Page 10

Chapter ten

Genevieve

“A re you ready for tonight?” asked Lily.

I scoffed. “Like anything is going to happen,” I replied.

She paused, staring at me in the mirror. “Maybe if you were a little nicer,” she added.

I turned around to face her, surprised. “Are you serious? Me, be a little nicer? I am offering him what he wants. I’m giving him an heir. Are you actually siding with him?” I stood from my vanity, stepping next to her while she folded a blanket nervously.

“I know you’ve been through a lot, but so has he. Zerrial tells me he—”

I held out my hand to stop her from speaking. “Zerrial is loyal to him. I don’t trust a word he says.”

“Eren released him from his commitment to him months ago. He and I can speak freely without worrying about where his loyalty lies.”

“Ha! I am sure it is just another game Erendrial is playing. Zerrial probably just told you that so you will open up to him and he can use you against me. Don’t be so stupid, Lilian.”

“And what exactly makes me stupid? Is it because I love Zerrial, or because I trust him?” she snapped with more attitude than I had ever heard in her small voice.

“Both,” I replied coldly.

She exhaled with frustration. “Don’t take your strife out on me, Gen. Your misery is all your own.” Lily glared at me, both anger and determination on her face. “Zerrial says he—”

“Stop! Enough about Zerrial. He’s probably fucking some other human down at the gentlemen’s club with Erendrial as we speak.”

Bam ! Lily’s fist flew into my face. My cheek stung and throbbed with pain. I turned my eyes slowly towards her, rage flickering. She was breathing heavily as she tried to steady herself.

“You forget who I am,” I growled through my teeth.

“You are my sister first and foremost, and that title gives me the right to speak. So you are going to shut up and listen to what I have to say.” She paused, waiting to see if I objected. “Good. Eren doesn’t deserve the way you’ve been treating him. He has done nothing to make you doubt him and everything to make you trust him. When you died, he was a shell of himself. He didn’t eat or sleep. He was consumed by your death.

“The demons told him everything they did to you and then what they did to the baby. He came to me and begged me to tell him it wasn’t true. I watched while he shattered. I held him as he cried for your child. Because he blamed himself for your deaths.” Lily was crying violently.

“Then, when you had Tryverse screw with your head, he didn’t hesitate to go in and save you, even though he was risking his own life in the process. He fought for you in the tournament, risking everything he had built so he could marry you. Not because of the crown, but because he loves you, Genevieve. The one male you thought would never return your feelings does, and you continue to turn him away. He even signed your stupid blood contract, hoping you would realize he wasn’t the threat and that you would give him another chance.

“Zerrial can barely get him to eat or sleep, let alone talk. He doesn’t even recognize him because of what you’ve put him through. And on top of it all, the high houses want him dead. Eren has stopped caring all together if he dies or not, while his family works around the clock to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

I leaned over my vanity, fighting the guilt that was beginning to fester inside of me. No, Gen, you can’t trust him, I told myself. He’s playing the long game … that’s all. It’s a part of his plan.

Lily grunted with frustration and grabbed something from my dresser. “Here,” she said, pulling the projection sphere from the box I kept it in. “If you don’t believe me, then watch.” She gripped my hand tightly as images from her memory blazed to life.

Flash . Eren stormed down the halls of Doonak, caring a body … my body. I was covered with his jacket. His hands gripped me so tightly I could see the white of his knuckles. His eyes were bruised underneath as if he hadn’t slept in days. His face was stained with tears. His jaw clenched so tightly he was trembling.

Flash . A chair flew across the room, splintering into pieces.

“I can’t take it Lilian,” roared Zerrial before he collapsed to the floor, sobbing and enraged. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried to help him. I’ve tried, but nothing I do is enough. I don’t recognize him. He is in so much pain. I’ve never seen my brother like this … and the worst part is he blames himself.” His indigo eyes reflected the candlelight as he peered up at her. “He’s shattered, angel … and I don’t know how to save him.”

Flash . Eren stood in the entry of Lily’s room. He was disheveled. He dropped his head and closed his eyes. “Please tell me she wasn’t pregnant,” Eren said, fighting to even get the words out. “Please tell me it wasn’t mine,” he whispered.

Lily sniffled as she brought her hands to her face. “How did you—” she started to say, before she cried fiercely.

Eren broke. He collapsed to the floor. Sounds I didn’t think him capable of making poured from him. His body trembled and his hands pulled at his hair while he swayed, shaking his head while he processed the knowledge of a child he never would know.

Flash . Lily cracked the door open to the throne room where my body lay on the altar before my funeral. Eren stood over me, tracing the lines of my face. He hesitantly placed a hand over my womb. His sobs echoed through the empty chamber.

“I am so sorry,” he cried. “To the both of you. I am so sorry.” Eren collapsed at my altar, utterly destroyed.

Lily pulled her memories back into sphere, gently releasing her grip on my hand as I stood in complete silence.

“Yes,” she said softly, “what the demons did to you was unspeakable. It was the most horrific thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. Nothing will ever make what happened right, but you survived Gen. You’re alive. You’ve been given another chance, and you are wasting it. You sit here feeling sorry for yourself when you could be happy. You need to realize that the only person standing in your way of happiness is you.”

I inhaled deeply, feeling like reality had finally come back into focus. Everything that I had done to him, everything that I had said and made him believe came rushing to the surface. Lily was right … I never once stopped to think about what he had gone through, or what he had lost. Seeing him through her eyes put everything into perspective. Lily was right … she was right about all of it.

“It’s too late,” I admitted softly, a pit in my stomach opening. I had mistreated him for months, pushing him away. This relationship … us … we were too broken to ever be put back together again.

She took my arms in her hands. “No, it isn’t,” she said with a smile on her face. “Go to him. Ask him about the first challenge in the tournament, when the game glitched during the last simulation. Go to him and just ask.”

I nodded, grabbing my robe before I headed to his room. I turned back and looked at my Lily … my strong, beautiful little sister and smiled. My breath trembled as I inhaled, fighting the tears that threatened to fall. I smiled softly. “Thank you, Lily,” I managed to get out.

She nodded. “Don’t worry, Gen. I’ll smack you back into reality any day.”

I laughed, shutting the door gently while I gathered my thoughts, preparing myself for anything.

When I got to his room, he was sitting on a couch next to the fireplace with a glass of whiskey and a book propped on his knee. He wore silk night pants and a formfitting shirt. He turned to me as I entered without a word. I closed the door while he refocused his attention back to his book. I sat on the couch next to him.

“You didn’t come to my room tonight,” I said softly, unsure of how to start a conversation with him.

“Why would I? So you can insult me on my performance again? Or to hear how you’ve slept with other males since coming back to life? Nice touch by the way,” he said, without even looking up from his book.

He was right, he didn’t deserve any of that. I hadn’t slept with anyone since I had been resurrected. I had just told him that to make him angry.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling foolish. “That was wrong of me to say those things.”

He scoffed. “Apologizing, are we? What do you want, Genevieve?”

“I wanted to ask you a question about the tournament.” I paused to see if he would look up, but his eyes were firmly planted on the page of his book. “During the first challenge, in the end, the game glitched. We didn’t see what happened or how you won.” I waited for him to react, but he remained unaffected. “What did you see?”

His eyes flickered to the roaring fire, before he inhaled deeply, taking a moment.

He got up from his chair and made his way to his desk. I followed. He pulled out a leather portfolio where I knew he kept his drawings. He placed it on the table next to me and then returned to his seat.

I opened the leather binding of the portfolio slowly, pulling back the aged cover. A beautiful drawing of our daughter peered up at me, exactly the way I had imagined she would look. The next page was a drawing of her smiling, with her nose crinkled in the exact spot mine did. The third page was a picture of me holding her. We were both smiling as our cheeks smashed against one another. There were a dozen drawings of her that he had beautifully rendered.

As I continued through the portfolio, I saw drawings he had done of me. On our wedding day, our wedding night. There was a picture of me sleeping in the cottage that we stayed in during the night of silence. Some were of me smiling, but most were of me looking sad and depressed. All these months, he had continued to draw me. All these months he was holding onto hope that we could be together, and I allowed my paranoia and anger to blind me.

I grabbed a few drawings of our daughter and made my way over to him. I knelt on the floor, holding her sweet little face in my hands. He closed his book and looked down at the papers.

“How did you know what I imagined her to look like?” I asked.

“Ravion Sterling. When he reached into your mind for the game, he saw her. He showed your father, and he allowed it to be the last simulation in the game, knowing I would know where to find the two of you.”

“So, my father knew about the baby?”

“Yes.”

“And he rigged the game in your favor?”

“Yes. I shouldn’t have won. Therosi was supposed to be your husband. I failed the last challenge. We had to pick between the kingdom or you, and I chose you. Your father saw this and appointed me victor because he loves you and wants you safe.”

My eyes fell to the floor while I processed what I was hearing.

“She’s beautiful,” he said. “How did you know it was a girl?”

“I didn’t. Not for sure. I just had a feeling. I picked my favorite parts of us and created an image of her to hold onto.” I looked down at the drawings in my hands. “May I keep a few?”

He exhaled and looked away from me. “Of course. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work I need to get back to,” he said before standing.

I got to my feet and stood beside him. I took one of his hands in mine as I peered into his swirling mercury eyes. Lily was right. They were full of pain and emptiness. He was broken. I had broken him. He couldn’t bear to look at me.

“Would it be alright if I stayed here with you tonight?” I asked hesitantly.

“You’re the princess you can do whatever you want, as you so often like to remind me.”

Okay, I deserved that. I deserved everything he was going to give me. I screwed up, but now I needed to find a way to make it right.