Chapter 38 - The Apology That Cut
Her apology is too clean.
That's the first thing I notice.
"I'm sorry," Isla says behind me.
Not trembling.
Not choking on tears.
Soft. Careful. Polished.
Like she practiced it until it sounded harmless.
I don't turn around.
Instead, I cross the room to the sideboard, my footsteps measured, my spine straight despite the unease crawling under my skin.
The decanter waits where I left it, crystal thick and cool beneath my fingers.
Candlelight fractures through the glass, turning the wine inside the color of garnet, of old blood trapped in stone.
I pour.
The liquid spirals into the goblet without a single spill. My hands don't shake.
That should frighten me.
It doesn't.
"I'm truly sorry, Isabella."
My back stays to her.
I should look at her.
I should ask what she's apologizing for.
But every lesson I learned the hard way, every scar earned through betrayal, every name carved into my memory by loss, is screaming that this moment is wrong.
Too quiet.
Too neat.
Too rehearsed.
She steps closer.
I hear the whisper of silk over stone. Lavender follows her heavy, cloying, clinging like a lie meant to soften edges already sharp. My jaw tightens.
"I never meant for it to go that far," she says. "I didn't think—"
The decanter touches the wood.
Pain detonates in my side.
For a heartbeat, my mind refuses to understand it. There's only heat, pressure, a violent rupture of breath torn from my lungs—the room tilts. Sound dulls. Then reality crashes in all at once.
The blade.
Inside me.
Wedged between my ribs with intimate precision—not wild, not panicked. Chosen.
She pulls it out.
I feel it leaves me like something vital tearing free.
She raises it again.
Instinct takes over.
I spin. My hand clamps around her wrist mid-strike, and I slam it down into the desk so hard the impact rattles my bones. The dagger skids across parchment, clattering to the floor. Isla screams high and sharp.
That's when the rage hits.
Not hot.
Not blind.
Cold. Focused. Old.
I grab her by the hair and smash her face into the desk.
Once.
The crack of bone against wood echoes through the chamber.
Twice.
Ink bursts across maps and treaties like spilled veins.
Again.
"You STUPID," I snarl, blood already soaking through my gown, my fingers slick and hot as they fist in her hair, "TREACHEROUS—"
Slam.
"SPINELESS—"
Slam.
"CUNT."
The desk shudders—scrolls slide and tear. Quills scatter, snapping beneath our feet. Isla sobs now, hands flailing uselessly, nails scraping against wood, breath hitching in broken, animal sounds.
"Is this what you do?" I roar. "Is this who you are?"
I haul her up to drive her back down.
"You plot," slam,
"You scheme," slam,
"You fucking stab?"
Her face is bloodied now, lip split, eyes wide with terror.
"I was afraid—!"
"AFRAID?" I laugh, sharp and cracked, my own blood running warm down my side. "You miserable little viper, and you think fear excuses this?"
I drag her upright again, my face inches from hers. She smells of sweat and panic beneath the lavender—my breath saws in and out of my chest.
"You are a disease that i will cure."
Her nails rake my arm. I barely feel it.
I drag her toward the door.
The hallway falls silent when it opens.
Servants freeze mid-step. Nobles stare, pale and rigid. Guards tense, hands hovering near hilts, unsure whether to kneel or intervene.
I don't care.
"MOVE," I snarl.
They scatter.
Isla screams for help.
No one answers.
"Please!" she sobs. "Isabella, please!"
I wrench her head back so hard I feel the sharp give in her neck.
"SHUT UP."
The dungeon yawns ahead, cold stone, iron bars, a place that remembers screams.
I don't wait for guards.
I throw her inside myself.
She stumbles, slams into the bars, gasping. I shove her again hard enough that she hits the back wall and collapses to her knees.
The door slams shut.
The sound echoes through the corridor like judgment.
"You will rot here," I tell her, chest heaving. "You will think about every breath you wasted pretending to be my sister."
She crawls toward the bars, fingers clutching iron, sobbing.
"I didn't mean to—!"
I turn away.
Only then do I press my hand to my side.
Blood coats my fingers, warm, slick, undeniable.
Guards finally rush forward, faces blanched.
"She gets nothing, not even a loaf of bread," I snap. "And if anyone lets her out without my word, I will personally end their entire fucking bloodline."
Silence.
Then obedience.
As I walk back through the corridor, servants rush toward me, maids, hands reaching, voices trembling.
"DON'T TOUCH ME."
They recoil instantly.
I reach my chambers alone.
The door closes behind me with a sound that feels too final.
The quiet that follows is not peace.
It is the kind of silence that presses inward, heavy, watchful, like the walls are waiting to see whether I will fall.
My hand braces against the vanity, fingers slipping in my own blood. The mirror stares back at me without mercy: pale skin smeared crimson, hair loose and wild, eyes hollowed by something far worse than pain.
I laugh once, short and broken.
Of course, she tried to kill me.
Of course, she should.
The rum burns as I drink it straight from the bottle, uncaring, desperate for anything that dulls the sharp edge digging into my ribs. I tear the ruined gown from my body and let it pool on the floor like a corpse I don't have the energy to bury.
I try to stitch the wound myself.
My hands won't stop shaking.
Thread slips. Needle bites wrong. Pain blooms white-hot, and I hiss through my teeth, anger flaring hotter than the injury itself. I have sewn men back together on battlefields. I have held my own organs in place while others worked.
But this—
This is different.
My knees finally give, and I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the cold stone floor, surrounded by bloody rags and failed resolve.
That's when the door opens.
"Get out," I rasp without looking.
"Ignore her," Dante says calmly to someone behind him. "Just set it down."
My head lifts.
He's already rolling his sleeves, already soaking a cloth, already here as he belongs in this moment of ruin. The sight of him, solid, honest, unyielding, nearly undoes me.
"Sit," he says.
Not a command meant to dominate.
A certainty meant to hold.
I don't argue. I don't have the strength.
He guides me to the chair, kneeling before Him. His hands are steady, practiced, gentle without softness.
"You'll live," he says quietly as he examines the injury. "She didn't hit anything vital."
Something inside me twists.
"I won't let you bleed out tonight."
The words shouldn't matter.
They do.
He cleans the wound thoroughly, murmuring warnings before the sting, threading the needle with ruthless efficiency. I cry not loudly, not dramatically, but silently, tears slipping down my face as my body trembles with exhaustion and shock.
When he's done, he binds me properly, seals the damage, and turns to the door.
"Take these away," he says to someone unseen.
Then he closes the door again.
Locks it.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing, lays me on the bed, removes his coat, the outer layers of a king who knows when to stop being steel.
And then he lies beside me.
The moment his arms close around me, I shatter.
My sobs tear out of me raw and uncontrolled. My body shakes violently, grief and rage and betrayal crashing through me all at once. I clutch his shirt like it's the only thing anchoring me to the world.
He doesn't tell me to be strong.
He doesn't ask me to calm down.
He holds me firm, like he's bracing against the storm with me.
"I was ten," he says quietly after a long while.
His voice is low, rougher than I've ever heard it.
"Old enough to remember everything. Young enough to believe lies."
My breath catches.
"My mother told me she loved me," he continues. "She said I was her heart. Her pride. Her reason for surviving a court that wanted her silent."
His fingers tighten on my back.
"She sold me anyway."
The words sink into me slowly, like poison.
"She handed me to men who promised power. Promised safety. Promised her survival in exchange for my blood." His breath shudders. "I watched her sign the agreement. I watched her smile while she did it."
I feel something in my chest crack open.
"That was the day I learned something no crown ever teaches you," Dante murmurs.
"Love doesn't die when you're betrayed."
His hand slides up, cradling the back of my head, grounding me.
" It rots."
Tears spill faster.
"Beautiful memories rot when you discover the true face of falsehood," he says. "The moments that once kept you warm turn sharp. Jagged. They cut deeper every time you remember them."
"You start to hate the memories more than the betrayal," he whispers. "Because they prove you were once foolish enough to trust."
My fingers twist tighter in his shirt.
"They tell you blood is sacred," he continues. "That family protects family. That love forgives."
A bitter sound escapes him.
"It doesn't."
His thumb brushes my cheek, wiping away tears he doesn't comment on.
"When strangers betray you, it wounds," he says softly. "But when family does it..."
His voice drops.
"It rewrites you."
I sob harder, my face pressed into his chest.
"You keep loving them," he says. "That's the cruelest part. Love doesn't die when it should. It lingers—long after it's become poison."
His arms tighten around me.
"And you spend the rest of your life carrying a wound you cannot bear... and cannot bring yourself to close."
Silence stretches, thick and intimate.
"I know what she took from you tonight," he says at last. "Not your blood. Not your strength."
I nod against him, breath hitching.
"You are not weak for still loving her," Dante murmurs. "And you are not wrong for hating her."
"Both can exist," he says.
His hand moves slowly through my hair, soothing.
"Sleep," he whispers. "I'll be here."
I feel his lips brush my temple—gentle, reverent.
"When you wake up, I'll always be here ."