Chapter 157
Chapter 157
Henriette pulled back from Roberto’s embrace, her cheeks flushed though her expression was conflicted. She clasped her hands together, trying to steady the racing of her heart.
“Ready to return with me to my kingdom?” Roberto asked, his voice rich with confidence, his smile broad and triumphant. “I regretted not asking you to come with me in the first place.”
Henriette’s throat tightened. She swallowed, her lips parting as her words stumbled into the air. “There is something I have to tell you,” she began, her voice trembling. Every word scraped against her throat, heavy and uncertain, because how could she explain? How could she admit she had fallen in love with another man, that she could not give her heart until she found herself again?
But before she could go on, Roberto’s gaze shifted past her shoulder, and his smile turned sharp.
“Looks like those two are happy,” he interrupted smoothly.
Henriette spun, her eyes widening.
Across the garden, beneath the shadow of the old oak, she saw them. King Arin, kneeling on one knee before Queen Henriette, the queen’s hand resting lightly against his shoulder.
The sight pierced her chest like a blade.
Her breath faltered, her vision blurred, and it felt as though the earth itself had crumbled beneath her. On one knee… for her. For her, not me.
Her heart twisted painfully, shattering in silence, the weight of betrayal pressing down until she could scarcely breathe.
“So,” Arin’s voice rang out, low and steady, though each word felt like a dagger aimed at her chest, “what is it you want to tell me?”
Henriette’s lips trembled. The truth, her truth, burned against her tongue, begging to be spoken. But the agony in her chest was too sharp, the wound too raw. The words withered before they could leave her.
“I’ve… forgot,” she whispered, her voice hollow and brittle as glass.
She forced herself to turn back to Roberto, to meet his eager gaze, though her heart, her fractured, bleeding heart—remained with the man kneeling to another woman.
That night, the castle lay quiet, the festivities of King Roberto’s arrival silenced by the weight of political undercurrents that whispered through the halls. Yet within Henriette’s chambers, silence gave her no peace.
She shut the heavy oak door behind her, leaning against it as though it alone kept her upright. The air smelled faintly of lavender from the hearthside brazier, but its soothing sweetness mocked her. She pressed trembling hands to her face, and at last, the composure she had worn in the gardens shattered.
Sobs tore from her throat, raw and broken. She stumbled toward the bed, her vision blurred by tears. The silken sheets, the carved posts, the soft cushions, none of it offered comfort. She collapsed onto the mattress, burying her face into the pillows, muffling the sounds that clawed out of her chest.
She had prepared herself for many futures, for Roberto’s persistence, for the queen’s scorn, even for her own rejection, but not for this. Not for the sight of King Arin kneeling before another woman, pledging what she had secretly prayed he would pledge to her. It replayed in her mind with merciless clarity: the way his shoulders squared, the certainty in his posture, the unspoken promise that belonged to the queen and not to her.
“I thought…” Her voice cracked as she spoke into the darkness, though no one heard. “I thought you were mine. I thought you felt it too.” Her fingers curled into the sheets, twisting them as though she could wring the ache from her heart.
Her body shook, wave after wave of grief breaking against her until she could hardly breathe. At last, the sobs dwindled into quiet gasps, leaving her hollow, her throat raw. She rolled onto her back, staring at the canopy above. Shadows danced across the embroidered fabric in the firelight, cruel in their beauty.
But the tears did not stop. They slid silently now, streaking her temples, soaking into her hair. Her heart felt torn beyond repair, as though every beat echoed with a question she could not silence: Why her and not me?
Across the castle, King Arin lay in his own chamber, though sleep eluded him entirely. He sat on the edge of his bed, the firelight painting his features in restless gold. The queen’s hand had been soft in his own, her smile radiant when he knelt before her, yet the moment felt hollow even as it unfolded.
He had spoken the words of a man fulfilling duty, but his heart had been elsewhere. It had been with Henriette, standing just beyond his reach, her eyes wide with shock and hurt when she saw him kneel. He had seen the way she flinched, the way her expression fractured for only a heartbeat before she hid it. That single look haunted him now.
What have I done?
He pressed his hands against his knees, his knuckles whitening with the effort to contain his turmoil. The queen had been everything he once thought he wanted, everything his younger self had dreamed of attaining. And yet, with the dream finally within his grasp, it tasted of ash.
It was Henriette’s laughter that lingered in his memory, Henriette’s quiet strength, Henriette’s eyes that seemed to see past his crown and into the man beneath it.
He lay back at last, staring up at the ceiling, but his body refused rest. The silence of the chamber was suffocating, thick with the weight of his unspoken truth. He had chosen the mask of duty, and in doing so, he had betrayed the one thing that might have saved him, onesty.
Through the walls of stone and silence, Henriette wept herself into exhaustion, and Arin stared sleepless into the dark. Two hearts, broken in different chambers, bound by the same torment: the love they could not name, the choice that kept them apart.