AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Girls,” Joel said quietly, never taking his eyes off her. “Play upstairs for a few minutes.”
As if feeling the tension in the room, neither of their daughters protested as they climbed the stairs. The moment the bedroom door banged shut, Joel ran his fingers through his hair and grimaced.
“I’m not sure what to say.” He ran his fingers through his hair again. “How much did you read?”
“The top two.” Her voice trembled with her words. “I shouldn’t have gone through your things. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
More silence charged with tension.
“I thought…” Her throat closed up as her pulse pounded in her ears. “You love Genica.”
Joel blew out a long breath and stared at the ground with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Instead of his usual confidence, he wore the timid, uncertain expression of his youth. “I said she was everything to me when my world fell apart. It wasn’t a love match, though we were fond of each other to some degree. We each needed someone after all of our pain. She was that someone for me.”
“What fell apart?” she whispered huskily.
He glanced up to meet her eye, only to lower his gaze. “My heart did.” He breathed in deeply and let it out slowly, lifting his head again. “Shadows, Nyana. I have loved you for an embarrassingly long time. I tried to move on. I tried. I just can’t.”
Emotion clogged her throat. It was as if she teetered on the edge of a cliff, and one little push could send her careening over the side. “Why did you marry me? Your offer was always too good to be true.”
His voice shook. “Because I had to watch my best friend court the woman I loved. Then I had to watch my king take her for his wife. By damn, I could not bear to let you go again. I’ll take whatever you will give me because I love you too much to watch you go a third time.”
She clamped her hands over her mouth at his confession, tears rolling down her cheeks. All this time, Joel had loved her so selflessly, and she’d had no idea. She’d traded him for Calle. Good, beautiful, selfless Joel.
Her ignorance, her selfishness, had cost both of them so much pain.
Unable to handle the immense hurt of her heartbreak over the poor decisions in her lifetime, she silently slipped past him, pulled on her cloak, and stepped into the cold, frosty air.
She needed time alone with her thoughts.
Powdery snow stung her face as she wandered through the village, past tree dwellings, tents made of leather, and people who regarded her with curiosity and contempt. She ignored them and pulled the hood of her cloak over her head to cover her ears. The very ears that had separated her and her mother from her father and brother. The ears that had brought so much heartache and confusion to her life.
First, her mother had died. Then, her stepfather had cast her aside, providing for her yet never giving any sort of fatherly affection. She’d met Joel in his family’s orchard on a day when she’d wanted to escape her stepfather’s estate. They’d become the best of friends. Without him, she would have drowned in loneliness.
All the laughs they’d shared. All the smiles. The secrets. Nana had taken her in as if she were a lost puppy, feeding her pie and teaching her how to cook. Joel’s parents had labored in the orchard with him working alongside them. She’d joined them. Talked with them. Laughed with them.
A frustrated tear froze on her cheek.
She scraped it off.
Regret clawed at her from the inside out as she realized what she had done. She’d distanced herself from the only family she’d known for a long time. She’d cast aside Joel because Liam, a king of all people, had paid her a little attention. They’d shared a kiss, one she regretted. But then Joel had introduced her to Calle. A prince back then, he’d been charming and handsome, easily stealing her heart.
The rivalry between prince and king had destroyed her life and Calle’s. From the looks of it, it had hurt Joel as well.
“What have I done?”
After scraping another tear from her cheek, she pulled her hood farther over her face. The right man had been by her side this entire time. Although six years too late, could she possibly still rectify the damage she’d done?
Joel deserved the world. Was she good enough to give him a fraction of it? Did she deserve to keep him after everything?
Would he ever forgive her?
A string of musical notes cut off the direction of her thoughts. Her heart beat quicker within her chest as her gaze darted in the direction of a canopy made of tan leather. Her heart sank when she realized the music didn’t belong to Joel, but someone playing a slow melody on an oval whistle.
Several Forest Fae whittled away with knives against bone. Carving. Creating. Beautifying. She watched, transfixed, as an older man with white hair braided to his waist pieced together a series of bones to form a fiddle. Concentration lay thick between his brows, yet a serene expression lingered on his face.
She lifted the canopy flap higher to step beneath the large space, trying to get a better view of his work. Bones lay scattered on a table to his right. He didn’t even glance toward them as he reached for them, his fingers sifting before they closed around them.
