Chapter 88
The name hung in the air like a thunderclap, stealing the breath from my lungs.
He knew.
"You knew?" I whispered, my voice barely audible.
"At first, I was unsure, but when I saw how angry you looked at me at the welcoming banquet, I knew it was you," he said, his tone cold. "Did you really think I wouldn't recognize you? That I wouldn't see through a change of hair color?"
"Did you think I would forget your body? Your eyes, the shape of your lips? Did you really think so little about me Ariadne?"
My knees felt weak as I stumbled back a step. "How long?"
"Since the day you arrived," he said, his eyes narrowing. "You can change your hair, your clothes, even your voice—but those eyes..." His voice softened for a moment, almost wistful. "I could never forget those eyes."
"Then why didn't you say anything?" I demanded, anger rising to the surface.
"At first I wanted to protect you, but then I wanted to see how far you would go," he said, his voice hardening again. "I wanted to believe there was a reason, some justification for you coming back. I thought you came back for me, but I was wrong."
"I had no choice," I said defensively, my voice trembling. "You don't understand—"
"Then make me understand," he interrupted, stepping closer. "Explain to me why the woman I once trusted, the woman I—" He stopped himself, his fists clenching. "Why you would turn against me."
I looked him in the eye. "You turned away from me first!"
"Me??!!" Rowan exclaimed.
"Yes you!"
"I was barely gone for a week and you were already parading a new wife. You let them execute me. You didn't even look for me. You didn't care if I was gone."
Rowan's eyes blazed with fury and unshed tears as he looked at me.
"You think I don't care?! I came back and I was told you were gone! My father told me your ran away when Isabelle arrived. Everyone told me you just left!! I tried to search for you, I looked for you everywhere, but I couldn’t find you. I only accepted to become crown Prince and marry Lady Isabelle Carstairs like my father wanted under the condition that he would help me find you!”
“I let Isabelle know from the start that what we had was temporary and only in name. She was fine with it, she said she only wanted to be queen.”
“When my father died, I couldn’t search for you as much as I wanted to, I had to take the throne. I sent men everywhere looking for you every day for months but they came back with nothing.”
I fell to my knees in shock.
Rowan. He looked for me?
“Nobody would tell me why you left, or where you are. All I know is that I came back and met Lady Isabelle Carstairs. My father demanded I marry her since she was the rightful wife provided for me. Apparently Isabelle had told my father everything, about you being an Otsayak and my father didn’t take that lightly. I assumed you ran away because you were scared but I was so so sure you were coming back. So sure.”
How could I have missed this?
He didn’t know?!
He didn’t know that I was thrown into the dungeons. He didn’t know that I was almost executed. He didn’t know about everything I had faced.
I couldn’t believe it.
“And then when you finally come back… you come back as a different person. And you do this…”
“You don’t know what happened. You wouldn’t understand…”
"Try me," he said, his voice soft but firm.
Tears burned in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. "You don't know what they did to me. You don’t know what I suffered!”
"And you think betraying me will fix that?" he asked, his tone filled with disbelief.
"They tried to kill me!" I shouted, the words spilling out before I could stop them. "Royal Concubine Elana told your father what I was. And Isabelle lied that I tried to kill her. When your father found out that I was an otsayak, he ordered my execution right away. I was about to be killed, already resigned to my fate when Kaelin saved me.”
Rowan's expression faltered, a flicker of pain crossing his features. "Ariadne... why didn’t you look for me"
"Look for you?" I shot back, my voice cracking. "Before the execution when I was locked go in the dungeons, I told Maria to look for you. To tell you the news. She died before she could even come back to give me an answer. When Kaelin finally took me to see you, I saw you on the balcony with Isabelle announcing your wedding.”
“You forgot me so quickly. You moved on.”
He took a step back as if I had struck him. "You really believe that?"
I hesitated, my heart pounding in my chest. "I don't know what to believe anymore. How could you really not have known everything that had happened to me? If you really looked for me so hard, why didn’t you find me?”
The silence between us was deafening, the weight of unspoken words pressing down on me.
"I looked for you. I tried to find you," Rowan said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. "I wanted to believe that your were still out there. That the woman I..." He stopped himself again, shaking his head. "And when you finally came to me, you come as someone else, intent on bringing me down.”
He turned to leave, and anger surged within me. "Bring you down?! I wouldn’t want to bring you down in the first place if I didn’t think you betrayed me. How was I to know that you didn’t know they tried to execute me? Tell me how I would have known!”
“How would I have known that you didn’t know I was alive?! Or that they had called for my execution?! All I knew was that I saw you at that balcony getting married to Isabelle barely days after I had left.”
“Because I was in love with you. That’s how you should have known that I would have never done anything to hurt you.”