She had to make it right and tell him she was sorry, that the past was in the past, and that she had forgiven him—and also ask him for his forgiveness.
He had fought to come and save her from those rogues despite looking broken himself. That was enough to make up for everything in the past. She had let those memories cloud her mind—the trauma from the past she had held onto. She had let it control her, even if it had been for just a moment. But that moment’s mistake had brought the heart-wrenching pain she last saw in Rohan’s eyes. She had to tell him she did not mean to fear him.
She hurried to the door and pulled it open. She then ran down the long corridor, down the stairs, calling for Rav at the top of her lungs. Lightning flashes from the windows illuminated the space, and the sound of the rain drowned out the loudness with which she was calling for the man.
But despite that, before she made it down the long flight of stairs, he came running to her with a worried look.
Belle grabbed his hand. "Has Rohan returned yet? I need to speak to him. Where is he?" she asked, her voice raw with desperate emotions.
Rav looked at the state the lady was in. She looked as pale as a ghost and even more fragile in the white nightdress. He did not know whether to tell her the truth about what had happened or to lie to her to make her go back inside and rest. She had only been unconscious for a few hours.
"My lady, you shouldn’t be out of the bed yet. You—"
"Answer me, Rav! Where is my husband? Has he returned?" she demanded, coming to a stop at the staircase, her hazel eyes burning with tears and determination. She would never know a moment of peace until she explained to him why she had hesitated to go to him and watched him suffer.
She had to remedy the mistakes she had made. She had let him down. She had been a fool. She wouldn’t be home without him, and she had just realized, only a few minutes ago, that it was Rohan who made this dreadful castle feel more like a home than the ancient building it was.
"My lady, if you would just—"
"I swear to God, if you tell me to calm down, I will hit you, Rav. I don’t give a damn about anything. Tell me where he is," she said through gritted teeth, glaring at him so furiously that even Rav took a step backwards from her.
At this very moment, she did not look like the delicate lady who had stepped into this castle looking fragile and curious, with innocence in her eyes. In fact, she sounded nothing like her. She looked like a woman who would kill to get to her husband, and the fierce look in her hazel eyes startled even him.
They burned with rage and determination.
The eyes of a she-devil.
"I do not intend to hide anything from you, my lady, since it has come to this. But please, would you at least find a place to sit while I tell you everything that—" Rav trailed off, taken aback as he watched the lady sit herself down on the stair and then look up at him with impatient eyes.
"I am sitting. Tell me before I go mad. Where is he?"
Rav cleared his throat and sat himself down on the step as well, as it was utterly disrespectful to look down at the lady in his standing position.
"His Lordship won’t be coming back." He dropped the bomb, half-expecting her to lose her cool and go she-devil on him again, but then she merely stared at him and let out a little laugh.
"I am not in the mood to take any form of jokes. Tell me the truth," she said calmly, her fingers trembling where she laid them on her lap, because even she wanted to believe this was some kind of cruel joke—something unreal, or a nightmare she would wake up from. But then, she suddenly recalled Rohan’s words:
’If things go well, I shall disappear for a couple of years and there will be no way to get hold of me... and if things go bad, this will be the last time we’ll ever meet again. You promised not to hate me. Don’t go back on your promise. I sincerely apologize for bringing you into this dangerous world and not being able to stand with you until we see it through...
Farewell, my heart.’
She began to shake her head in denial as she fisted her hand and hit it against her lips. "It can’t be. He can’t be gone. He didn’t die. He just ran into the forest, it can’t be."
She kept shaking her head and then demanded, "Tell me you are not being serious and that he will come back? He will, right?"
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