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Present day.
"You must have heard," Diana said. She did not look at him nor move an inch. She remained seated on her bed, hugging her folded knees.
The image of her hunched back, that seemed smaller than already was and her hair sprawled like a black frozen waterfall, looked vulnerable.
"...I did.," Xander, who had his list of questions, could not remember them in order.
Truth or not, the rumors wouldn't matter. In fact, it would be more beneficial to him. After all, some proper nobles that he recruited to his side will be more willing for their daughters to be his queen. Now that his friend Therese was slowly being freed from Niccolus, she too is a possibility. Their deal will end soon, and Diana wished nothing from him aside from what they agreed.
Yet, he was a ball of nerves and all levels of anger and relief. He had just come from meeting Avelyn and Bludis to confirm his suspicions. After much persuasion, to the point of begging, Avelyn was able to reencounter the night he was drugged. "Your fiancee looked like her, Pamela. It was four years ago, Your Highness, but I would never forget the face of my savior."
He must have known it at the back of his head. When she sang the lullaby, and her fidgety attitude back in the bar with Bludis were the signs. Avelyn mistook her for Pamela, the mysterious prostitute that became his savior because it was her, just across the room from him.
Xander took a step forward to her bed and finally faced her. From the blocked view of the window, Diana looked up to him and said, "We meet again, Your Highness."
He did not respond to her jest. Instead, Xander stared at her, extremely well. From the beautiful arc of her brows, the fine point in her nose to the slightly parted plump mouth—how could he forget?
He may have been drugged, but how could he not recognize her? Her touch, her voice, the smoothness of her skin.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Diana tilted her head to the other side, looking away from him at the same time. "There was no need. I would have taken the secret to my grave."
For a moment, Xander wanted to thank Queen Claudette. If it weren't for her planned rumors, he would have never found out Diana's past.
He bent on his knees. This time, he was looking up at her. "Why, Diana?"
The latter smiled, but it didn't reflect her eyes. "Oh my, Your Highness, as a future king, you must not kneel to anyone."
A king must only kneel to the queen upon oath of marriage, never to a woman who sold herself for gold.
"Diana!" he screamed in anger.
Only then, the latter frowned. "I'd rather have you remember as your accomplice, Your Highness, not as a whore."
The silence between them was palpable, then broken with the rustles of his clothes as he sat beside her. "Tell me everything four years ago."
"...As you command..." Diana then recounted everything to him. Michael's debt, her rejected tutoring job, and her desperation. She then applied to the brothel and was chosen by Niccolus. Even how she escaped were told to.
"It was too late when I saw his face. I could not back out too," she said.
Diana, looking away from him, added that the aphrodisiac was so potent that she too was intoxicated. Yet her voice was filled with shame as she apologized to him for taking advantage of his weakness.
"...and after that?"
"I didn't leave the island since then."
"...a child... did you have a child?"
He was deeply searching her face that Diana could not look away. Then she smiled. "Bothered, Your Highness?"
"Extremely so." Having children outside of marriage is a taboo. Nevermind with the king who was privileged to have as many concubines. But the children born into such circumstances suffer the most.
There is no need for another bastard. He is enough, although he does not share a drop of blood with the king.
Diana stood up and stretched, prolonging her answer. "What would you do if I did?"
He didn't want it. His answer had always been absolute. But what if they really had a child? There was nothing mentioned in her background check, nor they dwelled deeper into the matter before.
"We didn't," Diana said after his silence, back turned away from him, as she was now leaning on the window. "And if we did, I'd...kill the thing. I could not take care of another burden. A child out of prostitution is just laughable, don't you think so, Your Highness?"
This time, Diana turned to him, with the smile, but the coldest and most indifferent he had seen.
He was glad she thought the same. "Indeed." Yet he spoke through gritted teeth and swallowed back the unreasonable anger towards her indifference.
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The rumor about Diana reigned within and outside the palace walls. Although unlike the crown prince rumor that had a drunkard man screaming 'Niccolus was born of nine months!' and copied notes from the queen's old physician, Diana's were just whispers and tattles. But there was power in words of malice, and her already tattered reputation shattered in pieces.
Yet, she held her head up high outside her room. It has been a week since she and Xander talked. Countess Huxlin never once mentioned the rumors in their lessons, nor her treatment changed.
What worried Diana were two things:
One, Kirien and her daughter Feliziia was still missing, and the fervent search continues. Xander said that a bush of Wylola flowers was found in the Norvillon Gardens. But the duke never acknowledged that it was the remains of his wife from the curse.
"For a man who harvests spirit stones from beasts, Devanti does not believe in things logic could not explain," Xander told him once. This might be the cause of the search, or that he could not still accept Kirien's death.
Even Diana does not wish to believe it too. After all, she thought of Kirien as a friend.
Second, on her list was the queen's silence. It has also been a week since she was invited to the palace for tea. She even sent Queen Claudette a letter of a report about the things Xander allowed her to leak, and there was no response for days.
That's why, when a queen's summon was sent to her an hour ago, Diana canceled her afternoon lessons with the countess and prepared for the visit palace. Amidst preparation, there was a knock on her door.
Xander entered after permission, and the maid excused themselves. "I have been summoned by the queen, Your Highness," she broke the silence.
"I know."
Then there was silence again. After he found out the truth, he has been stingy with words. Yet, she could feel his stare burning on her skin whenever they cross paths. Like now, it was as if he'd say something but then clamp his mouth and anger would slip from his indifferent mask.
Was he angry at her for not telling him the truth? Was it because he was disgusted with her?
"...Is there something you want to add to stories I'd share with the Queen?"
"No. Tell her the things we agreed upon." He then pulled something inside his coat and placed it on the table between them. "Bring this with you."
Diana picked up a weaved, sturdy leather as a holster. Cradled in it was a silver dagger, light but sharp, with intricate carvings of wavy lines in its body. At its center, near the handle, were three specks of spirit stones embedded in the metal.
The red stones, although smaller than her fingernails, glowed, proof that it can damage more than piercing the flesh. Her hands gripping the handle fit so well that one could say it was as if made for a woman.
Because it is.
Diana saw it in her vision, in the hands of Therese.
Because of Niccolus' questioned blood as an heir and Xander's growing influence, the Ducal House of Hearth distanced from the royal family. The engagement with Niccolus was hung in the balance. To protect herself, Xander gave Therese the same dagger in her hands for protection.
But why is he giving it to Diana instead? The same questions must have been read in her face that Xander explained. "Don't go around defenseless."
She did not understand him. This is not supposed to be hers, nor she wanted it. And yet, she clutched the dagger, and her heart rammed against her chest.
"...thank you..." Was this a gift for saving him four years ago? What about Therese?
She could not answer them. Xander was already standing in front of her now, with his extended hand. She handed the dagger and watched him return it to the holster.
Then he kneeled and asked, "My lady, may I?"
Yet, his red eyes glinted as if he was not asking permission, Diana was compelled to nod.
Slowly, he lifted the hem of her gown, exposing her thigh. Xander's hand settled at her ankle, sliding up to the back of her shin up to her thighs. Slowly, he pulled it closer to him. Despite the stockings in between, her skin burned at his touch.
Diana lifted her leg to give him access, as he circled the dagger holster on her right thigh, attached to the strap that held her stocking in place.
He looked up and caught her bewildered expression and a face exploding in pink blush. "Y-You... kneel a lot, Your Highness."
He smiled. "I do."
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I've never updated daily in my 7 years writing, only now. 😅
Ellena Odde ❤