A brittle laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “What a ridiculous question.” My eyes burn, my vision blurring as I fight to keep the tears from spilling over. “He never existed because he was a lie.”
Memories of our meeting, our wedding, and our journey rush back to me at once. My mind recalling each one through a new lens.
I think of the ballroom, and his amused look when I dismissed him as a common soldier. The garden bench where he sat beside me and let me believe he served some distant, unseen king. Every mile of road we traveled, every fire he built… every time he looked at me with that quiet, patient devotion that made me believe, gods help me, that I had stumbled into something real and rare and precious.
“I imagine it was all rather amusing to you, wasn’t it?” I ask bitterly. “Watching me upset, believing I was being handed off to a common soldier. I trusted you.” My voice quavers as I fight back tears. “Ilovedyou, and you let me go on loving you while every moment between us was built on something false.”
“It wasn’t false,” he states firmly, his eyes searching mine. “Every moment with you was real, Vivienne. The only lie was my name, not my heart. I never lied about loving you. Not once.”
“I don’t understand. Why did you even lie to me in the first place, Auren?”
“Would you have married me if I’d asked you as the King of the Dark Elves? Or would you have rejected me like you did all the others?”
I hadn’t expected this question, and I give him the only answer I can. “I… don’t know.”
The lie burns my tongue because I do know what I would’ve done. I was angry at everything and everyone. Especially at the suitors who came for my hand. They were all men of high status and wealth.
Instead of seeing them as my salvation from the bargain, I saw them as someone else who would have control over me… the power to take away my freedom. And I resented them for it even though they’d done nothing to earn my disdain.
“You’re right to be angry,” he says, voice rough. “I lied to you, and I hurt you. But I will not lie about this.” His gaze holds mine, steady and unflinching.
“If the choice was between losing you to a monster like the Goblin King and you hating me for the rest of your life, I would still choose to keep you safe.” His jaw tightens. “Because losing you was never an option.”
My breath catches.
“You can hate me. You can tell me you never wish for me to speak or touch you ever again, and I will honor it. But know this: Lie or truth, it changes nothing about what I feel for you.”
He brings his fist to his chest, directly over his heart. “I was yours the first moment I saw you, and even when I cross from this world to the next, I will still be yours. I will never love another. There will only ever be you.”
He shakes his head. “You have the choice to annul our marriage if that’s what you want. But I ask you to consider carefully.” He pauses. “I will never ask anything of you that you are not willing to give. I beg you: do not dissolve our marriage.Use it. Usemeto protect you from the Goblin King’s bargain. Even if it is in name only… let me protect you.”
His words are far from what I expected. I want him to fight me. I want him to tell me I’m being cruel. I want something from him that is not this terrible acceptance of blame. Because if he takes my anger like this, I’ll have nowhere to put it but back inside my own aching chest.
He drags a hand slowly through his hair. “There is something else you need to know.”
“What now?” I ask, blinking back tears. “What other part of my life has been arranged without my knowledge?”
His jaw tightens. “We received a message from the watchtower yesterday. It was a summons.”
Cold seeps through me. “From whom?”
“The Goblin King,” Auren says, the words spoken with quiet bitterness. His gaze drifts to the scroll on the table next to him. “He’s demanding that you come to his court.”
A chill slides down my spine. “But… I’m married.”
“That may not matter.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
He draws in a slow breath, as though choosing his words carefully. “The bargain may not recognize the marriage as complete. Not yet. That could explain why your nightmares didn’t stop after the wedding.”
Anger wars with grief as I realize what he hasn’t said aloud… what he refuses to say because my heart is still bleeding from everything else. So, I say it for him. “Are saying our marriage is not complete because we haven’t consummated our vows? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“Yes. If the Goblin King believes the bargain still stands, then he may try to enforce it. I don’t know whether the old magic will allow him to do so, but I know enough not to dismiss the threat.”
“And?”
“And I will protect you.”
