When vengeance strikes in the form of a bullet out for the princess's blood, Princess Aleia VonAuclair must flee the heart of her country in order to protect the people she loves and take back the pieces of her soul she'd lost to the girl she once l...
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Edrian shifted in his seat to allow me more space to lean into him while I slowly pieced together the words that would convey everything that had brought me to this point - me in his arms as I treaded through murky waters of my wretched past.
"Isa..." I started, keeping my gaze locked on his fingers as I nervously twiddled with them. "She was my best friend - my only true friend really. Well, at least I thought she was. We were basically raised together, and I spent almost my entire childhood with her. Everything - I did with her. You name it. All of it- all of my memories...She's a part of it."
I let out a shaky exhale and the hand wrapped around my waist began drawing soothing circles across the cotton of the shirt.
"Anyway, she...did some things - horriblethings. She hurt a lot of innocent people and she got away with it for almost a year. To be honest, I think she would've gotten away with it for the rest of her life if it hadn't been for me."
A rouge tear slipped from the puddle forming in the corner of my eye. His free hand reached up and wiped it away. The movement, feather light and delicate, brought my gaze to his and maybe it was a good thing that the tears blurred my vision because then, I wouldn't be able to see the expression on his face.
Most of them ended up being pity, anyway.
Not that Edrian would let me see it if he didn't want me to.
"I found evidence in her room one night when we were about to have a sleepover at her house. I knew, in that moment, that I had a choice. I'd been given an unspoken ultimatum- I could keep what I found a secret and save her. Or I could save the people she was hurting."
I choked on my next words and diverted away from him to look at the ceiling.
"I chose to save the people she was hurting, and she was sentenced to life in prison...At the time, I thought that was the end of it, that I would at least still be able to visit her in prison from time to time if I wanted to. Honestly, when I turned her in, I thought that would be the worst of it. I never thought-"
My knees buckled in on themselves, but Edrian swiftly tucked my chest to his, completely canting myself sideways into him to a point I was barely holding up my own weight.
"You don't have to continue," he said softly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. It was beginning to be a habit of his.
"No, I have to. I need to say it out loud."
I rapidly blinked the tears away and dared myself to make eye contact. When I did, it was only because of his arms around me did I not collapse into a heap on the floor, because it wasn't pity in his eyes, it was a fierce encouragement, a kind of openness – like he was listening to every word I said and wouldn't judge me no matter what. It was the kind that flooded me with sunshine and bright summer days.
"After her trials, the judge convicted her and because of my parent's...political influence, having me be the one to submit the evidence, a life sentence wasn't enough for them. It wasn't enough for what she'd done."
