41. Back again #2
Dorian swoops in to stop her from falling. His arms feel awful around her. She wants to melt into them. She can’t.
This isn’t her Dorian. He doesn’t understand .
Dorian doesn’t gather her up, like he did when she fell from the horse. He steadies her at the elbow, searching for a seat, for help, for someone to assist. He’s calling for someone.
No, no, don’t do that.
“You promised,” she murmurs, “ I promised…”
“What’s that?”
She told him she would tell him, if the worst should happen, but the truth of the matter is that she never believed he’d forget. Not after all this time.
What had gone wrong?
But then a flicker of desperate hope rises inside her. Soren didn’t always remember at the same time, either. Maybe Dorian just needs a few more days—
“Soren,” she whispers.
Dorian freezes. “How do you know that name?”
“Soren… he didn’t always remember either, not immediately—is he here? Has he spoken to you this morning?”
“Soren is back at Ebonrose Hall,” Dorian tells her.
Selene’s heart sinks. If he is, then he likely doesn’t remember either. Because if he did, he would have come to Roselune Abbey with Dorian. He would have told him.
Awful realisation dawns.
She’s all alone.
“How do you know Soren?”
“He’s my… he’s my friend…” she manages. “Or… or he was…”
“You aren’t making much sense, Lady Selene.”
She can barely hear him. She can barely hear anything. She knows that she isn’t making sense.
But she promised.
“You made me promise I’d tell you if you forgot,” she murmurs.
“Forgot what?”
“Everything.” Selene stops walking. She forces herself to stand, wiggling out of his grasp and clutching him instead. “This is going to sound impossible,” she begins, “but I need you to listen. It’s very, very important that you do. ”
Dorian frowns. His eyes glance behind her, as if searching for an escape. “All… right.”
“Time travel is real,” she says quickly, getting the most important part over and done with, “I know this, because I’ve come back in time twice. And you’ve been back in time so many times you’ve lost count.”
“Lady Selene, are you sure you’re quite well?”
“You’re spying on Duke Drakefell,” she tells him. “He murdered your father.”
Dorian’s entire body freezes, as if she’s drenched him in cold water. “That’s a very serious allegation, Lady Selene.”
“But you know I’m right. You know he’s planning something. An alliance with Ashvold.”
Dorian eyes flit away from her.
He thinks it’s a trick, she realises. He thinks I’m trying to get him to admit something.
She needs something else. Some proof that she isn’t working with someone else. Proof that she knows him.
“In this previous timeline, you and I… we knew each other well. I know you kept the handkerchief I gave to you at your father’s funeral.”
His jaw tightens. “Lady Selene, that’s not really—”
“Your favourite horse is called Hoovian. You’re a bit embarrassed by the name.
You live with your half-cousin, Ariella, but she’s basically your sister, and Rookwood, and Soren.
He’s a former assassin from Ashvold, and you love him like a brother.
Your Aunt Elizabeth, she teases you all mercilessly and gets on Ariella’s nerves, but she loves you all far more than she’ll ever let on. ”
She watches his face closely. His shoulders tense, his lips part slightly—shock, disbelief, something deeper swirling behind his eyes.
Then, a sharper flinch. A breath drawn too fast.
“Rookwood really likes Aunt Elizabeth,” she presses onwards, “but he likes Ariella more. He’s been in love with her most of his life.
I don’t think he’s so much as looked at another woman.
He grew up in an orphanage, he has a wooden leg.
He had to stop entering the strawberry festival competition because he won every time, and you…
” She pauses, gathering her breath. “You hate judging the competition. You like people, but not large groups. You prefer the quiet. You work so hard and you think others don’t really notice, but you don’t mind that much.
And they do notice. Your family thinks you’re wonderful. ” I think you’re wonderful too.
Dorian presses a hand over his mouth, turns slightly away from her. His breathing is uneven, his composure unraveling thread by thread.
“You prefer savoury food to sweet,” she continues, softer now, like she’s afraid he’ll shatter if she pushes too hard.
“You doodle flowers in your margins—roses, usually, for the Duskbriar house. You collect wooden figurines of horses. I think Soren makes you one every year. He likes to carve things. You like to fence—often with him, although he wins all the time because he is a literal assassin and you only do it for fun. You love to ride, too. You never take a carriage unless you can’t avoid it.
You don’t even keep a driver or a stablemaster—you and Soren do it all.
You do everything you can, for everyone you can.
A lot of the time, you tell yourself you’re just doing what your father would have wanted, but I don’t think that’s true.
It’s just the person you are, Dorian. You’re selfless, and kind to a fault, and I know you make yourself invisible at parties but to me, to anyone who knows you—you shine. ”
Dorian staggers back, like the weight of her words is too much. His eyes glisten, and for a moment, she thinks he might say something. But then he exhales sharply and turns away, running a hand through his hair.
“This is all…” His voice is hoarse, uneven. “This is too much.”
He takes a step back. Then another. He doesn’t meet her eyes.
“Forgive me, I must—”
And then he’s gone.
Selene waits.
She tells herself he’ll come back. He only needs a moment.
A breath. A chance to steady himself. She has given him too much, too quickly—of course he needs time.
It had taken Soren days before to catch up to him, before he awoke one morning with his memories returned.
Maybe it’s the same for Dorian. He just needs a few moments. A few days.
She presses her fingers together, trying to ground herself. She can wait.
Minutes pass. Longer.
The sun rises higher or sinks lower. It moves, and she doesn’t. The garden remains empty. No hurried footsteps, no shadow stretching along the lawn before he reappears.
Selene wraps her arms around herself, suddenly cold.
He’s not coming back.
She clings to the hope that he just needs longer, lets it fill the spaces between her ribs where dread has begun to curl. All is not lost.
But something is wrong.
She can feel it, an awful pressure in her chest, like a storm gathering just beneath her skin. Something has gone very, very wrong. Dorian hasn’t come back. Neither has Soren. Time hasn’t reversed like it should.
Dorian was worried that this could happen. He’d been dying in her arms, terrified of it. Even before then, he voiced his concerns that they were using something up, that the Goddess’ power wouldn’t last forever.
This—this was as good as she could do. One person. Five months.
And, for whatever reason, she’d chosen Selene.
Her breath hitches. Her throat tightens.
No.
No.
She presses her hands to her temples, trying to will away the panic, but it only swells, swallowing reason whole. She takes a step forward, then another, and suddenly she can’t breathe—
She lets out a scream.
It rips from her lungs before she even realises she’s making a sound, raw and desperate and echoing through the grounds. She screams and she screams and she screams—
Far away, doors open. Footsteps thunder toward her. Voices rise in alarm.
Someone grips her shoulders. Another voice—sharp, demanding. “Lady Selene! What happened? What’s wrong?”
She gasps for breath, shuddering, shaking her head because she doesn’t know how to explain it.
She only knows one thing.
Dorian is gone.