CHAPTER 123: CHAPTER HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE

She stood in the center of it all, her chest heaving. Her hair was wild, sticking to her tear-stained face. She looked at Derek, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and defiance.

"Yes!" Senna shouted. Her voice cracked, a raw sound of hysteria. "Yes, I am insane! What if I am?"

She took a step toward him, ignoring the charred debris crunching under her slippers.

"Derek," she pleaded, her voice dropping to a desperate whisper. "We have known each other for years. Years! I have been by your side. I have waited for you. Yet... yet you discarded me like trash. You threw me away for her."

She pointed a shaking finger at Marissa, who stood silently by the door, her face an unreadable mask.

Derek looked at Senna. His expression was not angry anymore. It was cold.

"I did not discard you," Derek said. His voice was low, steady, and devoid of warmth. "I gave you dignity. I gave you a home. I gave you a new life. But you misused it. You threw it back in my face."

He gestured to the blackened window, where the night wind was blowing in the smell of smoke.

"You claimed Lord Ashford burned your home," Derek said. "You claimed he sought revenge."

Senna nodded frantically. "He did! He hates me!"

"Lies," Derek stated flatly.

He took a step closer to her, looming over her small frame.

"I had Ian investigate," Derek revealed. "That night... the night your residence burned... Lord Ashford was nowhere near the city."

Senna froze. Her tears stopped for a second.

"He was confined by his father," Derek continued, his eyes boring into hers. "After the incident in your private room, his father locked him in the family estate for his reckless behavior. He never left his home. He couldn’t have set the fire."

Derek looked down at the half-burnt curtain on the floor.

"Given this," Derek said, "there is only one explanation. You set your residence on fire. You burned down your own fortune. You risked the lives of your servants and neighbors."

Senna trembled. The truth was out. There was no hiding from it.

Fresh tears streamed down her face. She didn’t deny it this time. She nodded, a jerky, broken movement.

"I had to," she sobbed. "I had nowhere else to go to get your attention. I just wanted to be near you. I just wanted to be back in your life."

She reached out, trying to touch his chest, but he stepped back.

"Is that so wrong?" she asked, her voice breaking. "To love someone so much you would burn the world down?"

"That is not love," Derek said coldly. "That is obsession. And it is built on a foundation of lies."

He looked at her with deep disappointment.

"You have always deceived me, Senna," Derek said. "From the very beginning."

Senna wiped her eyes. "What do you mean?"

Derek took a deep breath. This was the hardest part. The part that erased the last decade of his gratitude.

"You are not the one who saved me back then," Derek said.

The room went deadly silent. Even Marissa, standing by the door, straightened up, her eyes widening.

Senna’s tears stopped instantly. Her face went pale, the color draining away like water down a drain. She looked at Derek with fear.

"You..." Senna stammered. "You know?"

"I know everything," Derek said.

He began to pace slowly around the room, recounting the story he had pieced together.

"That day in the blizzard," Derek said, his voice echoing in the quiet room. "Years ago. You were not a local girl who happened to find me. You were like me that day. You were a victim."

He stopped and looked at her.

"You were just an injured escapee," Derek said. "You got injured running away from the people who you were sold to."

Senna looked down at the floor. Her hands shook.

"You are from the West," Derek stated. "Your accent slips when you are angry. Your knowledge of Western dance, drugs... it all makes sense now."

He continued, relentless.

"Your father is a farmer in the Western borderlands. He was addicted to gambling. He owed debts he couldn’t pay. So, he sold you. He sold his own daughter to pay his debts."

Marissa watched Senna. She saw the woman’s shoulders hunch. It was true.

"You were being transported," Derek said. "But the blizzard hit. The carriage crashed. You escaped. You ran into the snow, bleeding, freezing, terrified. You happened to escape from them when they passed the western border into the North."

Derek walked back to stand in front of her.

"You collapsed in the snow," Derek said. "Just like I did. We were both dying."

He leaned in close.

"And that girl..." Derek whispered, his voice softening with a memory. "The third person in the snow. She saved the both of us."

Senna didn’t speak. She bit her lip until it bled.

"She found us," Derek said. "She dragged us to that cave. She warmed us. She tended to our wounds. She gave us her own food."

Derek looked at Senna with disgust.

"You were awake," Derek accused. "You saw her even if it was for a brief moment. But when the rescue party came... she was gone. She went to find help and didn’t come back in time."

"So you took her place," Derek continued. "You knew all the details. You knew about the cave. You knew about my wound. You used that knowledge to impersonate my savior."

Senna looked up. Her eyes were full of a dark, bitter sadness.

"I had no choice!" Senna cried. "I had nothing! I was a slave! I needed protection! You were a noble. If I saved you, I would be safe. I would have a life!"

She glared at him as he stayed silent.

"So you suspected me long ago?" She asked, her voice bitter. "You played along? When did it start? When did you stop trusting me?"

Derek replied instantly.

"I started suspecting you when you took poison on my wedding day."

Senna let out a rough, low chuckle. It was a sound devoid of humor.

"The poison," she muttered.

"The girl who saved me," Derek said, "she was selfless. She gave me the last of her water. She covered me with her own cloak. She valued life."

He looked at Senna.

"But you... you drank poison to manipulate me. You gambled with your life to ruin my wedding. That was not the act of the person I remembered. That was the act of a selfish woman."

Marissa was standing by the door, watching the drama unfold. She felt a strange sensation in her chest. A memory was tickling the back of her mind. A blizzard. A cave. A boy.

Derek continued.

"The things I gave that girl," Derek said. "The token of gratitude. The silver pendant with the family crest."

He looked at Senna’s neck.

"They were stolen by you," Derek said. "You took them from her bag when she left to find help."

Senna shook her head. "I didn’t steal it!" she protested weakly. "They dropped from her! They fell out of her pocket accidentally when she ran out! I just picked them up!"

It was a weak defense, and she knew it.

Derek outstretched his hand. His palm was open, waiting.

"Since it is not you," Derek commanded. "Return the pendant I gave her. It does not belong to you."

Senna clutched her chest. She held onto the pendant hidden beneath her dress. It was her safety blanket. It was the symbol of her status as the Duke’s savior.

But she saw his eyes. There was no mercy there. Only a demand for justice. With a trembling hand, Senna reached into her dress. She grabbed the silver chain. She pulled.

She tore it from her neck. She held the silver pendant in her hand for a second, looking at it with longing. Then, she dropped it into Derek’s palm.

Derek closed his fingers around it. He felt the cold metal. It felt like reclaiming a stolen memory.

"And," Derek said.

He reached into his own coat pocket.

"There is one more thing."

He brought out the small old locket. He held it up to the light.

"This locket," Derek said. "I found it in the cave after the rescue team took us. It was left behind."

He looked at Senna.

"For years, I thought it was yours," Derek said. "I thought you dropped it. I kept it to return to you. But you never asked for it. You never mentioned it. You didn’t even know it was missing."

He looked closely at the locket.

"I’m sure this isn’t even yours," He said.

Senna looked at the locket. She shook her head.

"No," she whispered. "It isn’t mine. It belonged to her. The girl."

Derek looked at the locket with a strange softness.

"She is the one I owe," Derek said. "Not you."

Marissa was watching from the doorway. The moment Derek pulled out the locket, her breath hitched.

She stepped closer, her eyes locked on the small silver object dangling from Derek’s fingers.

She knew that locket.

She knew the scratch on the back. She knew the way the latch stuck if you didn’t press it just right.

She had lost it years ago. When she was a teenager. When she had been sent away to live with her aunt in the North.

She remembered the snow. She remembered the cold that bit into her bones. She remembered finding two boys in a cave—one older, one younger. No, one boy and one girl.

Wait.

The memories flooded back, crashing over her like a wave.

The blizzard. She had been gathering herbs for her uncle. She had found them. A boy, half-frozen with a poisoned arrow on his arm, and a girl, terrified and shivering.

She had dragged them to safety. She had built the fire. She had given them her cloak.

And she had lost her mother’s locket. The only thing she had left of her.

Marissa’s eyes widened in shock. Her hand went to her mouth to stifle a gasp.

"That locket," she thought to herself, her heart pounding against her ribs. "That is my mother’s locket. I lost it in the snow years ago."

She looked at Derek. She looked at his face, seeing the young boy he used to be hidden in the hard lines of the man.

"He kept it?" she thought. "He was the boy in the snow?"