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Her eyes widen, but not in a good way. “Oh no … oh no, no, no …”
“What?” My eyes widen when hers do too.
“You can’t be pregnant. That means he’s … Oh God. This explains everything.” She’s starting to panic while I’m standing here with a cup of hot tea in my hands.
“Tell me!” I say.
I didn’t mean to speak so harshly, but I care. I care too much.
She takes in a deep breath. “Well, I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you, and I don’t know if Eli even realizes I remember, but he once told me that the person who governs must pick one woman to be his wife, and she must bear him a child. That child will continue the line. But they can’t ever pick a new one. They can’t ever choose differently.”
And Eli chose me, out of all the girls he could ever pick?
Even though I wasn’t going to agree out of my own free will?
My stomach almost does a backflip.
“And you are no longer with him since he sent you away,” she adds, “which means he failed his duty.”
“So what now?” She looks at me like I’m supposed to know the answer, but I don’t.
“He never told you, did he?”
I shake my head.
“The ultimate punishment for the sins they themselves committed … for failing their own rules… is death.”
Chapter 26
Amelia
My eyes widen. My knees feel weak, and my hands unsteady. The cup drops to the floor, shattering into a million tiny bits.
“When he chose to send you away, he knew he had defied the most important rule, so he—”
My lips part. “Stop.”
Everything suddenly clicks into place.
His incessant need to stop himself from going too far every time he entered my room. How hard he tried to make me remember even though he knew it would make me hate him. His need to fix me, to seek me out and make me come back with him, despite knowing I desired freedom more than anything.
He did it all because he knew this was going to happen.
Because he knew he would have to face his sins eventually.
That it would mean his death.
And he begged me.
Please.
I still hear him in my head, pleading for me to come with him, to stay with him, to be his.
He even showed me the real truth behind his plans, the woman he had paid to ruin my world just so he could have me. He knew what it would do to me to know this truth, what kind of agony it would inflict on me, and he showed me anyway.
Because he wanted to beg me for forgiveness.
Because he needed my love … to live.
And I took it all away from him because I couldn’t bear the thought of being locked up in that mansion like some pet waiting to serve her husband and her child.
Because I was selfish and wanted to continue my life here in this apartment as though nothing ever happened.
And it cost him everything, willingly.
He gave it all up because of me. So I could be happy.
And nothing, not even murdering my own boyfriend, has ever split me in half as much as coming to this realization.
I cannot let him die.
So I grab my coat, pack my bag, and run out the door with Mary on my tail. “Take me to him. Now.”
Eli
I stand on the balcony at the highest floor of this mansion. I rarely ever come here, but I’m glad today out of all days is the one I chose because the sky is so clear and the view is wonderful from all the way up here.
Normally, it’s closed off, but I’ve made the exception and unlocked the doors specifically for today. I, and only I, am allowed to come here. I’ve made that clear to everyone here. No one tried to stop me, not because they don’t care, but because they know it’s impossible.
I have long made up my mind.
This is how it’s supposed to end.
And if you ask me, it’s a pretty gentle way to go. Compared to all the pain I’ve inflicted on people over the years, all the ways we made them perish, this would be considered an easy way out, I suppose.
But I have endured my share of pain all these years for all the sins I committed, and now I must pay for the gravest of them all: Losing the only woman I ever cared about.
I thought I could make her love me, but it took me too long to understand.
She was right. She was right all along, and I didn’t see. But I do now.
She knew exactly what it meant to love. How it aches, how it makes you bleed.
And as I have bled for her … I will die for her.
I throw off my bathrobe and stand naked in front of the balcony, staring blissfully off into the horizon, wondering how it will feel. My skin glows with warmth, basking in the rays of sunlight swathing down from the sky above. Not even a windy breeze can stop me from stepping closer to the edge, closer to the sun.
