Page 94 of A Kingdom's Heart
Her lips parted slightly, but before she could speak, I went on. “Because I hate every part of it,” I said, my voice rough with the weight of it. “I hate the way he looks at you like you belong to him. I hate the way he smiles at you, the way he touches you, andhow you let him. I hate that you laugh with him the same way you used to laugh with me. Every time I see you beside him, it feels like something inside me is tearing apart.”
Her eyes widened. She didn’t speak, just stood there frozen, her breath uneven.
“It feels like hell,” I said quietly. “Like living through punishment every time I see his hand on you, every time he calls you his.”
For a long moment, she said nothing. Then, her voice came out
barely above a whisper. “But you hated me for lying to you. You said I was nothing but a duty.”
The words hit hard. I looked away, jaw tight, every muscle in me strained to keep steady.
When I didn’t answer, she said, “If you’re so angry at me, and if I’m nothing but a duty to you, then why do you care?”
That question struck deeper than anything else.
Because I did care. More than I had any right to. More than I could ever admit.
. I could feel something burning deep in my chest, something that had been building for too long, pressing against the walls I had tried to keep up. I wanted to stop it. I wanted to swallow it down like I always did, but it was too much. I couldn’t.
“Because–” The words tore out of me before I could think. I stopped, breathing hard, my pulse loud in my ears.
She took a small step closer, eyes fierce, demanding an answer. “Because what, William?”
It snapped. The last of the restraint I had been holding broke apart.
“Because I’m in love with you,” I said.
The words came out low, ragged, and absolute. I had never spoken anything truer in my life.
She froze. Her lips parted slightly, her eyes wide, breath caught somewhere in her throat.
I took a step back, running a hand through my hair as if that could undo what I’d said. “I tried not to,” I said quietly, my voice strained. “God knows I tried. Especially after I found out who you were. You’re the king’s daughter, a princess, and I’m just a knight. It should have ended right there. But it didn’t.”
Her eyes glistened, her voice barely a whisper. “You… you love me?”
I didn’t answer. I just looked at her, unable to lie anymore. The truth was too heavy to swallow back down.
She took a small step forward, her voice shaking. “Since when?”
The question cut through the air, pulling something deeper out of me. I looked at her, really looked, and the memories came like a tide I couldn’t stop.
“Since the first day,” I said finally. “Since you came into my home pretending to be a healer. You smiled at me like you weren’tafraid, like I was more than a soon-to-be-knight. And at the riverbank, you read by the river, you asked about my past, you laughed when I said something foolish. I didn’t know your true name, but I knew I was done for.”
She swallowed hard, her hands trembling as she clutched her skirts.
I stepped closer, my voice lower now, steadier. “And when I found out the truth, when I realised who you really were, I told myself to stop. To hate you. But I couldn’t. I still saw Elara. The girl who sat by the river, the one who looked at me like I mattered.”
Tears gathered in her eyes. She didn’t try to hide them.
For a moment, I just watched her. The way her breath caught, the way her shoulders trembled. Something inside me cracked open.
“I don’t know if you love me back,” I said, “but I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend I’ve forgotten you. I can’t act like you don’t matter to me, because you do. More than I ever thought anyone could.”
Her breath caught, and she shook her head as her hands tightened at her side. “But you look at me like I’m the one to blame,” she said, trembling. “Like I wanted this marriage. I never did. And you know it. You held me when I cried about it back in Elarion. You know I’m being forced into it.”
I stared at her, my chest tightening. The room felt smaller. “It was the way you started getting closer to him,” I said quietly. “Smiling at him. Letting him touch you. Every time I saw it, it felt like a knife.”
Her lips trembled. “At the start I did it because I had no other choice. We’re getting married either way. But then I did it–” she paused softly, “to make you jealous.”
