Maybe she should have stayed in the crowd. Now they were alone, and she’d just humiliated him in front of every Runai that mattered. He was a vengeful man with enough ego to sink even the grandest ship.
What was he going to do to make her pay?
She shot up from the fountain, lifting her hands. If she had to attack him to get away?—
The second she lifted her hands to cast, Nikias came to a stop, also huffing for breath. He lifted his hands up, palms facing her. “All I’m here for is to explain myself. I… All I want is the chance to explain.”
She wouldn’t be able to run forever. He was the prince, and she was a commander. He’d find some way to force her to listen for as long as he wanted to speak.
Plus, she wanted the explanation.
She lowered her hands and dropped back onto the edge of the fountain. He approached again, the ties for the necklaces peeking out of his pocket. The sight of them had her stomach rolling.
“Thank you,” Nikias said as he reached her, standing in front of the fountain, an arm’s distance away.
“Just… explain.” Aimilia took him in, also slightly out of breath, but at least he didn’t have that dark, crazed look in his eyes that haunted her nightmares. She didn’t know if it was better or worse that he seemed completely sane. “Now.”
Nikias took a deep breath and nodded, hands twitching at his side. “I… I had a plan. This—” He gestured at the air between them. “—was not how this was supposed to go.”
Aimilia couldn’t help the near hysterical laugh that came out. “Really?”
He snapped his mouth shut for a moment before continuing, “I thought—I thought we understood each other. Last week—This morning…” His brow pinched as he shook his head. “I suppose that doesn’t really matter. Clearly, something was lost along the way. Let me start from the beginning.”
What beginning? When he got the foolish notion in his head to marry her?
“I am a widower. Obviously, you knew that. You were at the wedding. And the funeral.” Nikias winced, and she resisted the urge to scream.
He couldn’t even reference Faustina’s death without pain and he expected to remarry?
He cleared his throat. “My point is, everyone expected I would remarry eventually.”
“So?” Aimilia bit back another laugh but it still slipped into her words. “You didn’t care about what was expected before! You were going to mourn Faustina the rest of your life. Not even your parents could persuade you to ever look elsewhere.”
Nikias nodded, gaze down on the ground. “That… That was true. For a while. My parents still insisted I consider it, but they grew more insistent and are doubly so now that Gavril and Marcella are married, and with the fact that my father will never fully recover, it’s no longer an option for me not to remarry.”
Her heart went from a frantic tempo to stopping dead in its tracks and sinking to the ground. He didn’t know, she reassured herself. He would never have proposed to her if he did. Her grip on the edge of the fountain tightened anyway.
“I—You understand, of course, my parents do not want to risk any children Gavril and Marcella have to be in the line of succession. Which means, Gavril cannot be my heir anymore. So I must remarry and…” Nikias looked up at her for a brief second before ducking his gaze again. “It is important I remarry and produce heirs to secure the line of succession.”
Aimilia considered dying right then and there. It would be easy, just throw herself back into the fountain, hit her head on the stone and drown.
Surely that would be better than suffering through the implication Nikias was putting toward her, of her being the woman he used tosecure the line of succession with.
But at least things were starting to make a smidge of sense. It was still hard to even think of Nikias remarrying, but he made a logical presentation of the case.
Aimilia had no choice but to admit she’d been completely wrong. Apparently not even Nikias’ romanticism and undying love for Faustina was enough to override the practical reasons for remarrying.
She was certain his mother, and his father before his health had declined so much thanks to her, had beaten those reasons into him.
Verbally, not physically. His parents had never treated him the way they’d treated Gavril.
However, it did not answer the biggest question she had.
“I can… barely, but I can understand why you’ve finally accepted that you should remarry. But…” At the sound of her voice, he looked up at her again, but she couldn’t read his expression. It was impassive as a marble statue, like normal. “Why would you ever propose to me?”
“What?” At least now he was looking at her. “Why—Why wouldn’t I?”
Aimilia raised an eyebrow. “Have you lost your memories? Or your mind?”
