Page 97 of Rise of a Fallen Man

But I would. I knew I’d spend many sleepless nights thinking and praying for him. Salas was the strongest man I knew, but he was also a kind man, and kindness could be exploited by unscrupulous people.

“Beware of those who might pretend to be nice but are only waiting to backstab you. Like that gladiator, Falo. I wouldn’t trust him.”

“I don’t trust Falo, either, princess.” He smiled, brushing away a strand of my hair. “He doesn’t even pretend to be nice.”

“Promise me you’ll ask me for help if you need it, please,” I begged.

“If it’ll ease your worry, then yes, I promise.” He gently ran a thumb over my chin before cupping my face. “But I want you to promise me something in return.”

“What is it?”

He peered at me intently. “You do what you have to do, Princess. Be the best queen that you can be. Accomplish everything you have to accomplish, make the lives of our people better, and get your name in the history books like you were destined to do. But once it’s all done and you finally believe you deserve some happiness, I don’t care how late in life it may come or how old we both may be by then, you come to me, and I will spend the rest of my life making you happy.”

He was right. He could make me truly happy. But I couldn’t do the same for him. I couldn’t give him the easy, simple happiness he craved. He wouldn’t get it with me because nothing about my position was simple or easy. My coming into his life had been making it increasingly more complicated. To the point that he had to leave it all behind now.

Tears choked me, and I couldn’t say a single word in reply.

He didn’t force me to speak. Wrapping his arms around me, he just held me close until I found my breath again.

“I’ll go first,” I said around a painful lump lodged in my throat. “Wait for a minute before leaving too.”

It was impossibly hard to leave his arms. But I’d seen him walk away from me too many times already. I simply had no strength to watch him leave me again.

Walking briskly, I stared straight ahead. The world turned blurry from tears, but none spilled anymore. I’d cried enough. Tears never helped.

I had a destiny to fulfill and a country to rule. I gave up my happiness for Rorrim. Now I faced a lifetime without Salas, and I had to find the strength to go on.

At the end of the gardens, I stopped to collect myself and rein in my sorrow because I didn’t trust anyone to know how I felt. I couldn’t tell a single person in that grand palace that my heart broke tonight.

A golden string of a spider web stretched across the end of the path between the hedges. It shimmered in the dying lights of the lanterns left after the ceremony. The summer was coming to an end, and I’d hardly even noticed it go by.

I’d spend the summer mostly in the palace. I’d never found the time to go swimming. Salas had been my one and only breath of fresh air all these weeks. With him, I finally learned what happiness meant. And I had to let him go.

Many busy, lonely summers lay ahead of me now, spent in council meetings, or in the throne room, or at dinners with many important women from all over the world who might not mean much to me but meant a lot to the queendom.

Such were the duties of a princess.

Sweeping with my hand ahead of me, I tore the golden string of the spider web and left the gardens on the way to my rooms.

There was but an hour or two left of the night. I held no hope of sleep. All I wanted to do was to bury my face in a pillow and let it choke the screams of my broken heart.

“You have company, Your Highness,” the guard at the door to my sitting room warned me.

“Company?” I groaned and ventured a guess, “Prince Leafar?”

Who else would visit me at this hour?

She nodded, opening the door. “And his escort.”

His escort?

I entered the room, coming face to face with the Grand Duchess of Olakrez, the Leafar’s very persistent aunt.

“I believe our audience is scheduled for later in the morning, Your Grace,” I said, with a voice colder than the ice sculptures at the ceremony today.

“The matter can no longer wait, Your Highness,” she replied in an equally icy tone.

Several ladies from the prince’s escort were here as well, including the duchess’s personal adviser. They lingered around my sitting room, fanning themselves with embroidered fans and drinking cherry wine and ice water. Leafar wasn’t with them.

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