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My wife wasgone.
I hit the pillar again, knuckles smashing resoundingly into the hard surface. Then stood, watching as a spindly crack began to form. White spiderweb against the gleaming black.
Morgan didn’t want to be your wife in the first place, a gnawing, cruel voice in my head reminded me. Isn’t that why she had fled? Preferring to throw herself into a portal that hadn’t been used in decades rather than remain another minute by your side?
What was it she had said?
“This isn’t a marriage.”
She had accused me of destroying her trust. Of ruining all that had been growing between us.
And just what had that been exactly?
I vividly remembered the last words she had murmured as she kissed me.
“You're all I think about. You're all I see. I'm so tied to you, I barely know who I am anymore.”
But the words were faint comfort. Moments later, she had run from my arms.
Followed only by that fool of a court mage, Javer, who had probably died throwing himself in after her. Even now, the portal frame she had passed through was singed with smoke. She had destroyed it rather than allow me to follow her.
I knew some of my friends believed Morgan’s departure to be the greatest act of betrayal. After all, she was my wife. She was their empress. She should have stayed.
But that wasn’t how I saw it.
I had trapped her. Not once but twice. Caught her in a complex web of snares.
The greatest webs of all.
Marriage.
And an empire.
Yet somehow she had broken free. I had known she would, even as I had struggled to wrap the invisible bindings around her.
Had a small part of me hoped it might be otherwise? Of course.
And if it had simply been marriage and not the empire... Well, who knew.
But she had chosen neither for herself.
Both choices had been mine.
And make no mistake, I would make them again.
I hadn’t been able to save Nodori. But I had saved Morgan.
If her hating me was the price I had to pay, so be it.
And in saving her, I had seen the chance to save a rotting, corrupt empire.
I had fastened onto that hope like a drowning man to a rope. I had tied Morgan to that rope, forcing her to try to pull us aloft.
Instead, she had cut the rope and run.
Clever, wicked, beautiful woman. Brilliant, brave wife.
Perhaps I was doomed to always be left by the women I loved.
