She was dead.
No matter how hard he tried, she would never reply again.
“No. You have to wake up. For our baby. Our baby, Allie.” Kalon buried his face in her neck, cradling her against him, and his words were raw through his gut-wrenching sobs. “Please wake up. My Allie…”
***
Tears streamed down my face. There was a heaving pain in my chest that felt as though I’d just been through ten breakups, and I did the only thing I could do in that moment.
I curled into a ball on this stupid divine sun lounger and cried until my stomach burned and I was on the brink of dehydration.
“You lied,” I whispered to God, burying my face in my hands. “You said nothing could hurt me here.”
“I am truly sorry,” he said softly. “I know that must have been difficult for you.”
“How… why?” I peered through my fingers at him, then wiped the last of my tears. “Explain. Please.”
He sighed heavily and linked his fingers together, leaning forwards. “That’s an amalgamation of memories. Technically against my rules, but naturally, your memory of that moment ended when you died, so I borrowed a few bits and pieces from others who were there to show you the full picture.”
“How can you call that the full picture? There’s no resolution for my death.”
“You pulled yourself out of the memory sequence before it could complete.”
“Can you finish it? Tell me, don’t show me. Bloody hell, I can’t do that again.” I wrapped my arms around my stomach.
“After your death, Kalon went on a rampage to uncover the culprit behind it. The maid was snuck in under the guise of the party and lay in wait for her chance. It was easy for her, as you’d changed out some staff following Kalon’s rise to Crown Prince.”
“How did that happen?”
God paused. “Torin loved you in your first life, but you rejected him in favour of Kalon because you truly loved him. He never got over it, even after he married Lillia. He hated that Lillia also loved his brother, despite the fact their marriage was for show, and became hellbent on getting revenge against Kalon for stealing you from him.”
A prince with an inferiority complex. What a novel concept.
“He and the Empress conspired to usurp the throne as part of their plan, but you and Kalon were able to stop them before it could happen. Torin and Lillia were forced to divorce, stripped of their titles, and exiled to separate countries while the Empress was imprisoned. Somehow, she was able to contact Torin, and they used black magic to change Lillia’s appearance so she could sneak into the castle during the party.”
I swallowed.
Wow.
“So, Lillia was the one to poison me?”
“Yes.” He sighed again. “Torin wanted to inflict as much pain upon Kalon as he could and killing you and your unborn child was the easiest way for him to do that. He convinced Lillia to do it by saying that your death would mean she could have Kalon, and she fell for it. He knew Kalon would never love anyone but you, so his plan meant he could destroy all the people who’d hurt him in one swoop.”
I closed my eyes for a moment. “That… is unfathomably cruel.”
“It is. Kalon’s anger at having lost you was terrifying, and I cannot be harmed, so to say I feared him is quite something.” His shoulders drooped. “In the end, he was able to enact justice and killed all three of them with his own hands for what they did to you.”
My heart clenched. “How did the world get stuck in a time loop?”
“That was entirely my mistake. There’s a temple within the deepest part of the Imperial Palace reserved for the Imperial Family. He came there to tell me he wasn’t going to repent for his sins but instead begged me to turn back time so he could have another chance at life with you. I knew he wasn’t in his right mind, but after seeing him so broken, I agreed.”
I jerked up to sitting. “You really did that?”
“I did. I fully intended for him to return with his memories of his past life, but something went wrong, and the world regressed to a time before you’d ever met. He had no recollection of your previous time together.” He clenched his jaw. “None of you knew what you’d been through, and I had to watch three more times as one of my most precious souls, a rare one capable of wielding both mana and divine power, was killed in cold blood. The method they used varied; but you died because of the same three people each time. Until I couldn’t take it anymore and I swapped your soul with another.”
No way. “You tried to save my soul?”
“I did. It was selfish, but I was confident you wouldn’t remember your past life, especially after some time in the fountain of reincarnation.”
