a beautiful marriage. ”
Something inside me goes very still.
“No,” I say quietly.
She looks at me, startled.
“If I’m not the one for him,” I continue, the words coming slowly now, each one deliberate, “then everything else is a lie. Every promise. Every touch. Every night that I thought we belonged only to each other.”
Aileen opens her mouth, then closes it again.
“My dream is gone,” I whisper. Saying it out loud hurts, but it also feels final. “I can’t share him. Not like this.”
She pulls me close again, her grip trembling. “I’m so sorry,” she repeats helplessly.
Her guilt hurts almost as much as the truth. She tells me again that kings are like this. That it means nothing. That his love for me is real and solid. I nod, I understand.
But inside, something precious has already broken beyond repair.
* * *
Days pass. I do what I am meant to do. I smile when watched. I speak when spoken to. When I am alone, I cry until my chest aches. I stop sleeping. I stop eating properly. I feel hollowed out.
I manage to spend as little as time with Charles as possible, but I know he notices.
He becomes even more attentive than usual.
He only leaves my side when absolutely necessary, as if my trying to push him away makes him even more desperate to be near me.
As if he doesn’t want to give me any room to think.
I don’t plan on confronting him.
But when Charles comes home one night, smelling of another woman, something finally snaps.
I turn to him slowly.
“Could you,” I say, keeping my voice steady with effort, “at least wash before coming to bed?”
He pauses, one hand still on the door frame.
“Wash?”
“Yes.”
He frowns faintly, as though genuinely confused.
“I don’t understand.”
My chest tightens. “You do.”
He steps closer. “I do not. Explain it to me.”
The words lodge in my throat. I hadn’t planned on saying them out loud. Saying them makes them real.
“You smell like her,” I whisper. “Another woman. I don’t want that in our bed.”
For a moment, he only watches me. Then he laughs softly, incredulous.
“That’s what this is about?”
I stare at him.
“Fastrada,” he says, exasperated now, “don’t be dramatic. It means nothing.”
Nothing.
The word lands harder than any insult.
“It means something to me,” I say. My voice cracks despite myself. “You mean something to me.”
He sighs, rubbing his temple as if I am the burden. “No man—certainly no king—denies himself comfort while traveling. You knew who I was when you married me.”
“I knew who you said you were,” I reply. “You let me believe I was different.”
“You are different,” he snaps. “That doesn’t mean you own me.”
“I’m not trying to own you,” I say. “I’m asking you not to hurt me.”
He scoffs. “You seemed perfectly content without me. Laughing. Blooming. You didn’t pine. You didn’t fall apart.”
The accusation slices deep. “I missed you,” I say. “I loved you.”
“Did you?” he says sharply. “Because it looked like you were just fine without me. Do you wish to have the same freedoms?” he continues, voice rising. “You may take lovers if you wish. You are not bound.”
“I don’t want them,” I say immediately. “I want you. I chose you.”
Something in him twists—anger and possession tangling together.
“Don’t pretend this is about love,” he says. “This is about control. About shaming me.”
“I am not shaming you,” I cry. “I am breaking.”
He steps closer. “You do not get to wound me for doing what I have always done.”
“So everyone knew?” I ask, tears burning. “Everyone but me?”
His jaw tightens. “Enough.”
“You let me believe I was the only one,” I say. “You built a marriage on that lie.”
“I never promised exclusivity,” he says coldly. “You assumed it.”
“I assumed fidelity,” I whisper.
“That is not a crown a king wears,” he snaps.
“Then why did you marry me?” I ask, desperate now.
“For alliance. For loyalty. For you,” he says, frustrated. “You are mine.”
“Not like this,” I say. “Not if I have to share you.”
He laughs sharply. “You would deny me what I am owed?”
“I am asking you to see me,” I say. “To choose me.”
His patience finally shatters.
“You will not dictate my nature,” he roars. “You will not punish me with silence and tears.”
“I loved you,” I sob. “I still do.”
It’s like he doesn’t even hear me.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he says.
I scramble backward, but he follows, relentless. His face is twisted now, eyes too bright, fixed on me as if I am the only thing left in the world.
“You think I want this?” His voice shakes, not with doubt, but with fury barely contained. “You’re in my head. Every hour. Every night. I can’t drink you away. I can’t sleep you away.”
My back hits something hard, a book case. There is nowhere left to go.
“You look at me like I’m a monster,” he continues, breath ragged. “You make me feel it. You make me lose control.” He starts hitting his head with his palm, as if he is trying to shake me from his mind.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
His hands close around my throat.
“You drive me mad,” he says, almost pleading now, almost desperate. “Do you know what it’s like? To want someone so badly it hurts? To belong to them like this?”
Air vanishes. Panic detonates in my chest. My hands fly up instinctively, clutching at his wrists, useless and trembling. Every part of me screams to fight—to strike, to escape, to survive—but my body lags behind my terror, stunned into disobedience.
“This is because of you,” he mutters. “Because I love you.”
My vision blurs. Black creeps in at the edges. My fingers scrape against his skin, weak, frantic, as the world begins to narrow to the sound of my own pulse and his voice, still spilling over me, still claiming me, even as everything starts to fade.
This is not how it was supposed to be.
I have imagined death before: dramatic, meaningful, a sacrifice, or a stand. I never imagined it would be like this. Never against a palace wall. Never with his face so close to mine. Never at the hands of the man I love most in the world.
My chest burns. My lungs ache. The room darkens, narrowing to fragments: his breath, my pulse roaring in my ears, the terrifying certainty that I am disappearing.
I try once more to fight. My body trembles, then gives.
The world fades.
* * *
I wake on the floor, alone.
My body aches in places I don’t yet dare examine. My throat burns. My head throbs.
I understand now.
And I will never be the same again.
Click.