“What?”
“You’re going to help me. I understand this isn’t something he wants to talk about, but he knows I saw. Oh, and he also knows that if I saw all of that, I also heard your father telling him that until he makes good on their deal you and Marcella won’t be allowed back in Areator. Thanks for keeping that secret as well.”
“If I’d known when Nikias made that deal he was going to propose to you, I would have put a stop to it then.” Gavril sighed. “I didn’t tell you afterwards that was why Nikias decided to propose because I didn’t want you to accept in order to ensure Marcella and I stayed around. Your happiness is more important than that to us. We will be just as happy even if we have to live with Konstantin and Hypatia.”
But then why didn’t Nikias tell her? It would have been the best way to convince her?—
“When you marry me, it will be because you want to.”
“But why is he avoiding me now? If anything, this is his best opportunity to make his case again. I realize now the majority of my hatred of him was built on a lie, or an assumption. Iknow about the deal and would do anything to ensure you and Marcella can stay.”
He’d known the consequences of defying his father’s command he marry someone else, and he’d done it anyway.
“Aimilia, yousawit. You only ever saw the aftermath of it with me. If anyone had everseenit—” Gavril shook his head, his voice cracking. “Just thinking about if Marcella had ever seen it? I would have—I don’t know what I would have done. But it wouldn’t have been good.”
Aimilia stared at the dirt and ran her fingertip over the cool gold ring.
“My advice? Let Nikias draw back. It means you no longer have to fend him off and keep rejecting him. This doesn’t change your answer anyway.”
At Aimilia’s silence, Gavril leaned forward, ducking his head until he caught her gaze. When she looked up at him, his voice was firm and his green eyes burned. “Tell me this doesn’t change your answer.”
Aimilia looked back at the tents in the camp. She curled her hand into a fist and pressed the ring to her chest.
“Of course it doesn’t.”
“Don’t mess this up. I’m not going to be anyone’s second choice. If you want to keep her, tell her the truth.”
Aimilia left Gavril and Marcella in the library with her parting advice to the man she loved. Each step that carried her farther away from them was another step where everything she’d been pushing down since she’d come back into the room to see Gavril kissing Marcella came rising back up.
Why did it hurt so much?
She’d known. She’d known Gavril didn’t love her. He’d made it abundantly clear since he’d returned with his new wife that his affections belonged entirely to Marcella.
Aimilia reached up and brushed her fingers over her heart, but it wasn’t the kind of pain she could soothe physically.
Knowing that in her head, however, wasn’t quite reaching her heart.
Her heart was still crying out, the pieces of it fracturing further now that she’d seen the evidence for herself once again.
The marble hallways blurred as water flooded her vision, and Aimilia cursed in her head. She took a deep breath and tried to blink them away, but they wouldn’t disappear.
She hated this.
How many times had she cried over the last year? How pathetic was it that she’d lost count?
She was a Runai. A skilled commander who had been first in her class.
She was supposed to be better than this.
Then again, if she’d been better, maybe Gavril would have chosen her.
Aimilia managed to make it to a familiar little alcove, curling into the corner and climbing onto the bench. Her vision was too blurry to see her trembling hands clearly, but her silencing rune went up first so no one could hear the first sob that fell from her lips. Then her illusion was next, so no one passing by would see her in such a pathetic state.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake as last time.
Aimilia buried her head into her knees and let out the flood she’d been damming up.
It was over.
