Where was she?
I investigated the washroom. Nothing. I moved over to her bed. There was nothing there. A pot on a table near the open window lay broken on the floor. The wind howled outside, and it must have knocked the flower over.
The broken clay pot was smashed on the ground. Knowing how much Deirdre cared for plants, I bent down to collect the shattered clay. After I picked up a few pieces, something glimmered in the soil. Kneeling, I brushed away the dirt, revealing a familiar metallic object.
The world around me paused as I gripped the key to my journal. My very private journal.
A tremor racked through me.
Where did she get this?…How did she get this?
The trembling continued, and the shock suddenly switched to rage.
Immediately, I went to her wardrobe and flung open the doors, knowing if she hid that specific key, there would be something else of mine she was hiding.
Shoving dresses aside, I ran my hands all along the sides and bottom of the closet.
Nothing.
I know it’s here.
Moving to the nightstand, I yanked open the drawer, causing everything to spill out: a white handkerchief, a few buttons, and two of the cookies I had given her wrapped in cloth. The vase with the eternal rose shattered to the ground. Still infused with pixie dust, the rose sat amid the broken mess, twinkling with magic.
Kicking the junk and the rose out of the way, I moved to the bed, putting my hands under the blanket, under the mattress, searching for the thick book, my anger rising every moment I didn't find it.
“Ahhh!”
Throwing the blanket off, I vaulted over the bed to the other side.
I shoved my arm under the mattress and my fingers touched something velvety.
I pulled out the object.
It had been decades since I'd even seen the book. Sitting on the bed, I opened it to the first entry.
This journal had been Axelia’s idea. She believed writing would ease the pain and loss, and sometimes it did. Other times, I would spend days curled on the moss bed, crying and waiting for someone to come for me.
But no one ever came.
For forty years.
During the most important years of a fae’s life, and I had spent mine alone.
Glossing over the first page, I shuffled through the book, all my secrets spilling out. I gripped the journal in my hands, the rage rolling through me like thunder until my claws dug into the sides of the sacred object.
She’s a liar.
The ache hit before the fury.
This whole time she had been reading my secrets, my thoughts, my fears, and yet she pretended I was the villain in our story, and she was a perfect victim.
I’d shared parts of myself with her, not even meaning to. Instead of asking me, she’d gone behind my back.
This is why humans are exiled. They are manipulative, and though fae are as well, we own our devious nature while the humans pretend to be perfect vessels of the All Father with no blemish or fault.
I should never have trusted her or believed we could have a marriage comprising more than just duty and title.
Queen or not, Deirdrewillanswer for this.
