Chapter 50 Braxton
Braxton
“I’m releasing you, Azalea. You’re free.” The words taste like bile as they leave my mouth. “You can go home.”
Being able to go outside the castle grounds without consequences only further proves the rapid deterioration of this curse.
Once Dianthus realizes that I know something is wrong, I don’t know what course of action she’ll take to get what she wants.
For that reason alone, I need Azalea to get as far away from here as possible.
Though I don’t know what home she’ll be returning to.
This was her home before the curse. I don’t know what waits for her back on Minem Island.
It’s been a century, so I know she won’t find any family there.
And she’ll be utterly confused by all of it.
But she could fall in love again. She could live a life the way she wants to again.
She was always too free a spirit to be trapped in a cage.
I thought I would be able to free us from this cage together, but I’m not so sure anymore.
Besides, who’s to say she would want to leave together once she learns the full truth?
For all I know, she’ll hate me, and she should.
This castle changed her; that is undoubtedly true.
It made her fiercer, stronger, a little more hard-headed than I care to admit, but in every way she grew and changed, she remained beautiful in her soul.
My soul, on the other hand, is twisted. Gnarled in a darkness that has been given decades to fester, ruminating in bitter, frustrated hatred. What do I truly offer her when all is said and done?
That’s why I’m staying here and watching her leave. Let Dianthus come for me. Let her do whatever she wishes.
The truth that I’ve come to accept is that Azalea is my everything.
She is my dawn and my dusk. My will and my want.
I have no desire to venture back into a place wicked enough to steal her from me and taint the beauty of the love we once had, and I never wish to live in a world where she is not by my side.
So I’m doing this for her. I’ve trapped her for long enough, and I know it’s time for me to finally set her free.