Chapter 42

Logan

I decided that I needed to prove to her how sorry I was about everything that had happened recently. Words didn’t feel like they had fallen short in our conversation. She had forgiven me so easily, I wanted to show her that I was sincere.

A cluster of white roses was delivered to the medical wing. No note, no fanfare. Just something soft in a place filled with sharp edges and smells. I needed to emphasize how sorry I was about the recent events with Emma, specifically.

Evelyn played an important role here, and I didn’t want to lose her. Our soldiers couldn’t afford to have her chased out of camp by Emma. She was too useful to let slip through my fingers.

Evelyn didn’t mention the flowers. But I noticed she moved them into her office, nestled them in the windowsill where sunlight touched them. It warmed something in my chest to see them so prominently displayed.

I hadn’t meant to imply anything by sending them to her. At least, nothing beyond my genuine apology. Maybe I should have picked up on some subtext of sending them, but I assumed Evelyn understood where we both stood.

There was something about her that had intrigued me more than I wanted to admit. Ever since that day with Dax in the training yard, I caught myself watching her more often. Not in the way men gawk when they think no one’s looking, but with a kind of… reverence.

Evelyn didn’t perform for attention. She simply was. No matter who was around to witness it, she was compassionate, unshakable, and sincere in a way.

And then, on the other hand, there was Emma, who was always putting on some kind of performance.

Each day, she seemed to grow louder, more dramatic. She stormed into rooms uninvited, inserted herself into plans I never asked her to be a part of. Once, I found her touching the petals of the roses I had given Evelyn. She was standing in Evelyn’s office, looking eerie as she was backlit by the window.

I hadn’t expected to find her there, but she was standing and frowning at the flowers. Despite the lack of a note, I knew she was aware of who they were from.

I cleared my throat to draw her attention.

She turned slowly, seeming unsurprised. She didn’t ask why I was there or explain why she was. All she had said was, “These are dying, you know,” before pushing past me to leave.

I’d just nodded. What else could I do? Argue again? I was tired of playing diplomat in my own damn home. And besides, she had already stormed away.

What grated most was how Emma kept trying to bring up us when we ran into each other. Things we “used to share.” Plans we’d “almost made.”

I used to entertain it. I used to think we had something real. A friendship that couldn’t be broken. But discovering that she was hiding secrets and capable of manipulating without guilt created cracks in that idea.

But the truth was surfacing in shards I hadn’t wanted to see.

Emma wasn’t the girl I remembered from that night years ago. The one in the white dress, the one who had seemed fierce in the face of her captors’ mercy. It was the memory that had initially brought Emma and me together when I told her about it.

When I found the girl in white, she had been there for days, so young and scared. But even still, she did not weep when I discovered her, and when I told her to run, she did not hesitate. In her, I had immediately recognized a survivor.

That girl had been something special. She had haunted my dreams since that night I had freed her. That girl had felt real. Untouched by politics or performance.

And Emma?

Ever since she had become aware of it, she played that memory like it was hers. After I had told her about it one night over goblets of wine, she had admitted to me that it was her. It had felt so convenient, so perfect at the time.

But now I was beginning to think that when she told the story, she told it too perfectly. And too often. Like she was repeating something she had memorized as though it were a script. Always with the same sigh, the same wistful smile, as though she'd rehearsed it.

It never quite sat right with me after that first night she’d said it was her.

And now it was starting to bother me: What if it truly wasn’t her?

The thought haunted me more than I cared to admit.

One night, I found myself outside the medical wing after talking to Chris about some of the soldiers who were nearly battle-ready after taking weeks off to heal. We needed to fortify our ranks with as many as we could gather, and Chris assured me they were prepared.

As I walked by Evelyn’s office, I had hoped to catch a glimpse of her working late, but she was nowhere to be seen. Strangely, I noted that I was disappointed by this.

And as I walked back toward the main hall, I passed my mother.

She looked me over the way she always did, as if inspecting for weakness. “You’re spending a lot of time near the medical wing.”

“I stop in when I can,” I said, keeping my tone flat.

“Your soldiers will heal just fine without you overseeing them,” she said with a meaningful look. She didn’t even believe what she was suggesting.

“It doesn’t hurt to drop by,” I said tersely.

“I heard Evelyn’s been asked to stay permanently,” she replied, her voice light but edged. “Chris told me, and I was surprised because you hadn’t said a thing to me about it. Are you encouraging that?”

I didn’t answer.

“You should have let her go,” she said.

“Evelyn is a great healer and—” I started.

“She’s not a suitable mate, Logan,” my mother went on. “She is a nobody. She has no blood ties to a royal line. And I’ve heard it spoken that she talks of the prince frequently. You know how dangerous that could become if the prince still harbors feelings.”

“Who said anything about mating with her?” I asked.

“No one yet,” my mother admitted. “And I’m hoping to keep it that way.”

I nodded once. I didn’t argue. There was no point.

Even if my mate wasn’t Evelyn, I feared whatever alternative my mother might suggest. She was not exactly someone I trusted to find the right person to spend my life with. And I already knew where her preferences for such a match lay.

Emma.

Emma had become a stranger in familiar skin. The version of her I saw now felt hollow, as though I was playing out a story I no longer believed in. If my mother suggested a mating with her right then, I would have walked away, dismissing the idea entirely, where once I might have entertained it.

Something had shifted in me.

“I won’t listen to you suggesting anyone else. Give me time. Let me decide what is right for me,” I said. “But I hear you.”

This last bit was an attempt to appease her, but I knew that she wouldn’t be truly satisfied by anything besides me discarding anyone else for Emma.

My mind snapped back to the memory of the girl in white that Emma claimed to be. If only I could find her so I could feel something real again. Not like Emma with her haughty defensiveness, or even Evelyn with our incompatibilities. Someone who made me feel something exciting and new.

“You are misguided,” my mother said with a shake of her head. “Do not make your decision selfishly.”

With that, she left me to stand alone in the hall with my thoughts.

Maybe I’d been wrong all along.

Maybe the girl in white hadn’t been Emma at all.

But if it wasn’t her, who could it have been? If she was still out there, I hoped one day I would find her.