Chapter 3The Last Bloom of Us

“Evelyn, the wind is cold. Where are you going with those bags?”

I pulled my lips into a thin, humorless line. “I’m returning to my family home.”

“Oh, good,” Liana said, her smile wide, but her eyes filled with scorn and malice. “For a moment, I was worried you were angry with me and wouldn't be attending my wedding to Alaric.”

Her gaze dropped and she suddenly noticed the pair of Twin Dove Clasps I held in my hand. Her eyes lit up, and without asking, she snatched them from me.

“Oh, I like these. Alaric, darling, make your sister give them to me, won’t you?”

Alaric’s expression froze. He looked at me, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.

But before he could speak, I said, my voice devoid of all emotion, “You may have them.”

For a second, I saw utter disbelief in Alaric’s eyes.

Liana’s triumphant smile also faltered. She had just noticed the inscription on the clasps: our two names, intertwined. They were our betrothal gift.

A vicious light entered her eyes. She raised the clasps high and smashed them onto the ground.

“What worthless trinkets,” she spat. “They look fine from a distance, but up close, they’re as common as scrap metal.”

With a sharp crack, the two clasps broke into four pieces, lying amidst the muddy, fallen petals of the Silverwood trees.

Just like my five years of love for Alaric.

I gave a desolate smile. There was nothing left to hold on to. I turned to leave.

Seeing my frail figure, so thin it looked as if the wind might blow me away, a strange, inexplicable panic seized Alaric.

“Wait!”

I turned back, my gaze calm and empty.

“I promise you,” he said, his voice earnest. “After the wedding tomorrow, I will go with you to see your mother.”

A sharp pain lanced through my heart, not for him, but for my mother.

I hid my burning eyes and said nothing.

There was no point.

There were only four hours left until my departure from the capital.

My mother’s funeral was to be held on the exact same day as Alaric and Liana’s wedding.

I held my mother’s urn, every step feeling as if I were walking on the blades of knives, the pain searing through my flesh and into my very bones.

White mourning papers filled the air like snow. As I rounded a corner, I came face to face with Alaric.

He was dressed in celebratory red, mounted on a magnificent warhorse, his face beaming with joy. Behind him was Liana’s grand bridal carriage, carried by eight men, followed by a procession of wedding gifts that stretched for a mile.

The joyous music and the cheers of the crowd filled the streets.

Until I appeared, holding my mother’s urn, dressed in simple, white mourning clothes.

It was as if a slash of white had cut through a sea of red. The crowd fell silent.

Seeing me, the smile on Alaric’s face froze. His eyes filled with anger.

“Evelyn,” he hissed, “must you humiliate me like this on my wedding day?”

The old me would have cried, would have defended myself.

But this time, I felt nothing. Not a single ripple in the dead calm of my heart.

I simply said, “Move.”

Alaric looked at me as if I were a stranger.

Liana, however, suddenly stepped down from her carriage, her face streaked with tears. “Lady Evelyn, I know you do not like me, but you must think of Alaric!”

She sobbed. “You are already unable to bear children! Are you trying to drive me to my death by making such a scene at my wedding?”

“Fine! I will die, then!”

She screamed and threw herself headfirst towards the carriage wheel.

Alaric, panicked, caught her and then turned on me, his voice frigid. “Evelyn, have you not caused enough trouble? Will you not be satisfied until Liana is dead?”

At his words, the crowd’s gaze turned on me, filled with scorn.

“Is that the woman Duke Alaric was meant to marry? So jealous and without virtue.”

“To think she would use such a tactic to force her husband’s hand. What a spectacle.”

I heard their whispers, but my heart remained as still and silent as a pool of stagnant water.

Alaric bit his lip. My lonely figure in the crowd reminded him of something, and for a moment, he looked lost. He reached out a hand, as if to touch me, but I shoved it away.

“Don’t touch me!”

My reaction seemed to extinguish the last flicker of gentleness in his eyes, leaving them cold as ice. He pushed the weeping Liana towards me.

“Apologize to Liana. Now,” he commanded. “Or else—”

He never finished his sentence. Nine royal attendants, all dressed in white mourning robes, cut through the red silk and celebratory music of the procession and stopped directly in front of him.

“A decree from His Majesty the King!”

The announcement sent a wave of confusion through the crowd. In the sudden jostling, the black cloth covering the urn in my hands fell away, revealing the nine characters I had carved myself: The Spirit Urn of the Lady Valerius, née Wang.

A collective gasp went through the ducal wedding party. The crowd fell utterly silent.

And in that instant, Alaric’s face went bone-white.