Page 43 of King's Heir of Hate

As if a pedestal was crashing to the ground and taking him with it.

It was as if Arturo knew it. As if he could see it too. “What I am trying to tell you, Your Majesty, is that I am not certain that King Hugo—for all his many virtues and may he rest in peace—wascapableof caring about anything besides the kingdom. Or if he was, I never saw it.”

The full import of those words took a moment to settle on Tadeo. When they did, they landed hard. He felt as if the old man had taken a swing at him. And had landed a knockout punch.

“Including me, is what you mean,” he said when he was able to speak.

Though his voice sounded unlike his. Too rough. Too raw.

Arturo looked him straight in the eye, which was revolutionary and upsetting itself. “It is my observation that your father went to great lengths to teach you how to tamp down the emotions that he never felt himself, Your Majesty. Not because he truly felt that they would impact on your ability to be a good king, but because he didn’t like them.”

Tadeo knew, then, what he would say. He knew, and yet he could do nothing to stop what was coming. He could not repair that widening chasm inside him. He could notbreathe.

“They reminded him too much of your mother,” Arturo said, inevitably, and Tadeo let that settle on him too, like so much granite and despair. “King Hugo preferred things tidy and always precisely the same. Do you see what I mean, sir? He never thought of himself as empty. So he emptied out those around him instead, so that they would match.”

And Tadeo had no idea how long he stood there, staring in something that wasn’t quite as simple as shock at the portrait of his father on the wall.

Yet all he could see was Esme.

All he couldhearwas Esme. All the things she’d said to him over the years, and today. All the accusations she’d laid at his feet that he’d swept away, so certain thatshewas the problem.

Because a man who couldn’t feel at all had told him that he felt too much.

And then it was as if Esme was a great swell inside him, growing like a wave, taking him over, knocking him down—

But Tadeo did not fall.

Instead, he ran. He ran through the halls of his own palace, leaving stunned and shocked courtiers in his wake—and for once he did not care at all. He could not have been less interested in whatmessagehe was sending.

Tadeo ran until he found one of his vehicles parked out by one of the garages, ignored his guards, and jumped behind the wheel.

He set off for the manor house, driving the roads of the royal estate far too quickly. Time seemed to press in on him, and inside himself, he felt certain that it was running out.

That it might very well be too late already.

The night was dark but clear, and the stars were so bright they felt very nearly blinding. He felt almost as if he was drunk, though he knew full well he was not. The road wound down the hillside, cutting through the fields on the back side of the palace, and Tadeo took one turn so fast that when he saw the headlights coming in the opposite direction on the single-lane road he had no choice but to drive off to the side, narrowly missing a stout, medieval hedge.

The oncoming car stopped. He heard the window roll down.

“Are you all right?” came Esme’s clear, concerned voice through the dark.

Tadeo felt that wave wash over him all over again. That chasm in him seemed to stop growing. Time released its pressure.

She didn’t even know it was him, he thought. It could have been anyone. And yet she, the Queen, stopped her vehicle and inquired after his safety when she was the one who was six months pregnant.

The fissure had stopped growing, he realized then, because it had torn down all the armor he’d worn, all the walls he’d built, all the things he’d built his life around because he’d thought that was theproperway to do it.

Everything she had said to him was true. Her emotions didn’t inhibit her or diminish her. They only made her stronger. They made her better. They made her…her.

The bright light that washer—far brighter than her headlights that picked up the wide expanse of royal acreage on either side of them.

Tadeo pushed his way out of the car. Esme was getting out of hers, more awkwardly these days with her pregnant belly. She stopped when she saw him, her jaw dropping open a bit.

“Tadeo?” Her voice was little more than a whisper, as if she didn’t believe her own eyes.

But finally he thought that he believed his.

There were stars above, and Esme was here, and for the first time in so long—ten whole years—everything made sense.