Chapter 5
AIMILIA
Aimilia flew through the palace, the walls passing by in a blur as the dim light runes gave her just enough to see by that she didn’t fall and crack her skull open.
She ran until her lungs burned and she ran out into an empty courtyard, far away from the banquet.
She stumbled over to the fountain in the middle, dropping to a seat on the stone.
She held her chest as she heaved for air.
Her blood was still boiling and her heart still wouldn’t slow. Oh. She was going to be sick.
This.
She had been prepared for anything but this.
She’d just rejected the crown prince in front of the whole court.
What could have possessed Nikias to do something so foolish? How could he have ever thought she would have accepted?
None of this made any sense. This wasn’t possible. This had to be a nightmare. Or some elaborate illusion.
Maybe she should just confess her crimes to save herself from the aftermath of this disaster. The consequences of that would at least be much shorter for her to have to deal with.
Her head was in her hands when the sound of footsteps reached her ears. She looked up, about to cry out in relief and greet Gavril and Marcella, who surely came to check on her and help her, but it wasn’t them.
It was Nikias instead.
Maybe she should have stayed in the crowd. Now they were alone, and she’d just humiliated him in front of every Runai that mattered. He was a vengeful man with enough ego to sink even the grandest ship.
What was he going to do to make her pay?
She shot up from the fountain, lifting her hands. If she had to attack him to get away—
The second she lifted her hands to cast, Nikias came to a stop, also huffing for breath. He lifted his hands up, palms facing her. “All I’m here for is to explain myself. I… All I want is the chance to explain.”
She wouldn’t be able to run forever. He was the prince, and she was a commander. He’d find some way to force her to listen for as long as he wanted to speak.
Plus, she wanted the explanation.
She lowered her hands and dropped back onto the edge of the fountain. He approached again, the ties for the necklaces peeking out of his pocket. The sight of them had her stomach rolling.
“Thank you,” Nikias said as he reached her, standing in front of the fountain, an arm’s distance away.
“Just… explain.” Aimilia took him in, also slightly out of breath, but at least he didn’t have that dark, crazed look in his eyes that haunted her nightmares. She didn’t know if it was better or worse that he seemed completely sane. “Now.”
Nikias took a deep breath and nodded, hands twitching at his side. “I… I had a plan. This—” He gestured at the air between them. “—was not how this was supposed to go.”
Aimilia couldn’t help the near hysterical laugh that came out. “Really?”
He snapped his mouth shut for a moment before continuing, “I thought—I thought we understood each other. Last week—This morning…” His brow pinched as he shook his head. “I suppose that doesn’t really matter. Clearly, something was lost along the way. Let me start from the beginning.”
What beginning? When he got the foolish notion in his head to marry her?
“I am a widower. Obviously, you knew that. You were at the wedding. And the funeral.” Nikias winced, and she resisted the urge to scream.
He couldn’t even reference Faustina’s death without pain and he expected to remarry?
He cleared his throat. “My point is, everyone expected I would remarry eventually.”
“So?” Aimilia bit back another laugh but it still slipped into her words. “You didn’t care about what was expected before! You were going to mourn Faustina the rest of your life. Not even your parents could persuade you to ever look elsewhere.”
Nikias nodded, gaze down on the ground. “That… That was true. For a while. My parents still insisted I consider it, but they grew more insistent and are doubly so now that Gavril and Marcella are married, and with the fact that my father will never fully recover, it’s no longer an option for me not to remarry. ”
Her heart went from a frantic tempo to stopping dead in its tracks and sinking to the ground. He didn’t know, she reassured herself. He would never have proposed to her if he did. Her grip on the edge of the fountain tightened anyway.
“I—You understand, of course, my parents do not want to risk any children Gavril and Marcella have to be in the line of succession. Which means, Gavril cannot be my heir anymore. So I must remarry and…” Nikias looked up at her for a brief second before ducking his gaze again.
“It is important I remarry and produce heirs to secure the line of succession.”
Aimilia considered dying right then and there. It would be easy, just throw herself back into the fountain, hit her head on the stone and drown.
Surely that would be better than suffering through the implication Nikias was putting toward her, of her being the woman he used to secure the line of succession with.
But at least things were starting to make a smidge of sense. It was still hard to even think of Nikias remarrying, but he made a logical presentation of the case.
Aimilia had no choice but to admit she’d been completely wrong. Apparently not even Nikias’ romanticism and undying love for Faustina was enough to override the practical reasons for remarrying.
She was certain his mother, and his father before his health had declined so much thanks to her, had beaten those reasons into him.
Verbally, not physically. His parents had never treated him the way they’d treated Gavril.
However, it did not answer the biggest question she had.
“I can… barely, but I can understand why you’ve finally accepted that you should remarry. But…” At the sound of her voice, he looked up at her again, but she couldn’t read his expression. It was impassive as a marble statue, like normal. “Why would you ever propose to me?”
“What?” At least now he was looking at her. “Why—Why wouldn’t I?”
Aimilia raised an eyebrow. “Have you lost your memories? Or your mind?”
Nikias stared at her blankly in a way that almost convinced her that he had. So now it was up to her to remind him.
“I’m your little brother’s ex-fiancée, you remember? Right? His closest friend that you have never once had a civil conversation with?”
Nikias shifted back, crossing his arms and huffing. “We’ve had civil conversations!”
“Name one!”
At his silence and flushing cheeks, she pressed on, “My point is, you’ve hated me since we met. I’ve always hated you. There hasn’t been a day in the last ten years I haven’t hated you, and never more so than the last two.”
Nikias shook his head, jaw unclenching and his voice coming out frigid. “Even now? What did I do to make you hate me so much even before we met? From the start, you went out of your way to antagonize me. You never even gave me a chance back then! You hated me despite everything I’ve done.”
Aimilia swallowed the hysterical laugh threatening to bubble up her throat again. He wanted to play the victim?
“Oh no. You’ve got it all wrong!” Aimilia pushed off the edge of the fountain.
“I don’t hate you despite everything you’ve done.
I hate you because of everything you’ve done.
Let me refresh your recollection. I didn’t have to meet you to hate you.
I already knew you were a selfish coward who would let your parents beat a child—” Her voice cracked, and she cut herself off, refusing to let any tears rise to the surface.
“You let them. I don’t care what excuses you have to justify yourself, the pathetic ways you tried to keep Gavril away from them, when it came down to it and your mother or father lifted their hands against him, you didn’t stop them.
Then you went to the Academy and you left him there.
You got to escape, for at least a little while, and you did nothing!
Nothing but show him how to hide the bruises because you couldn’t even be bothered to learn how to heal him.
You didn’t care about healing anyone until after it cost you the only thing you ever wanted. ”
Her words hit Nikias blow after blow as she advanced on him. Now that she had started she couldn’t stop. Oh, for years, she had restrained herself from giving Nikias the full verbal thrashing he deserved all because Gavril insisted on it, but now?
Now she was free to tear him apart.
Nikias closed his eyes and turned his head away. He whispered, “You don’t think I regret that?”
“You asked me why I hated you before I met you. That’s why.
When I discovered how your parents treated Gavril, I put the pieces together.
He never blamed you, but what do you think it tells you that he so easily accepted my insistence I come with you two to the palace when your parents summoned you for dinner?
” She lifted her chin. “He knew you wouldn’t protect him, but I would. ”
Nikias opened his eyes and narrowed them at her. “Oh? Tell me, when did I miss you confronting my parents about their treatment of Gavril? Where then did all the bruises and black eyes and cuts come from then if after you stepped into the picture you had the power to stop them?”
Aimilia stepped back, her own guilt thrown back at her. Her breath caught as the back of her heel scraped the stone of the fountain. “Yes, I failed him too. I admit it, and I’m grateful he doesn’t hold it against me.”
Nikias took a step toward her, green eyes piercing her as his voice softened. “Yet, even though Gavril doesn’t hold my failures against me, you still insist you have any place to hate me for something where you were never wronged?”