Chapter 20 #2
He tried to pull his hands away from my grip. He flinched, but I held tight. “It is nothing. Just a few small scrapes. I need to finish this section before the tide comes in. The structure is compromised.”
I tightened my grip. I refused to let him go.
His blood smeared across my pale fingers.
I stared at the ruin of his palms. These were the hands that held the royal scepter.
These were the hands that signed sovereign treaties and directed the future of a monarchy.
They had always been immaculate, perfectly manicured, and untouched by physical labor.
I remembered him touching my face at the altar, his skin smooth and flawless.
Now, they were destroyed. He had sacrificed his own flesh to rebuild my defenses.
He had ripped his hands apart lifting stones for a woman who had walked away from him.
“Look at me,” I commanded. I pulled on his wrists, forcing his attention back to my face.
He raised his head. His eyes met mine. The intense, unyielding gaze of a head of state was entirely gone. In its place, I saw raw, naked desperation. He looked like a man standing on the edge of a towering cliff, waiting to fall. The stoic armor he had worn for three years had cracked wide open.
“Why are you here?” I asked. The question hung in the cold air between us. “Why are you doing this?”
He swallowed hard. His throat bobbed. “Because,” he started. He stopped and took a ragged breath. The wind tore at his soaked coat. “Because I failed you.”
I stared at him. The ocean roared behind us, a chaotic and relentless noise that mirrored the sudden panic in my chest. The freezing wind cut through my coat, but I could not look away from his face.
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said.
His voice cracked on the last word. “I thought I had to be perfect. For the crown. For the alliances. For the throne. I believed I had to build a fortress around myself to protect our future. I treated our marriage like a diplomatic treaty. I treated your heart like a state secret to be managed and contained.”
He took a step closer. The mud sucked loudly at his boots. He did not break eye contact.
“My father taught me that a prince cannot afford the luxury of emotion,” he continued.
His words spilled out in a rushed, frantic stream.
“He taught me that vulnerability was a weakness our enemies would exploit. I locked away every soft part of myself. I thought I had to be cold to rule a kingdom. I thought strict duty meant absolute sacrifice. I sacrificed us. I starved the only person who kept me human. I built an empire of stone and glass, and I left you shivering in the dark.”
I watched the muscles in his jaw clench.
The rain began to fall again. Small, freezing drops hit my cheeks and ran down my neck.
I remembered the endless nights I had spent waiting for him.
I remembered the vast, empty rooms of the palace.
I had begged for his time, for his attention, for just a fraction of the man I had married.
I had watched him pour all his passion into statecraft, leaving nothing for his wife.
“I thought expensive gifts could apologize for my absence,” he said.
He shook his head, a gesture of deep self-loathing.
“I delegated my apologies to the royal aides. I sent you jewels and silk when you begged for my time. I treated my failures as a husband like administrative errors to be fixed by the treasury. I bought you diamond necklaces when you only wanted me to hold your hand. I thought absolute security was a substitute for love. I was wrong. I was so arrogant and so completely wrong.”
He dropped to his knees in the freezing mud. The impact splashed dirty water against my legs. He did not care about the ruin of his clothes. He did not care about the cold.
“Henrik,” I whispered. I tried to pull him up by his coat collar. The canvas was slick with rain.
He resisted. He gripped the hem of my cardigan with his bleeding hands. He buried his face in the thick wool of my cardigan. His broad shoulders shook. The Crown Prince was weeping into my sweater.
“I am nothing without you,” he sobbed. The sound tore through my chest. It was a raw, agonizing sound, devoid of any royal dignity. “I am a hollow prince. I have a throne and an army and a kingdom, and I have absolutely nothing. Because I do not have you.”
I stared down at the top of his head. The rain soaked into his dark hair, plastering it against his scalp.
Henrik never cried. He never showed weakness in the three years of our marriage.
He was the stoic prince. He was the unbreakable heir to the throne.
He was raised to be an untouchable symbol of power.
He was trained to never show a single crack in his armor.
Now, he was kneeling in the mud, begging for forgiveness from a woman he had neglected for years. The contrast shattered my own defenses.
“Get up,” I said. My voice was a hoarse whisper.
He shook his head. He refused to let go of my coat. His grip tightened, smearing more blood against the wool. “I will stay here until the tide takes me. If you do not forgive me, I will let the ocean have me. I cannot go back to that empty palace. I will not go back without you.”
“Stop acting like a child,” I snapped. I grabbed his shoulders and dug my fingers into his rigid muscles. The anger and the grief collided in my chest. “Get up.”
I hauled him to his feet. He swayed, completely unsteady on his feet. The exhaustion was finally catching up to him. I wrapped my arms around his waist to steady him. I felt the rigid tension in his back. He smelled of sweat, mud, and blood. The scent of the ocean clung to his skin.
He leaned down. His face was inches from mine. His breath was warm against my freezing skin. The dark circles under his eyes were stark against his pale skin.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I have always loved you. I will tear down the palace stone by stone if you ask me to. I will abdicate the throne tomorrow. I will sign away my birthright. I will be Henry the laborer for the rest of my life. Just let me stay. Let me stay here and build your walls. Let me protect you with my own hands instead of an army. Just do not send me away.”
I looked into his eyes. The desperation in them was absolute. The tall walls he had built around his heart were entirely gone. He was raw and bleeding and entirely mine. The prince was dead. Only the man remained.
I reached up and grabbed his face. My fingers smeared his blood and the mud across his cheek. I felt the rough stubble on his jaw. I pulled his face down to mine.
Our lips crashed together. The kiss was desperate and punishing.
It tasted of salt and rain and blood. It was a brutal collision of grief and relief.
He wrapped his massive arms around my waist, lifting my feet off the ground and crushing me against his soaked chest. I grabbed the lapels of his ruined coat and kissed him back with everything I had.