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“It went that well, huh?” Cleo mutters while laminating her nails.
I stand in the middle of the room, breathing hard, trying to keep my shit together.
“So, where is this queen of hearts?” Cleo asks, putting down her nail file to look up at me from her seat.
“In her room. She said she was too tired to get a tour of the castle,” I explain through gritted teeth.
“She could be telling the truth.” Cleo defends with a shrug. “I mean, she has been traveling for over two weeks now. She’s bound to be tired and needs to rest. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. You’ll see her at dinner and woo her then.”
I shake my head, fisting my hands at my sides.
“Katrina says she won’t be able to eat dinner tonight with me either. Said she’ll probably sleep until morning.”
“Okay…” Cleo retorts, not understanding why I’m so furious. “So, you’ll see her tomorrow. Or the next day. You have a month, Teodoro. You can sweet-talk her into your bed in a month.”
“I don’t want to just fuck her, Cleo! I want to marry her!” I shout in outrage.
Cleo stares at me like I’ve officially lost the plot.
“You do know that you can do both, right?” she jokes, and it is her nonchalance that tips me over the edge.
I let out an ear-piercing curse and start throwing everything I can find to the floor. Vases with flowers on the mantle, family portraits on the walls, anything I can get my hands on crashes to the floor.
“TEO!” Cleo yells, rushing toward me to stop my manic tantrum.
Angry tears stream down my cheeks as I continue to destroy everything in sight. Cleo begins to cry at my pain, putting herself in harm’s way when she jumps toward me and grabs me by the waist.
“Teo, stop. Please stop. You’re scaring me.”
“I’m fucking scaring myself too.” I tell her, wrapping my arms around her to weep on her shoulder.
Cleo keeps me steady as I break apart in her arms.
“Tell me what happened? What could have possibly happened to get you so upset like this?”
With the weight of the world on my shoulders, I manage to lift my head and cup her face in my hands. I lean my forehead on hers just to keep me from falling to my knees.
“She loves him,” I whisper, unable to say the words louder than the barest of whispers.
“Who? The queen? Who does she love?” Cleo asks maniacally.
“Him. Levi,” I choke out the name.
Cleo’s expression softens, her sullen gaze looking too close to pity for me to be able to keep eye contact with her.
“It’s the gods’ cruel joke on me. Their way of evening things out. I took someone he loves away from him, and now he’s doing the same to me. Fitting, isn’t it? That the one person I have harbored such guilt over betraying finds the perfect penance for my sin.”
“You’re talking nonsense, Teo. The gods don’t punish us like that. They are far too busy enjoying the heavens to even care to.”
“A heathen and a murderer. What a pair we make,” I mutter, disheartened.
“Aye, I might be a heathen, but you are no murderer, so stop saying that you are,” Cleo reprimands, slapping my chest a few times to drive the point home.
I hold her wrists and shake my head.
“We both know that isn’t true,” I reply sullenly.
“No. I don’t believe that. What you did wasn’t murder. It was vengeance. Justice for those fallen souls.” She lets out a sigh. “And your queen falling in love with the same man that would bathe in your blood if he could is not a death sentence given by the gods either. We mortals fall in and out of love all the time. So don’t give in to your sorrow just yet. We both know nothing good will come out of it, if you do.”
