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“I don’t understand. I don’t—” She choked on a sob. She felt like she was drowning, and desperation was clawing at her, her lungs trying to breathe, but there was no air left. “Why can’t you even try, Evret? Why can’t you even try to love me?” Crossing the room, she knelt before him, taking his hands into hers. “If you would just let me love you, let me show you that I could be the wife you wanted, that we could—”
“Stop. Please, stop.”
She gulped.
“You’re always so desperate to make this work, to turn our marriage into something it isn’t. Haven’t you ever just stopped to wonder what else might be out there? What you might be missing out on by trying so hard to force this to be real between us?” He squeezed her hands. “I told you a long time ago that by choosing me, you were giving up your chance to find happiness.”
“You’re wrong. I can’t be happy—not without you.”
His shoulders sank. “Levana…”
“I mean it. Think about it. We’ll start over. From the begi
He massaged his brow. “I can’t.”
“Of course you can. It can’t hurt to try, not after everything we’ve been through.”
“No, I can’t pretend that we’ve never met, when you’re still…” He flicked his fingers at her.
“Still what?”
“Still looking like her.”
Levana pursed her lips. “But … but this is how I look now. This is me.”
Dragging his hand over his coiled hair, Evret stood. For a moment, Levana thought he was going to play along. That he would bow to her, and they would begin anew. But instead, he shuffled around her and turned down the blankets on the bed. “I’m tired, Levana. Let’s talk about this more tomorrow, all right?”
Tomorrow.
Because they would still be married tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. For all eternity, he would be the husband who had never loved her. Wanted her. Trusted her.
She shuddered, more afraid than she’d been in a long, long time.
After so many years of wrapping herself in the glamour, it was nearly impossible to let it go. Her brain struggled to release her grip on the manipulation.
Heart hammering, she slowly turned around.
Evret was in the middle of pulling his shirt over his head. He tossed it on the bed and looked up.
Gasping, he stumbled back a step, nearly knocking a glowing sconce off the wall.
Levana shrank away, wrapping her arms around her waist. She ducked her head, so that her hair fell over half her face, hiding what it could. But she resisted the urge to cover her scars with her hands. She refused to pull up the glamour again.
The glamour he had always loved.
The glamour he had always hated.
At first, it seemed that he wasn’t even breathing. He just stared at her, speechless and horrified. Finally, he closed his mouth and placed a shaking hand on the bedpost to steady himself. Forced down a gulp.
“This is it,” she said, as new tears started to leak from her good eye. “The truth that I didn’t want you to see. Are you happy now?”
His blinks were intense, and she could imagine how difficult it was for him to hold her gaze. To not look away, when he so clearly wanted to.
“No,” he said, his voice rough. “Not happy.”
“And if you had known this from the begi
His mouth worked for a long time, before he responded, “I don’t know. I…” He shut his eyes, collecting himself, before meeting her full on. This time, he didn’t flinch. “It’s not the way you look, or don’t look, Levana. It’s that you have controlled and manipulated me for ten years.” His expression twisted. “I wish you would have shown me a long time ago. Maybe things would have been different. I don’t know. But now we’ll never find out.”
He turned away. Levana stared at his back, feeling not like a queen at all. She was a stupid child, a pathetic girl, a fragile, destroyed thing.
“I love you,” she whispered. “That much has always been real.”
He tensed, but if he had any response, she left before she could hear it.
* * *
“Come here, baby sister. I want to show you something.” Cha
Instincts told her to be cautious, as Cha
Cha
In response, she’d only gotten more secretive about it.
Cha
“Watch,” said Cha
Nothing happened.
Gut tightening with apprehension, Levana looked at her sister. Cha
“They’re not real, right?” Leaning over, Cha
Levana was still too young to have much control over her own glamour, but she did have a sense that it wasn’t exactly the same thing as this holographic fireplace.
“Go ahead,” said Cha
“I don’t want to.”
Cha
“I know, but … I don’t want to.” Some instinct made Levana curl her hands in her lap. She knew it wasn’t real. She knew the holograph wouldn’t hurt. But she also knew that fire was dangerous, and illusions were dangerous, and being tricked into believing things that weren’t real was often the most dangerous thing of all.
Snarling, Cha
She felt nothing, of course. Just that same subtle warmth that the fire always released, to make it seem more authentic.
After a moment, Levana’s heartbeat started to temper itself.
“See?” said Cha
Cha
“Now—watch.” Reaching behind her, Cha
There should not have been anything flammable. The hearth should not have caught fire. But it wasn’t long before Levana could see a new brightness among the smoldering logs. The real flame licked and sputtered, and after a while Levana could make out the edges of dried leaves charring and curling. The kindling had been hidden by the holograph before, but as the real fire took hold, its brightness far outshone the illusion.