Chapter 51- The Place I Stopped Escaping
Leaving should have felt dramatic.
At least that was how I always imagined departures when I was younger.
I thought important moments would announce themselves properly.
I imagined goodbyes happening beneath clear skies and long speeches.
I imagined people standing in rows, tears falling openly, promises made, dramatic music playing somewhere in the background as someone rode into uncertainty while everyone watched.
Instead....
people packed boxes.
Servants whispered about inventory. Someone complained quietly that one of my trunks had been overloaded with books.
A guard yawned near the stairs and immediately looked ashamed of himself.
And life continued.
I stood in the doorway of our chambers and watched people move around me, feeling strangely disconnected from it all, as though I had become someone observing their own life rather than living it.
No one rushed me.
No one told me to hurry.
No one said goodbye.
Which somehow made it harder.
Because if people cried, I could cry too. If people looked devastated, I could feel devastated. But nobody did. Everyone continued moving as though this wasn't a departure. As though I wasn't leaving. As though I would return before breakfast.
My eyes drifted around the room slowly.
The room looked cleaner than usual.
Not emptier.
Cleaner.
Like evidence of my existence had been carefully reduced.
The bookshelves looked strange now. Empty spaces between rows where books used to lean unevenly because I never put them back correctly.
One shelf remained crowded because, apparently, somebody decided that military reports deserved protection over novels, which felt deeply offensive.
The desk looked wrong, too.
Too organized.
Someone folded my blankets.
Someone cleaned my papers. Someone arranged my ink. Someone removed my clutter. The room looked less lived in. And I hated that immediately.
I realized something uncomfortable then.
I had become attached.
Not too luxurious.
Not to status.
Not to comfort.
To routine.
To familiarity.
To little things.
To finding books on my desk that I never requested and knowing exactly who placed them there while pretending he did not.
To hearing boots outside my room and recognizing who they belonged to, to tea arriving at the same hour.
Elias is entering without permission and insulting people before breakfast.
2 years ago, I wanted nothing more than to leave.
Now...
My chest hurt because I had to.
I looked away before anyone noticed.
Achille's hand remained wrapped around mine. Normally, I would make a joke about it. Normally, I would tease him. Normally, I would ask if the emperor feared his wife escaping.
But tonight i stayed quiet.
Everyone else talked enough.
Lillian kept speaking somewhere behind me. I only caught pieces.
Something about routes.
Something about horses.
Something about a servant accidentally smuggling six chickens last month: Veronica occasionally corrected details.
Achilles answered questions.
People moved.
Plans continued.
And I said nothing.
Not because I was upset.
Not because I disagreed.
My mind felt somewhere else. I listened to their voices without hearing words.
The room felt distant.
Like standing underwater while people spoke above the surface, my eyes moved slowly over familiar things.
The couch.
I smiled faintly.
That ridiculous couch.
The couch Achille claimed was superior to sharing a bed.
The couch where I found him asleep more than once, despite his insistence that rulers do not nap.
The couch where Veronica sat, sharpening weapons while giving deeply concerning advice.
The couch where Elias once lay dramatically and declared himself overworked before taking a three-hour nap.
The couch where I spent entire afternoons pretending to work.
When I finally stepped forward.
Achilles moved with me immediately.
The hallway stretched before us.
Massive.
Beautiful.
Unchanged.
Torchlight spilled warm gold across polished stone while banners hung high overhead.
The ceilings disappeared into shadow where generations of rulers had built upward instead of outward, as though trying to convince themselves that power could reach heaven if given enough money and poor architectural decisions.
The palace looked eternal.
Like it already knew it would outlive everyone inside it.
Maybe it already had.
Maybe these walls had watched thousands of people leave, thinking they mattered more than they did.
Kings.
Queens.
Children.
Lovers.
Enemies.
Maybe the palace remembered all of them.
Maybe it forgot all of them, too.
We walked slowly.
Too slow for urgency.
Too quickly for goodbye.
People moved around us.
Servants bowed.
Guards stepped aside.
Nobody asked questions.
Nobody stopped us.
Everyone knew enough not to ask. I wondered suddenly if they knew. If they knew this wasn't normal. If they knew I wasn't coming back tomorrow.
If they cared.
Then immediately felt guilty.
Of course, they cared.
I didn't want to think about it.
My hand tightened around Achilles's.
He noticed immediately.
He always noticed.
His thumb moved once against my skin.
Not enough to draw attention.
Just enough.
I know.
I looked at him briefly.
His face remained calm.
Too calm.
But I knew him now.
I knew the tightness in his shoulders. I knew the way his jaw locked. I knew the way his eyes kept checking me. I knew his calm. This wasn't calm.
This was restraint.
I looked away first.
My thoughts drifted again.
To the gardens.
The east garden.
My garden.
That felt strange to say.
Mine.
The isolated one. The one hidden away. The one only queens used. The fruit trees. The river. The benches. The place where I learned quiet didn't always mean loneliness.
I remembered sitting beside the water after difficult court meetings.
Taking my shoes off.
Putting my feet in the river.
Watching fish.
Watching birds.
Watching clouds.
Pretending I wasn't queen.
I remembered lying beneath trees, reading while pretending not to notice guards pretending not to watch me.
I remembered getting lost.
I remembered finding old paths. And had hoped that I could stay here forever.
Then my thoughts moved further. Beyond the walls. The city. The beautiful city. The people. The markets. The mountains.
Then to the strange place in the east.Savannah.The orphanage. The kingdom's favorite lie. The safe place. My hideaway.
I kept walking.
I kept smiling.
Because that was easier
I smiled even as my chest felt heavy, as my throat burned, and my eyes filled with tears. I smiled.
But my smile soon dropped when i saw it.
The entrance.
My feet stopped. My body refused.
I stared.
Everything became strangely quiet.
Not outside.
Inside.
People continued talking.
Moving.
Planning.
But I stopped hearing them.
I looked at the doors.
And all I could think about...
was the girl who entered them.
I remembered her.
Scared.
Small.
Trying not to cry. Trying to survive. The girl who ran away from home to what she thought was an earlier, less painful grave, the girl who gave up hope and just wanted to survive until the next sunrise.
As she entered her new prison. And stared up at her excursioner
She never imagined
She never thought that the people whom she had only seen as her jailers would one day become the closest thing she has to family.
The strange woman the world calls insane, who somehow became a mother. The annoying older man who became a father. The terrifying emperor who became home.
My throat closed.
And before I realized, Achilles turned toward me. His arms wrapped around me.
I did not resist.
I let my forehead rest against him.
And quietly, without warning, something inside me cracked. A sob escaped.
Soft.
Embarrassing.
Immediately
I whispered
"Sorry."
He pulled back enough to look at me, with quiet disappointment "I still don't like it when you apologize for hurting.
My laugh escaped quietly before I could stop it.
It surprised me. Not because the moment was particularly funny, but because laughter had started feeling strange lately.
Like something from another version of myself.
These past weeks had been full of physicians and whispered conversations and tired smiles and careful breathing and everyone watching me with the sort of softness people reserve for things they think might break.
So laughing felt unfamiliar.
I lifted my hand and wiped beneath my eyes before the tears fully settled because I refused to become one of those women who cried elegantly in moonlight while making everyone uncomfortable.
Then I looked at my husband and smiled.
"At least you don't threaten to kill me for it anymore.
" His expression remained completely still and unmoving.
I had learned that months ago. To people who did not know Achilles, he probably looked exactly the same all the time.
Cold. Detached. Mildly offended by existing.
Half his face moved less because of the scarring, and the rest of him had apparently declared emotions inefficient years ago.
But I knew him now.
I knew the slight changes.
The fraction of movement around his eye.
The tiny shift in his shoulders.
The almost invisible twitch near his mouth.
And right now, my husband looked deeply inconvenienced. He let out a slow breath and stared at me. "In my defense," he said calmly, "you made me consider violence."
I stared.
He continued as we slowly started walking again, our steps slowly sank into a perfect rhythm. "There are only so many times a person can hear the word sorry before it begins sounding like psychological warfare."
My smile widened immediately.
His gaze remained ahead.
"You apologized after every breath. You apologized for standing. You apologized for sitting. You apologized for speaking You apologized for asking questions."
His eyes shifted briefly toward me.
"You apologized for taking up space. I once watched you apologize because you sneezed."
I gasped.
His gaze immediately moved to me.
"You did."
"You apologized to a chair."
My eyes widened.
"That happened one time."
He looked offended.
"One time too many."
My laugh escaped again. His shoulders relaxed slightly. His voice lowered quietly.
"I started believing you spoke a different language." I looked at him.
"What?"
He nodded once. "I concluded that ' sorry must function as a sight word, as if the word ' the ' was replaced by sorry. ' He kept speaking."I considered finding scholars. i swear if someone opened your skull, they would find only one word bouncing around ."His eye moved toward me. "Sorry."
I hit his arm.
His expression remained offended.
I looked at him.
"That is not true."
His gaze stayed ahead.
"My love, there were many days that I considered puncturing my eardrums."
I gasped.
"or introducing my skull to the nearest wall."
I looked horrified.
He nodded once before chuckling.
"Repeatedly."
I laughed again.
I looked at him and dramatically placed my hand over my heart.
"Well." I sighed. "I am terribly sorry." Immediately, his eyes closed.
And I smiled. "I sincerely apologize for apologizing too much.
" He groaned quietly as I continued. "I deeply regret burdening you.
" His jaw tightened. I smiled wider. "I promise to improve.
" His eye opened slightly.I leaned closer.
"And I would like to apologize in advance for any future apologies."
His head tilted upward toward the ceiling while his shoulders slowly rose, then fell. He quietly mutters, "God give me strength." I burst into another laugh. His eye shifted toward me.
Then so softly I almost missed it. The corner of his mouth moved.
We continued walking.
The palace stretched endlessly around us while servants moved quietly around the late-night departure. Nobody stopped us. Nobody asked questions. Everyone simply continued moving as though this were ordinary.
"This is temporary."
I looked at him. His eyes remained steady. "Think of it as a vacation."
"This is a terrible vacation."
His shoulders shifted once.
His laugh.
His eye softened.
"You complained about being trapped in your room. Now you complain about leaving it."
His head tilted.
"Women are strange creatures."
I narrowed my eyes.
He continued. "You demand freedom. You receive freedom. Then become upset."
I looked offended.
He glanced at me.
"You need to be studied." I gasped. "There's something deeply wrong with you."
I hit him again. His expression remained unchanged. His hand moved behind my back. His voice lowered.
"But this is only temporary."
My throat tightened.
"Then I'll come and take you home."
I looked at him and simply nodded, because if I opened my mouth, I might cry. He leaned down as his lips touched mine
Slow.
Warm.
Familiar before pulling away his hand his hand pressed softly against my back guiding me forward towards the carige door entrance. Helping me as i slowly stepped inside. I sat carefully. Lillian entered behind me. before the door close behind her.