Chapter 147: The Fake Good Guy

Elara:

The soft smile that had been lingering on my lips disappeared so completely that I could almost feel my face go numb.

I should have knocked. I should have announced that I was there and given Esmeray the chance to finish whatever conversation he was having in private. I would never have deliberately stood outside someone’s door and listened to a private conversation, but then I heard my name.

At first, I thought I had simply imagined it, because surely there was no reason for Esmeray to be discussing me. But then his voice came again, clearer this time, and I found myself standing completely still with my hand suspended beside the door.

"Mother, I have already done enough. How many times do you want me to repeat myself?"

The voice on the other end was too muffled for me to understand, but Esmeray’s response was unmistakable.

"No, I’m not going to keep pestering the Princess just because you think she needs to be convinced to favor our house."

My heart gave a strange little jerk. Princess. Our house. I didn’t understand what he meant, but I couldn’t make myself walk away.

"You don’t need to worry about Eleanora favoring another house over ours," Esmeray continued, sounding increasingly irritated. "I have spent the last four months making sure she sees me as the reasonable one. Reign and Alaric have done more than enough to make themselves look like the villains around her, while I have been the one helping her, listening to her, teaching her, and making sure she knows she can come to me."

My stomach dropped. I pressed my back against the wall beside the door, suddenly unable to breathe properly.

"I have been the perfect good guy, Mother. Isn’t that what you wanted?" There was a pause while his mother apparently responded, and when Esmeray spoke again, his voice carried a weary edge. "I know exactly what I’m doing. You don’t need to remind me every time we speak. The Princess will eventually have to decide which houses she trusts, and I’ve already made sure ours isn’t the one she has a reason to fear."

I felt something inside me crack. Every word seemed to travel through the door and strike somewhere beneath my ribs, and suddenly all those moments I had shared with him began rearranging themselves in my head.

His mother said something else, and Esmeray sighed heavily. "No, Mother. I am not going to bring up the matter of dating. It’s not the right time. And I’m certainly not going to behave like Reign or Alaric. They made their choices. I made mine."

His tone softened for a moment, almost amused. "Besides, you should be more concerned about your own son instead of worrying about whether the Princess might choose another house. I have already done more than enough to ensure she won’t cause trouble for us once she takes the crown."

The crown.

He’s talking about my crown. The title I had only recently begun to understand as a source of power rather than an unwanted burden. Apparently, other people had been thinking about what my crown could mean for their houses long before I had even accepted that it was mine.

"So stop asking me to get closer to her," he finally said, irritation returning to his voice. "I have already played the role you wanted. I have been kind. I have been patient. I have helped her when she needed someone. What more do you want from me?"

Another pause followed, and then his voice dropped lower. "I have my own plan for Elara, Mother. Trust me. You don’t need to interfere."

My heart squeezed so painfully that I had to press a hand against my chest. I couldn’t hear what his mother said after that because the blood rushing through my ears seemed louder than everything else, but I had already heard enough. Far more than enough.

Four months of memories suddenly felt like pieces of a puzzle I had been assembling with the wrong picture in front of me.

The first time I met Esmeray in the greenhouse. The nights he had whisked me away to his dreamlands so I could escape my nightmares. The tea he had given me when I couldn’t sleep. The way Aureon had unexpectedly approached me. The dried herbs he had given me during the winter holidays. Every gentle question, every quiet smile, every moment when I had thought perhaps I had found someone I could trust. Had any of it been real? Or had I simply been the perfect target for a carefully constructed performance?

I felt sick. Somehow, Esmeray’s betrayal hurt differently from everything Reign or Liliana had ever done to me.

Reign had never pretended to be someone he wasn’t. He had been arrogant, infuriating, and brutally honest about the fact that he wanted me to accept his authority. Liliana had never bothered hiding her hatred. Even Alaric had been more clear about his opinions toward me though it seemed to have switched recently. But Esmeray had been different.

He had made himself safe. He had become the quiet place I could breathe, the person I hadn’t needed to defend myself against. And now I couldn’t tell whether even one of those moments had belonged to me or whether they had all been carefully planned because his family saw me as nothing more than a future crown they needed to secure.

At least my enemies had attacked me from the front. Esmeray had apparently smiled while deciding exactly where to put the knife.

The call finally ended, and the silence that followed felt unbearable. I should have walked away. I should have left the dormitory, gone back to my room, locked the door, and never spoken to him again. Instead, my feet remained rooted to the floor.

My eyes burned fiercely, but I refused to let the tears fall. I wouldn’t cry over this. I wouldn’t give him that. I had survived losing my entire family. I had survived being kidnapped, attacked, and hunted by people far more powerful than me. I could surely survive discovering that someone I had trusted had been pretending to care.

The bedroom door suddenly opened, and I came face-to-face with Esmeray.

He froze.

The realization hit his face almost instantly. His eyes widened, his expression drained of color, and then horror settled over his features as he understood exactly how much I must have heard.

"Elara..." he began, but I didn’t give him the chance to continue.

"If you wanted to be on the good side of the Crown that badly," I said quietly, staring directly into his eyes, "you should have approached me with a good partnership proposal instead of going to such lengths to play the good guy."

His face tightened as he took a step toward me. "You don’t understand-"

"Esmeray Ashbourne." I deliberately used his full name, watching shock and anxiety flash across his face as I drew the line between us. "You don’t need to act anymore. Whatever role you decided to play around me, you can stop now."

He opened his mouth again, desperation replacing the shock in his eyes. "Elara, you are misunderstanding what you heard. Please, just let me explain."

I shook my head, forcing myself to keep my voice steady despite the ache in my chest. "No. I misunderstood you before." I stepped back, refusing to let him come any closer. "Today, I finally understood you."

For one suspended second, neither of us moved. His expression was filled with words he desperately wanted to say, while mine contained nothing but the last fragments of trust I had been foolish enough to give him. Then I turned away.

I didn’t wait for an explanation, didn’t wait for an apology, and didn’t give him another opportunity to tell me that what I had heard wasn’t what it sounded like.

I simply walked out of Esmeray Ashbourne’s dorm, leaving him standing behind me with the door still open.