Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
The rain is merciless. It comes down in sheets, soaking through my dress, plastering the fabric to my skin as I stumble into the courtyard. The chapel’s weight still clings to me—its incense, its lies, its worship. My lungs feel too full. My ribs, too tight.
As soon as the final blessing fell from the priest’s lips and the nobles surged forward like a river breaking free of its dam—pressing toward the dais, clamoring for closeness, for purpose, for proximity to power—I ran.
Because if I hadn’t, I would’ve screamed.
I press my back to the stone wall beneath one of the crumbling archways and tilt my chin toward the sky, letting the rain wash over me.
Footsteps splash through the puddles behind me.
My hands are fists at my sides. My spine rigid. My heartbeat like a ticking bomb.
I don’t turn around. I know it’s him.
“So, what did you think?” Alder’s voice is rough, worn thin by the storm and everything that came before it.
I laugh. It’s not soft. It’s not kind. It’s a hollow, bitter sound that scrapes out of my throat like it’s been lodged there for years.
“What did I think?” I echo, still facing the rain, still refusing to give him the dignity of eye contact. “I think I just watched a kingdom bow to a murderer and call it salvation.”
He doesn’t respond. Not right away.
The silence stretches, sharp and tense, broken only by the slosh of his footsteps closing in.
Finally, I turn.
He’s beautiful in the way villains always are—wet hair clinging to his forehead, storm light catching on his cheekbones, eyes dark with something that used to look like love and now looks like possession.
His maroon velvet jacket is soaked through, black with water, molding to the cut of his shoulders, the lines of his arms.
“You told me you were trying to get us home,” I say, my voice barely above the rain. “All those meetings, all that posturing… You made it sound like you had everything handled.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t, Alder.” My voice breaks open, sharp and rising.
“If you did, you wouldn’t have wanted me to follow you to a sermon led by a murderer.
” I swipe rain from my face with the back of my hand, breath hitching.
“I don’t know what the point was, but it wasn’t anything that would get us home. ”
“I wanted you to come so you’d understand what we’re up against,” he says.
“You needed to see the power we’re dealing with.
The control they have. The kind of belief they’re feeding.
So you’d stop dreaming about escape like it’s a door we can just walk through,” he snaps.
“So you’d see that surviving here doesn’t come from wishing for home.
It comes from learning how to play the game. ”
I take a step back, fury curling tight beneath my skin. “You think I don’t understand? That I haven’t seen enough to know there is dangerous shit going on here?”
“I am protecting you.”
“Stop lying!” The words tear from my throat like lightning. “You’re protecting yourself. You want me to believe you’re the only thing standing between me and disaster. And I did. God help me, I did. I believed you. I thought you were the way out, but—”
“No, Gemma. You still don’t get it. There was never going to be a way home.”
The words hit like a slap. I blink, stunned, the rain blurring the edges of him as if the storm itself wants to erase him from my life.
“I told you what you needed to hear,” he continues, stepping closer, the rain sliding down his face, slicking his hair to his temples. “Because you weren’t ready to hear the truth. You still aren’t.”
“What truth?” I breathe.
“That this”—he gestures to the castle, the chapel behind us, the drenched stone courtyard glowing silver with lightning flashes—“is the plan. This kingdom, this power, this future. There is no South Carolina anymore.”
I stagger backward, the ground seeming to tilt beneath my feet. “You said—”
“I said what you needed me to say so you’d let me do what I had to,” he bites out, no softness left. “Because if you knew I’d made this choice for us, you would have fought me. And I couldn’t have you messing this up for me like you did back home.”
I blink against the rain, against the sting of betrayal. My pulse thunders in my ears, drowning everything but the terrible, inevitable truth.
“Oh my God,” I breathe. “How could I be so na?ve?” I laugh, but it breaks apart halfway out of my mouth. “You were never trying to escape Towerfall. You were always going to stay.”
His lips part, but I hold up a trembling hand.
“Don’t.”
His voice dips, gentle now, soft like his manipulation always is. “For us, Gemma.”
“Fuck off, Alder!” My voice rises again, cracking at the edges. “Don’t you dare make this about us. You’re carving out a place for yourself here, building a life in this kingdom, playing politics while I’ve been running around trying to survive it.”
“Sweetheart—”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I demand. “Or were you going to keep stringing me along with half-truths and sweet little moments until I forgot what I wanted altogether?”
The rain continues to fall, pooling in the space between us.
“You know what’s pathetic?” I whisper. “I let you lead. I let you steer our whole relationship because it was easier—because you always seemed like you knew what you were doing, like you had a plan.” I shake my head, my breath ragged.
“But it wasn’t easier. Letting you lead landed me here.
In a strange kingdom, in a soaking wet dress, standing in front of a man who lied to me and ruined my life. ”
He flinches, barely.
“Actually no,” I say, voice steeling. “I’m not giving you that kind of power. I made those choices. And, I’m proud of them. Because they did bring me here. To the truth about you. About me.”
I take a shaky breath. “Without that tarot card, without this place, I would’ve spent my whole life thinking I was weak. That I needed someone like you to shape me. But I don’t. I never did.”
The rain streaks down my cheeks, tears I refuse to cry.
“But tell me, Alder. Just one thing. Why? Why stay here? In a Renaissance kingdom with no electricity, no hospitals, no modern anything? Why abandon a life of power and money and control for this?”
For a second, he doesn’t answer. Then he straightens.
“Because, if you saw it like I do, you would know this kingdom could be paradise. And that is exactly what I deserve.”
He steps forward, his voice darkening, deepening.
“After everything I’ve done—for politicians, for corporate royalty, for billionaires who couldn’t wipe their own asses without a fixer—I earned this.
I pulled the strings. Cleaned up the messes.
Protected people who didn’t deserve it. I built empires, and the second things got complicated, they turned their backs on me. ”
He looks at me then, his gaze wild. “You turned your back on me.”
My mouth opens, but no sound comes.
“I needed you,” he says, and it’s the most honest thing he’s ever admitted. “When you left, everything unraveled. The company. The board. The press. I was going to be indicted, Gemma. For fraud. For wiretapping. For things no one was ever supposed to tie to me.”
“And what?” I whisper. “You thought if you brought home your sweet, small-town ex, it would all just…go away?”
“You made people believe in me,” he says quietly. “Even when I didn’t deserve it.”
“Was I always just a PR move?” My voice cracks. “Have the past ten years meant anything to you?”
His silence is a confession.
“God,” I whisper. “You are so much worse than I thought.”
Lightning cracks overhead, and somewhere in the distance, the chapel doors creak open.
“Lord Lockhart!” The queen’s voice cuts across the courtyard, sharp and clear through the storm.
He stiffens.
Her silhouette appears in the archway—framed by candlelight, shrouded in shadow, her silver cloak snapping in the wind.
“You should go,” I say, nodding toward the chapel. “Your crown is calling.”
He hesitates. Just for a breath. Then he turns and walks away. Back to her. Back to the kingdom he’s chosen. Back to everything I now know he was never planning to leave.