Chapter 124: See The Light First
Alpha Liandria;
"You’ve not been eating." Wilhelm finally breaks the silence, and I look up at him.
The silence makes him look up at me, and I avoid his gaze.
"You expect me to eat that sloppy meal served on brass plates!?" I demand, and he rolls his eyes.
HE ROLLS HIS EYES. AT ME!!
"It’s a balanced diet, Liandria. You’re refusing to eat good food because it doesn’t possess the same grandeur as the junk you’re used to eating?" He condemns me like I’m a child, and I glare at him.
"I’m a queen being forced to eat like a commoner!" I scream at him, and his hand, which was moving against the book, stops.
"Queenship is character... not a title." He says coldly as his icy eyes hold me in place, and as difficult as it is, I hold his gaze.
I hate that I can never read him. When he looks at me, I can not tell what he feels.
Does he hate me or not?
If he hates me... I wouldn’t still be alive.
Maybe he just needs me... for Rhydian? Or could he, by any chance, care?
I’ve done everything to keep him. To show him that I love him and that he should love me too... but nothing I do is ever enough.
Even if I cause trouble to get his attention, he only ever sends me sanctions and never has my time.
Growing up, I’ve long heard of lonely marriages... I never knew it could be this cold and exhausting.
I look away from him as emotions I have fought so hard to bury start resurfacing. How do I claim to be married and yet be lonelier than I was when I was single?
"Tuck your hair behind your ear." He suddenly says, and I raise a brow.
I look back up at him, and he mirrors my expression.
"Your hair...?" He urges, but I just stare at him.
Is he crazy?!
I’m trying to have a conversation with him, and he’s...
He sighs, and my breath catches when he suddenly stands up.
I watch with wide eyes as he walks over to the bars, and my heart starts pounding when he stands in front of me.
"Your stubbornness has always been a distinct feature." He says as he reaches into the cell, and a shiver runs down my spine as he takes his hand to my face.
He gently tucks my hair behind my left ear, and my grip on the bars tightens.
His fingers trail down to my chin, and I hold my breath as he lifts my face.
Our eyes meet, and I have to fasten my grip on the bars as my knees nearly buckle.
"There..." He whispers, and I swallow forcefully as he moves away from me.
He turns his back on me, and as my eyes catch his hair tie, bitterness explodes in my chest and mouth like a bitter poison.
It’s a little thing. As insignificant and tiny as it may seem, I know exactly what magnitude it holds for Wilhelm.
A man so meticulous... a man who pays attention to even the most minute detail will never casually use a green, woven hair tie with flowers to hold up his hair when he’s dressed in a blue robe.
It was a gift. From her... only she will gift him something that will be so important to him, he will break his obsession with perfection just to use.
My vision blurs with angry tears as I stare at it, and I look away as I struggle to control my emotions.
Perhaps he smells the shift in my scent, but he stops walking. He doesn’t turn to face me or say a word.
I should let the silence stretch.
I shouldn’t say anything.
I’ve always known. She’s his first love. Why then am I letting this affect me??
"What is it, Liandria?"
"What does she have that I don’t?" I question as I battle to hide my pain from my voice.
"Why... is she so important to you that you do not see anything else?" I question as I look up at him, and I lose the fight against my tears.
A tear escapes me, and I quickly wipe it away as he turns around to face me.
I won’t let him see me cry.
He stares at me in silence, and I glare back.
At the man I happily married. At the man I vowed to impress. At the man I devoted my entire being to impressing... at the man who would never love me the same way he loves his first love.
"I can’t see what’s been hidden from me." He replies, and my brows knot.
"What’s been hidden from you!? I’ve been right here the entire time. You know it! You’re not dumb, Wilhelm. You heard me. Every... cry I made for your love, you heard! You heard and you ignored!" I scream at him, unable to control my rage as my tears start pouring.
"You! You are the one who hid me! You never saw me! No matter what I did! And yet you dare to stand there and accuse me of hiding the girl you got married to. What is the point of her existence if you never saw her!? You never even tried!" I yell again, and he stares at me in silence.
"You think I never saw her?" He questions me with a raised brow, and I scoff as I look away from him.
"Sure. Tell me the lies you tell yourself. But you’ll be delusional to think that I’ll believe them!" I scold, and he smirks at me.
Here I am, breaking in front of him, and he is smiling!? He has the nerve to smile in the face of this situation!?
He’s enjoying this, isn’t he??
Hurting me. Breaking me...
"You are free to have your beliefs, Liandria. But I did see her." He says, and I scoff as I ready myself for whatever lie He’s about to spew.
"I saw her in her amusing addiction to berries and grapes." He says, and my heart skips a beat as everything in my mind pulls to a stop.
"I saw her in the little swirls she did each time she was happy and thought no one was watching..." He adds, and I feel my heart slow down in my chest as I slowly look back up at him.
"I saw her in how her eyes lingered on fried foods at every meal, yet she would eat only salads to keep her figure." He continues as he begins to walk back towards me, and my eyelids turn to wings of a frightened bird.
"I saw her in how she always threw her head back to laugh each time she found something funny... usually silly things." He adds as he gets back to the bars, and he bends a bit so we can be at eye level, and my lips quiver with emotions threatening to overrun me.
"I saw her, Liandria. I saw her until you hid her from me." He says, and I swallow, and another teardrop escapes my eyes.
"I don’t know the woman standing before me now, and I refuse to see or know her. She is not what I married." He then spits, and my throat runs dry as fury floods my system.
"She is the woman you made! You claim to have seen all these things about that girl, but you never let her know she was seen!! You never made her feel like you loved her. You don’t get to stand there and blame me for what I’ve become when you created it!" I scream at him, and he stands upright as he looks at me.
"Sure, you can point fingers at me, but you made this! You made me what I am today! You, Wilhelm!" I rage further, and he sighs.
"You put yourself in a competition. You wanted to be better than Cassia when you knew I loved and married her first. You tried to sow bitterness towards her in my mind, you covered yourself with the reeking filth of jealousy and bitterness." He spits, and my jaw drops as I stare at him.
"I promised to love all my spouses equally. And despite my best efforts, you were never satisfied. For some reason, you felt better than Cassia. Better than everyone else. And that is exactly what placed you beneath them. That anger. That envy... that ugly shawl of jealousy you covered yourself in." He continues, and each word slices into me like a newly sharpened blade.
"Liandria, you did this to yourself. Not me. You took a beautiful young girl and turned her into a cold, vicious woman. A woman who hurt even her own child. Now I know the lie that I’m responsible might help you sleep at night, but if you ever want me to see you... You first need to see the light." He concludes, saying the last pet as a whisper, and I watch in stunned silence as he tears off a page from the book in his hand.
He takes my hand, shoves the paper in it, and walks away.
When I can no longer hear his footsteps, I look down at the paper in my hand, and my heart leaps to my throat when I see a meticulously done sketch... of me.
He... drew me...
Simple, plain, broken, and in my prison uniform. Yet still... somehow beautiful...
Is this how he sees me?