enjoyebooks CHAPTER 122
CHAPTER 122
POV: Alexandro
I learn about Evangeline’s marriage from a servant who doesn’t know my name anymore.
He’s young, new, nervous in that way people are when they speak to someone who used to matter. He spills wine while pouring it, apologizes too much, then blurts it out like confession will spare him punishment.
“The Duchess is… well, she’s Queen now. Married to King Sebastian. Has been for some time.”
The words don’t land all at once.
They arrive slowly, like blows measured by someone who wants me to stay conscious through them.
I grip the edge of the table. “Queen,” I repeat.
“Yes, my lord,” he says quickly. “Everyone says it was a fine match. Strategic.”
Strategic.
I nod once. “You may go.”
He leaves in a rush, the door closing too softly behind him.
I sit there long after, staring at the goblet, at the wine still trembling from his clumsy hands. Queen. Married. Gone.
Evangeline didn’t just leave the palace. She built a life without me. I press my palm against my chest, as if I can still the ache there. It doesn’t work.
Later that evening, Father calls me into his study.
“You know,” he says without preamble.
“Yes,” I reply.
He looks at me sharply. “You don’t ask questions.”
“I don’t have the right,” I say.
“That is correct,” he replies.
Silence stretches between us.
“She did well,” Father continues. “She fulfilled her duty.”
“I never doubted she would,” I say.
“She is respected,” he adds. “Secure.”
“I’m glad,” I lie.
Father studies me. “Are you?”
“Yes,” I say again.
He nods, satisfied with the performance. “Then you understand why you must remain invisible.”
“Yes.”
“You will not write to her,” he reiterates.
“I won’t.”
“You will not speak her name,” he adds.
I swallow. “Understood.”
“Good,” Father says. “Then we are clear.”
I leave before the questions choke me.
The nights are the worst.
I lie awake replaying moments I didn’t know were endings at the time. Evangeline sitting beside me in the gardens, whispering plans we never kept. Evangeline pressing her forehead to mine, promising we’d always choose each other over everything else.
“I’ll always stay by your side,” she said once.
I believed her. And I broke it first.
I find her name etched into the stone of my thoughts no matter how hard I try to scrub it out. I imagine her in another palace, another life, standing beside a man I’ve never met.
A king. I laugh once, bitter and quiet.
“I traded everything,” I whisper into the dark. “For nothing.”
Training becomes punishment I don’t resist. Every blow I take feels deserved. The swordmaster frowns at my compliance.
“You don’t fight back like you used to,” he says.
“I don’t need to win,” I reply. “I just need to endure.”
He doesn’t understand that endurance is the only thing I have left.
One afternoon, I pass a group of courtiers whispering.
“That’s him,” one says. “The son who ran.”
“Pathetic,” another murmurs.
I keep walking. Their words don’t wound anymore. They confirm. I ask Mother once—only once.
“She didn’t ask about me?” I say quietly as she pours tea.
Mother’s hand stills. “She did.”
Hope flares painfully. “What did she say?”
Mother meets my eyes. “She asked if you were alive.”
I close my eyes. “And?”
“I told her you were… occupied,” Mother says. “That it was best not to reopen old ties.”
I nod slowly. “Of course.”
“She cried,” Mother adds, as if offering consolation.
That hurts more than silence would have.
“She deserved better than me,” I say.
Mother doesn’t argue.
***
Weeks pass.
I become a shadow in the halls. A name people lower their voices around. A reminder of what happens when love outruns obedience.
I stop asking questions.
I stop imagining reunion.
Silence becomes my sentence, my shield, my penance.
One evening, I stand by the western window, watching the sun dip behind the hills. Somewhere beyond them, Evangeline lives a life I no longer belong to.
“I hope you’re happy,” I whisper.
The words feel hollow, but I mean them.
Because loving her now means letting her go completely.
And that realization—sharp, final, irreversible—is the true cost of the freedom I once chased.
Not exile. Not humiliation. But knowing that by choosing myself, I lost the one person who would have chosen me back. Too late.