AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She looked so beautiful there in that dress. So strong, like the warrior she was. Like the royal she was.
“No matter what you do, Lysias. I will love you. That does not change. I willmournfor what you do, but I will still love you.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
She lifted her chin, his Alexandra. “As you said. So be it.”
And with that, he strode from the room. He would go to the ball. He would enact his revenge. He would have everything because it waswithin his grasp.
And he no longer needed her to accomplish any of it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LYSIASWENTTOthe ball. He strode through the palace on the force of his anger, his rage.
His pain.
But he did not go in the main entrance to the ballroom. The guards were busy with the ball itself, so he ducked into the servants’ wing and took the narrow hallways toward the ballroom. Everyone was too busy bustling around, getting things accomplished for the ball, to care that he did not belong here. He took a twisting empty hall that would lead him to a little platform above the ballroom. Sometimes performers sang up here to the crowd below. Or had back when he’d been a boy.
Tonight, it gave him a familiar vantage point of the ball. He’d done this as a boy as well. Always hoping to watch Diamandis do something embarrassing so he could make fun of him afterwards.
And perhaps because he’d enjoyed the glitter, the opulence, the spectacle of it all. His parents had been happy in their comfortable, plain lives, but Lysias had always been drawn to the royal production of it all.
He looked down at the sea of flowers and sparkling lights and expensive gowns. The hum of conversation, the plaintive vibration of string instruments.
For twenty years, Lysias had banished every pleasant thought of this place, and he assumed this ball would only bring back bad memories. He’d been a servant. Foolishly friends with a prince. Naively happy in his servitude.
And he had been naive, to a great many things, but underneath all the real-world implications of his position, at twelve, he had been loved. By his parents. People had always been kind to him. He had felt safe here.
And then a group of people—whether they’d had reasons or not—had violently ripped that safety from him. But not just him.
Diamandis and Alexandra as well.
Lysias found the king on the front stage. Diamandis stood as his father once had many years ago. He looked so much like his father, but there was a coldness to him that King Youkilis had never had. Notever.
Diamandis had not had this inside of him back then either. Oh, the Diamandis who Lysias had known had always had a nasty temper. Though they were friends, they’d often gotten into little tussles—often egged on by the boys...the dead boys.
Diamandis had lost much, as Lysias had. As Alexandra had, whether she remembered or not.
Still, he could not let her ridiculous speech soften him to his cause. So Diamandis had lost? This was of no fault of Lysias or his parents. Why shouldn’t Diamandis losemorefor the way he had handled that loss.
At fourteen.
Damn Alexandra. Damn her to hell. He could not alter his plan. He could not give her what she wanted.
If he did...
She would think there was a chance for them when there could never be. She would believe in love. She would think herself safe, and then something would happen to rip it away from both of them.
It was the way of the world. Even his billions could not protect him from tragedy, from loss.
But he could protect her from it. He could protecther. It would mean giving up everything...
Lysias looked down at the glittering life he’d once envied and was now a part of, if he wanted to be. He could be in the midst of it. He could be swirling Alexandra around the dance floor if he wanted to.
Except she was a princess. And he was the child of servants.
She did not understand this yet, but it would be made plain to her. And all her grand talk oflovewould evaporate. Once she understood the difference in their stations, she would do just as Diamandis had.
