Her back stiffened, the air in the room suddenly suffocating. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said, cutting me off.
“But Eva—”
“I. Said.No.”
I shut my mouth, studying the tightness in her features. “Alright,” I said, raising my hands in surrender. “I won’t push you. Just know the offer is there if you want it.”
Eva looked away, her jaw clenched tight as she silently fought with herself. Instead, she just whispered, “I’d like to leave now.”
My brows raised. “Are you sure? You can stay here as long as you like—”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Please, Kalen. I said I’d like to go.”
Eva didn’t look back as I pressed my hand to the small of her back and guided her out of the room.
* * *
We walkedin solemn silence out of the caverns and down the corridors to her rooms. Gone was the teasing banter we had exchanged earlier in the day. I cursed myself for pushing her further than I should have. I knew better, having sensed she was reaching the end of our conversation, and yet I kept going.
I’d been in Eva’s place before, knew the hell she was going through. Honestly, there was no way to forget how it felt in those weeks after Arabella’s death. People had no sense of respect for the grief of others. They would bombard you with their condolences, popping in unannounced when you only wanted to be left alone. And because of my supposed value in that godsforsaken war, I wasn’t offered the time to mourn the loss of my wife. Only a week had passed before I received my orders to return to battle.
I never went back to the home we shared, not even when my time amidst the bloodshed was finished. By then, Matt and I had banded together and never looked back. Our allegiance to one another was voluntary, but we stayed by each other’s side because neither of us had any interest in going back to the lonely lives we led before.
Over the century, my family had tried to contact me—tried, and failed miserably. I refused every raven they’d sent, tossing the letters in the trash. They would all say the same thing—that I was throwing away my life, my title, my birthright. As if I wanted any of that to begin with. My father had killed that desire long ago.
Only once had my mother traveled the continent to see me at Matt’s estate. They had tricked me. She had written, asking for permission to see me. He’d agreed behind my back, not uttering a single word about her visit until the day she arrived. I was furious. Betrayed by the one person in this world I trusted above all others, but he knew I could make amends with my mother while he hadn’t been able to. It was a regret, he said, that he never recovered from.
She showed up during the early spring, a time when Matt’s estate was rousing from its dreary winter slumber. Flowers bloomed, vines and trees returning to a lush green with the recent downpour of rain. When I had finally agreed to meet with her, we sat across from one another in tense silence. Though she was still beautiful, weariness laid upon her face that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen her.
She looked weary. Deep lines framed her mouth, smaller ones spreading around the edges of her eyes. Her once sunny blonde hair, the same as I’d inherited, was dull and graying. What had happened to the woman I used to know?
My mother stared down at her hands, not even acknowledging the tea a maid sat in front of her. Finally, she looked up at me, her stare pleading as she begged me to come home. I used to love my mother more than anything else in the world. She was graceful and kind hearted. A gentle soul who tended her gardens because she vowed to leave the world more beautiful than she had found it.
My father, though, had seen her disposition as a hindrance on his way to power. She had allowed him to trample her free spirit and rule his home with an iron fist—one I became accustomed to as I was growing up. He used the same tactic in their marriage. I had thrown myself into the middle of their arguments more times than I could count, taking a lashing for my interference. No matter how much I begged her to leave him, but she never did.
Shaking my head, I cleared the thoughts away. “I’m sorry, Eva—for earlier. I shouldn’t have pushed you to discuss something you weren’t comfortable with, nor—”
She cut me off with a sharp look, but she took my hand in hers. “There is no need to apologize. I know you meant well, I just…” she trailed off, slowing her steps. “After my mother died, I threw myself into the war and sought revenge on her behalf. I could do that again, even easier than last time.”
I sensed her hesitation. “But?”
“But I lost a piece of myself when that happened, and I don’t think I can ever recover it. It is a wound that still has not healed, even after a century.” Her eyes met mine. “I will do anything it takes to win this war and avenge my sister’s death, but I know I may not come back from that loss if I let it take me over. What if,” she sobbed quietly. “What if Matthew does not love me when this is over? What if I change so extensively that he cannot bear to look at me?”
I wrapped my arms around her body, her muffled, broken whimpers the only sound around us. “Don’t ever doubt the depth of his love for you, Eva.” It was all I could say as she cried in my arms. “I was with him while the two of you were separated, and I have never seen a man so desperate to get back to the woman he loves. There wasn’t a day or moment when you weren’t on his mind, and with each second that passed, his love for you only grew. Don’t discount that for anything.”
I looked up to see Matt leaning against a pillar with his arms crossed. He’d sensed her sorrow as soon as we crossed the threshold for the caverns, I realized. Instead of running in, he put his trust in me to bring her home to his arms.
The look on his face told me he had heard every word. His brows furrowed before fixing his expression and pushing off of the column. Each step was clipped and precise, the only hint of aggravation in his demeanor. But not at her. Never at her.
Eva unwound herself from my arms and peeked over her shoulder. Her body hunched forward, as if the exhaustion of the day was finally coming to claim her.
Matt said nothing, bending forward to pick Eva up and wrap her arms around his neck. Watching them sent small flares of pain fluttering in my chest. It was stupid, especially knowing how Arabella betrayed me so severely. Even though I didn’t deign to utter the words, I missed the companionship a partner offered.
I rubbed at my chest, easing the pain of my tension. It’d become a habit, one that Renai called me out on when we were alone. The conversation with Eva, the obvious way her mind struggled to reconcile reality and her fears, had brought up things I’d been repressing the past few days.
I’d been able to put it off, not focusing on my own turmoil until now. It might as well have been locked away in a small room, banging on a bolted door with an iron fist. But with each day that passed, that persistent knocking grew worse. Fractures were already beginning to show, and I knew it wouldn’t take much to obliterate the façade I’d carefully crafted.
Chapter8
