Chapter 17 #2
“Only that my father and I are the last two alive in the royal succession, and the names in our ancestral line. I know nothing about my mother.”
His jaw works as he blocks my strike, the slice and pressure of his sword spinning me around and making me dizzy.
“Your mother was orphaned when she was very young. She grew up in the city, in a home that took in lost children. That’s where she met Dane. They were friends throughout her entire childhood. They were still close when I met her.”
My steps falter as I finally hear someone tell me about my mother.
No one ever spoke to me about her. The pain was too much for my father, and it was as if he forbade everyone else from bringing her up as well.
Edmond was the only one who defied that order, and it wasn’t until he handed me her diary.
Hearing all of this for the first time almost brings me to a halt.
It’s as if something I’ve been missing and yearning for is finally snapping into place.
Weston must see my reaction, and he keeps pushing, keeping me focused on his moves, and only letting up enough so I can still process what he’s telling me.
“Rem met Lyla one day when we were out in the city. The moment he saw her, I knew he was done. He was never the kind who cared about love. He knew what was required to produce a legitimate heir, but the moment he saw her, it was like love finally mattered to him.”
I clench my jaw. Weston’s story feels made up. I know this is the man he knew, but this is not the father I knew. This man doesn’t exist anymore.
“I saw it in her eyes too, the way she looked at him. It was more than just someone in awe of the king, or wanting a place of wealth and power and security. No one could fault her for that after living the life she had. But that wasn’t Lyla.
She was pure and kind and happy. She made him more of those things too. ”
Tears prick my eyes, and I step back to catch my breath. My swords fall to my sides as I take a minute to collect myself. Weston watches me, and understanding flickers over his face.
“It’s alright, I can take it.”
He knows how hard this is for me, how hard it is to reconcile the life I knew with the one he describes.
How hard it is to hear about the woman I so desperately wanted to know that I came here to save her, only to have that ripped away from me.
And despite his constant reminders that I fight with too many emotions, he’s letting me use them to take it all out on him.
Because he is there to catch me as I fall.
I charge at him, my movements fueled by bitterness and longing for the life I never had. He blocks every strike, every jab, but he doesn’t stop telling me exactly what I asked for.
“They were inseparable, or as inseparable as they could be with his position. After that first meeting, we left the castle to see her every day, and of course during that time, we met the only family she had. Dane.”
My breaths shorten, and I focus on slowing them, knowing that if I don’t, I won’t be able to make it through this fight.
“We found out quickly he wasn’t her actual family, even though she regarded him as such.
Rem and I both could see he was in love with her, even though she never looked at him the same way.
She was clearly as much in love with your father as he was with her.
When Rem proposed, Dane was…unhappy. Unsupportive.
She came to the castle crying one night, telling Rem about how Dane tried to change her mind and talk her out of it, giving her every reason she shouldn’t be with him. ”
“Because he wanted to be with her,” I grind out, as my blade slams into his.
He nods. “Yes.”
I shove him off before striking out again. “Keep going.”
“She tried to remain friends with him after the wedding, but Dane pulled away. When he found out she was pregnant, he all but disappeared. She was upset, despite how happy she was about you and for their new family. Dane was the only family she ever knew, and he abandoned her. But she had Rem, and you, and she decided that was all she needed.”
Now it’s his turn to step back and lower his weapons. I follow suit, chest heaving and jaw aching, as I look up at him, steeling myself for whatever he’s preparing to tell me.
His throat bobs as he holds my gaze. “The night you were born, Dane snuck into the castle. We don’t know how he got in, and I—” He looks away, somewhere over the rail of the ship and off into the distance for a moment before turning back to me.
His voice is thick when he starts again.
“I take responsibility for that. My guards didn’t see him, didn’t find him in time. ”
His eyes fall to the deck between us. “I don’t know exactly what happened.
All I know is we heard shouting. Rem took off running, faster than he ever had before.
Even I couldn’t catch him. By the time I got there, he was crouched on the floor at the bottom of the stone steps, holding her.
There was blood everywhere, covering her, covering him.
He yelled at me to find Dane, so I knew it was him.
He was responsible. I tore through the halls, calling all the guards and setting everyone on a search.
I could hear Rem calling for the healers, and it was like the entire castle exploded in movement.
“I couldn’t focus on them, even though that was my entire purpose.
All I could do was try to find the man who harmed the queen.
By the time the entire castle had been searched and the guards were pouring out into the city, you had arrived.
It wasn’t the day that either of them wanted or talked about.
Her body couldn’t sustain the injury, and it put her into labor.
When I came to the throne room to update Rem on the search, he was holding you in his arms. It was the only time I’d ever seen you until I watched you walk through the paths on the island on the first day. ”
A sob erupts from my chest, and I try to cover it with my wrist. My fingers ache from where I grip the hilts so tightly as Weston’s words sink in. I refuse to drop these swords. They’re the only things keeping my hands from wringing my hair, or keeping me off the ground.
Weston’s brow softens. “We never thought he would hurt her, not after how much we saw he loved her. We were clearly wrong. I had the entire guard out looking for him, and the last thing I expected was to be the one who found him, especially not the next day as he was tackling me to the ground as I landed in Dawnlin. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when he stabbed me, like he’d been waiting for a while to do it.
Maybe he was seeing Rem, or saw it as a way to get back at him.
Maybe he partly blamed me for her disappearance in his life.
But it was all his fault. She wasn’t his to control, and he couldn’t handle that. ”
There’s a roaring in my ears as I try to keep everything I’m feeling firmly behind the wall I’ve constructed to get me through these few days, but this isn’t just about Dane and what he did. An entire lifetime of feeling roars to the surface, breaking the dam so I can’t hold it back any longer.
My face breaks, and Weston is on me in an instant. His swords clatter to the deck, and his hands find my face, his fingers weaving into my hair as he tilts my head back to look into my tear-filled eyes.
“He’s the one who took her away from me,” I cry through gritted teeth.
I can feel the sobs bubbling up in my throat.
“This whole time, my whole life, I thought it was me. I thought my birth caused this. It was my fault she was gone, that I grew up with no one. That’s why my father hated me, because I took her from him. ”
“No, sweetheart, it wasn’t.” He bends down and presses a firm kiss to my lips before pulling back, his gaze boring into mine. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t cause any of this. You were a victim, just like Rem was, like Lyla was. Rem should have fucking told you.”
I didn’t hurt my mother.
Waves of grief crash over me, and my knees almost buckle under the weight of it. Weston clutches me tighter, pulling me against him, and supporting me as everything I told myself comes back to the surface.
I took my mother away from my father, from my kingdom, from me.
I was responsible for her death, whether it happened when I was born, or when we finally let her go.
I’m the reason my father can’t stand to look at me, or be in the same room as me, because I caused him the most pain I could, and I wasn’t enough to soothe it.
I wasn’t enough.
But it wasn’t me. It was Dane.
As if Weston hasn’t done enough for me, given me enough, he gives me this gift.
His truth has broken the shackles I’ve kept myself in, and all the blame and guilt and despair can finally fall from my body.
But as they do, as I let go of everything I’ve settled on my shoulders, the entire reason I came here, it’s replaced by something even stronger.
White hot fury.
My teeth clench together in a grimace, and I squeeze my eyes shut until color flashes in the darkness.
Sobs wrack my body and slowly turn to animalistic grunts.
I wrap my hands around Weston’s wrists and squeeze, trying to ground myself to him, because I can’t handle the pain and anger coursing through me. Not alone.
“I hate him,” I growl. “I hate him so much.”
“I know.”
“He got away with it. He ruined her life, my childhood. And he just got away with it.”
“I know,” he says, sadder this time, but still strong.
For me.
Hot tears stream down my cheeks, and I let out a feral cry. It’s one I’ve had pent up inside me for years, that I could trust no one else to see or hear.
But I’m not alone anymore, and I don’t have to hide from him.
It explodes from my body, completely out of my control. My nails dig into Weston’s wrists, my forehead presses into his chest, but he doesn’t waver. He just holds me, and lets me feel.