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Like me, Levana thought. Tell her. Tell her she looked like me.
But then Evret shook his head. “I don’t remember,” he whispered. It was a sad confession, and it struck Levana between her ribs. She took a step back in the corridor. “Not exactly, at least,” he amended at Winter’s crestfallen expression. “The details have been stolen from me.”
“What do you mean?”
His tone took on renewed buoyancy. “It isn’t important. What I do remember is that she was the most beautiful woman on all of Luna. In the whole entire galaxy.”
“More beautiful than the queen?”
Though she couldn’t see his face, Levana could see the way that Evret flinched. But then he stood and leaned over his daughter, pressing another kiss into her full head of wild curls. “The most beautiful in the entire universe,” he said, “second only to you.”
Winter giggled, and Levana stepped away again, backing up until her back hit a solid wall. She tried to brush away the sting of rejection, the knowledge that she was still not good enough, not when compared with his precious Solstice and his lovely daughter. She pressed the feelings down, down, letting them turn hard and cold inside, while her face was smiling and pleasant.
When Evret emerged a moment later, he looked startled to find her there, but he covered it easily. He was not as good as some of the guards at disguising his emotions, but he had gotten better at it over the years.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry,” she said, “about this afternoon.”
Shaking his head, Evret shut Winter’s door, then headed down the hall to his own chambers.
Levana followed, wringing her hands. “Evret?”
“It doesn’t matter.” The lights flickered on as he entered the room and started taking off his boots. “Was there something you needed?”
Levana took in the bedroom she’d rarely seen in the light. Evret had never bothered to bring much personality into it. After ten years, the room still felt like a guest suite.
“I wanted to ask you why … why did you agree to marry me?”
He froze, briefly, before kicking the second boot across the room. “What do you mean?”
“In hindsight, I sometimes wonder. It seems that back then I had to coerce you for every kiss. Every moment we spent together you were fighting me. At the time I was so sure it was just you being … a gentleman. Honorable. Loyal to … Solstice’s memory. But now I’m not so sure.”
With a heavy sigh, Evret sank into a cushioned chair. “We don’t have to talk about this now. What’s done is done.”
“But I want to know why. Why did you say yes, if you … if you didn’t love me. And you didn’t want to be royalty. And you didn’t care if Winter was a princess. Why say yes?”
She could see him struggling through a long silence, before he shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“Of course you had a choice. If you didn’t love me, you should have said no.”
He laughed humorlessly, leaning his head against the chair’s backrest. “No, I couldn’t have. You made it very clear you weren’t going to let me say no. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you would have just let me walk away.”
Levana opened her mouth to say that, yes, of course, she would have allowed him his freedom, if that’s what he’d truly wanted.
But the words didn’t come.
She remembered that morning still so clearly. Her blood on the sheets. The taste of sour berries. The bittersweet memory of his caresses, knowing that he’d been hers for one night, and yet never hers at all.
No.
No, she would not have let him walk away.
She shuddered, her gaze dropping to the ground.
What a stupid child she’d been.
“At first I’d thought it was a game to you,” Evret continued when it was clear he’d made his point. “Like it was with your sister. Trying to get me to want you like that. I thought you’d grow tired of me, and eventually you’d leave me alone.” A line formed between his eyebrows. “But when you told me to marry you, I realized it was already too late. I didn’t know what you would do if I fought you—really fought you. You’re very good at your manipulations—you were even back then—and I knew I couldn’t resist if you forced me to accept. And I worried that if I kept fighting, you might … you could do something rash.”
“What did you think I was going to do?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, Levana. Have me arrested? Or executed?”
She laughed, although it wasn’t fu
His jaw tightened. “Think about it. You could have told anyone that I’d forced myself on you, or threatened you, or—anything. You could have said anything, and it would be my word against yours, and we both know I would lose. I couldn’t risk it. Not with Winter. I couldn’t let you ruin what little I had left.”
Levana stumbled backward as if she’d been struck. “I would never have done that to you.”
“How was I supposed to know that?” He was practically yelling now, and she hated it. He almost never yelled. “You held all the power. You’ve always held all the power. It’s so exhausting to fight you all the time. So I just went along with it. At least being your husband allowed Winter and me some protection. Not much, but…” He clenched his teeth, looking like he regretted telling her so much, and then shook his head. His tone quieted. “I figured that eventually you would tire of me, and I would take Winter far away from here, and it would be over.”
Levana’s heart throbbed. “It’s been almost ten years.”
“I know.”
“And now? Are you still waiting for it to be over?”
His expression softened. The anger was gone, replaced with something infuriatingly kind, though his words were heartbreakingly cruel. “Are you still waiting for me to fall in love with you?”
She braced herself, and nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.
His brow wrinkled. With sadness. With regret. “I’m sorry, Levana. I’m so sorry.”
“No. Don’t say that. I know that you lo—that you care about me. You’re the only one who’s ever cared about me. Ever since … on my sixteenth birthday, you were the only one to give me a gift, remember?” She fished the pendant from beneath her collar. “I still wear it, all the time. Because of you. Because I love you, and I know…” She gulped, trying in vain to swallow back her mounting sobs. “I know it means you love me too. You always have. Please.”
His eyes were wet too. Filled, not with love, but remorse.
In a broken voice, he said, “It was Sol’s gift.”
Levana froze. “What?”
“The pendant. It was Sol’s idea.”
The words trickled into her ears like a slow-draining faucet. “Sol…? No. Garrison said it was from you. There was a card. It was from you.”
“She’d seen you admiring that quilt in her store,” Evret said. His voice was tender, like speaking to a small child on the verge of a breakdown. “The one of Earth. That’s why she thought you might like the pendant too.”
She clutched the pendant in her fist, but no matter how tight she squeezed, she could feel her hope passing like water through her fingers. “But … Sol? Why? Why would she…?”
“I told her about how I’d seen you impersonating her. That day, before the coronation.”
Levana’s mouth went dry, the mortification she’d felt that day quick to return.
“I think she felt bad for you. She thought you must be lonely, that you needed a friend. So she asked me to look out for you, when I was at the palace.” He gulped. “To be kind.”
He seemed sympathetic, but Levana knew it was just a cover for his true feelings. Pity. He pitied her.
Sol had pitied her.
Sickly, irrelevant Solstice Hayle.
“The pendant was her idea,” Evret said, looking away. “But the card was mine. I did want to be your friend. I did care about you. I still do.”
She released the pendant faster than she would have released a burning ember.