“I never would have thought…” she trailed off.
“I know you saw my mother’s scars,” he rasped. “You knew that something had happened.”
“I knew from the moment I saw the charred walls outside. The day we arrived here, I knew that something had happened, but I never expected it to have been so…”
“Tragic?”
“I-I suppose, yes.”
“That is what they all called it. A tragedy, or an accident. I hated that even more than when they accused me of starting the fire. I at least knew that I did not start it.”
“You were not to blame for any of it!”
“But I was. And you know what? I prefer it that way. It is better for my father to have died by my hand than some freak accident. A great man like him could not have been taken away by something so simple as a fire.”
He was deep in denial, but he was in no mood to be corrected either. Adelaide wanted to comfort him, and she wished she knew how.
“And you have always carried all of that alone,” she said instead.
Cassian looked up from the floor, his expression unreadable. “I did what was necessary. It is better that we all believe it was me.”
“Is it?” she challenged softly, taking a tentative step closer. “What you did was not necessary. You were brave in accepting the blame, but it is not your fault that everyone else misunderstood. They blamed you for things that were not your fault, yet you survived it. You did what you had to do, and you cannot be blamed for that.”
He shifted slightly, as though her words were too much, and his jaw tightened. “I do not need your pity,” he gritted out.
“It is not pity,” she insisted, her hands clenching at her sides. “It is recognition. Seeing what you endured and what you survived, it is extraordinary that you are even half the man you are today.”
Cassian’s shoulders stiffened, and she saw it, the wall that slammed up when he decided that she had come too close.
“Recognition changes nothing,” he said quietly. “The past is the past, and there is no changing it. It need not be dwelled on.”
“I am not the one dwelling,” she pointed out, frustration creeping into her voice, even though she knew it was best to remain calm. “I just—I needed to understand. I needed to see the truth of who you are, what you’ve endured. And now I do.”
“And now you do. Are you satisfied?”
“Do not say it like that. You make me seem like the villain.”
He ran a hand through his hair, and she caught a glimpse of his true feelings. Then he stepped back, just enough to put distance between them, and he hardened once again.
“I should not have shared this,” he muttered. “It was not meant for you, Adelaide.”
Her chest tightened, a pang of helplessness that she had felt each time he closed himself off. She was his wife, and even if he did not love her, she deserved to know the truth.
“I am not here to judge you,” she whispered.
Cassian’s eyes darkened for a moment, and then he looked away.
Before she could say anything more, he turned and left the hall, leaving her with an ache in her chest. It did not matter that she knew the truth, nor that she wanted to help him. He did not want any of it, and there was no changing that.
For the first time in a long while, she struggled to sleep that night.
The following morning, the sun felt like it was burning her. As she went down for breakfast, she paused at the charred threshold of the west wing. Her pulse quickened, knowing that she was forbidden from entering it. But knowing what she did now, she could not help but be drawn to it.
She quickly looked around to make sure that nobody was watching. If she was going to do it, it had to be now, or else she would never be able to venture here again.
She stepped inside, the floor crunching beneath her shoes.
It smelled like smoke despite the years that had passed. Broken beams leaned precariously, their blackened edges stark in the sunlight. Scorched portraits hung askew on the walls, their frames peeling. She ran her fingers over one, hesitating where the wood had cracked and splintered. It was impossible to know who was in the portrait.
