Chapter 58: Fifty Eight
Valka
I am a child once again, cold and frightened. Pressing my hand to my chest, I feel the speeding thud of it. I cannot think. I cannot think. I cannot think.
Lucien and I stare at each other, the truth of what we’ve done laying heavy between us, and those eyes that once twinkled with mischief are hard and cold now.
"Why are you in here?" His voice is too soft, the kind of soft that makes my skin crawl. The last time he spoke to someone like that, he killed them in front of me. "I tucked you in last night. In your chambers."
I swallow thickly, clutching the sheets to my chest with trembling fingers. "I--I don’t know. I--" My breath comes too fast. My thoughts scatter like frightened birds. "I came here..."
There’s a blur in my mind, a hazy string of moments that don’t feel like mine, and yet, buried beneath them, there *was* a want.
I remember the hallway tilting beneath my feet, every step soft and distant, like I was walking through someone else’s dream. I remember the warmth of the wine still burning in my throat, the whisper of Ilya coiling in my mind, urging me forward when I should have turned back. Go to him, it hissed. He needs you. You need him.
I remember the door closing behind me. The sight of him thrashing in his sleep, sweat slicking his temples, broken words of grief slipping from his lips. I remember brushing trembling fingers over his cheeks until he stilled, until the nightmares loosened their hold. I remember the way my heart cracked at the sound of his voice when he whispered her name--Ilya--like a prayer he’d been denied too long.
And then... I remember the rest. The hard panes of his chest beneath my palms, the way his lashes fluttered when I kissed the hollow of his throat, the way his breath caught when I slid the bindings around his wrists. I remember the plea in his voice, the way he clung to the ghost he thought was before him. And I remember the burn and stretch of him inside me, the sharp gasp that left my lips when his hands trembled against my skin.
I want to scream that it wasn’t me. That the wine and Ilya’s poison walked me here. That I was only a passenger in my own body. But that isn’t the truth. Not the whole truth. Because even if my mind had been clouded, even if something ancient and cruel had its hand at my back, a part of me still wanted.
Maybe just once. Maybe only for a heartbeat.
And I’d known at the first stroke of him inside me, when the burn lit through my veins. I’d known he was my first. I’d known where I was.
I should have stopped it. But it was the wine, and the heated glances across the tavern, and the way his arms had caged me all the way home. It was stirring to find his fingers tangled in my hair, his lips hovering an inch from mine before he’d pulled away, leaving me with a burning core and that heavy, ragged "Sleep well, Valka."
It was Ilya, whispering her darkest, most selfish desires into my blood. But it was me, too.
And the shame of that truth drowns me as I stare at his body. The crescents of my nails carved into his chest. The faint bite marks blooming purple across his skin. The raw red bands at his wrists where the bindings had held him.
I’ve crossed a line. A grave one.
I took advantage of him, in the worst, most vulnerable way imaginable. There is no explanation I can give, no excuse that could ever make staying forgivable. Not after kissing him even as he wept for his dead Erasthai. And in the silence after, I realize I’ve wounded something in him far deeper than flesh.
His eyes widen as the understanding flickers across my face. And I see it then. A wall too thick to break, a distance growing too quickly to ever bridge between us. The coldness in his gaze curdles into something darker, heavier.
"Lucien," I breathe, reaching out, to touch him, to apologize, to something but he flinches.
He flinches.
The violet in his eyes goes black, and he’s off the bed in a heartbeat, like he cannot get away from me fast enough. In quick strides, he snatches my clothes off the ground and hurls them at me with a snarl so vicious, it rattles the walls of his castle. "Get out."
"Lucien," I try again, voice hoarse, but he doesn’t even look at me. He’s standing by the window now, hands gripping the sill so tightly the wood groans under his fingers. His shoulders heave with every breath, the muscles in his back bunched tight beneath his skin.
"I was drunk," I cry. "I didn’t mean for this to happen! Ilya--"
"Don’t." The word cracks out of him like a whip. "Do not speak her name."
Could I tell him? Should I? That she was here, really here? But somehow, I already know it wouldn’t make a difference. He wouldn’t believe me. He’d think I was trying to shift the blame onto the ghost of the woman he loved. And he’d hate me more for it.
My throat closes. "I didn’t mean to cause you any kind of hurt."
"But you did," he snarls, whirling, and for the first time since I’ve known him, I wish he stayed cold. Because this--this is rage that’s been festering for years, the kind that comes from reopening wounds that never healed. And it sinks in then, how little I truly know him. I’ve seen many faces of Lucien, but this one, this broken, furious, shattered man is the truest of them all.
"And the worst part?" His voice fractures. "I let you. I was so godsdamned desperate to feel her again that I didn’t even look. Didn’t even see that it was you. And now, every time I close my eyes, I’ll see you instead of her. I’ll feel you when I remember the only person I ever truly loved. And I will hate you for that. I will hate myself for that."
The room is spinning. My lungs ache with how hard I’m breathing. The edges of my vision blur. Shame and sorrow crawl up my throat and choke me until I can barely whisper, "I’m sorry--"
"Get. Out."
The words feel like a death sentence. Low. Final. I open my mouth to speak, to plead, but his expression stops me cold. There’s nothing left of the man who teased me in the courtyard or held me on horseback. Just a king who’s built walls around his heart, and I’d just destroyed the last one.
I don’t remember dressing. I don’t remember stumbling into the corridor. Only the echo of that broken voice chasing me through the halls, slicing me open from the inside out.
Somewhere along the way, I find myself standing before another door. I don’t even know why I come here. Maybe some part of me thinks that if anyone could still look at me after this, it would be someone who really knew me. Someone who knew I wasn’t a terrible person.
The door creaks open just enough for Rhea’s eyes to find my face. She looks better, healthier. Another favour Lucien granted me. So long as I worked with him, Mother would be a guest here. And I’d gone and ruined everything.
Tears fill my eyes. Rhea’s eyes widen. Then narrow. And before I can speak, the door slams shut. Hard.
The sound rings through my bones. I stand there for a moment, swaying, half-hoping she might open it again. She doesn’t. She never does.
By the time I push open the door to Margot’s chambers, my legs are shaking. My face is wet. Every step feels like a wound tearing wider in my chest.
She’s seated in a high-backed chair, a silver tray of untouched tea cooling by her side as a messenger murmurs the morning reports to her silently. She listens with that same stillness that makes even royals squirm. But the instant she sees me, her composure cracks.
My fingers fidget with the hem of my shirt as salty tears roll down my cheeks. "I didn’t know where else to go."
"Oh, child," Margot whispers, rising from her chair and empties the room with a flick of her fingers. "Oh, you poor, foolish girl."
***
I didn’t get out of bed the rest of the day.