CHAPTER 113: HEAVY ACCUSATION

In the drawing room, Leroy bowed his head. His fists dug into the carved oak of his armrest until the wood groaned. His eyes reddened, his jaw twitched, the cords of his neck strained as though trying to hold back a scream.

How could she doubt me?

Leroy rose to his feet so fast the chair scraped the floor, his fists clenched so tightly the knuckles blanched white. He needed to ask her that question to her face.

But Aldric was quicker. He caught the flicker of devastation in the prince’s expression, the kind that, if unleashed now, would wound the Princess more than any enemy blade.

"You’re saying Zara is not your mistress?" Aldric asked, his voice calm, deliberate.

Leroy’s green eyes snapped toward him, blazing. "If you need to ask this question, then you should already know the answer!" His rage was no longer just rage; it trembled with hurt, with a disbelief that cut deeper than fury.

The silence pressed. Leroy was unraveling. Anger and despair together were a dangerous cocktail in a man who had been forced his whole life to hold his tongue, to swallow humiliation.

"No one ever asked the question until now," Aldric said steadily, "because the answer was clear to us."

Leroy’s lips curved in something that wasn’t quite a smile. It looked more like the twitch of a blade before it struck. "Clear? In what way?" His shout rattled the chamber like a clash of steel.

"Everyone knew," Aldric said evenly. "Everyone in the kingdom believed the Crown Prince of Kaltharion returned with a mistress. You never corrected it."

"I don’t give a bloody damn about what the kingdom believes! They always believed something about me!" Leroy roared. His hand flung out in a gesture of helplessness, his voice breaking at the edges. "I only care about what’s thought under my own roof. I only care what my wife believes. And now I know..."

He stopped. The silence that followed was heavier than his rage, the silence of a man doubting if there was anything left to fight for.

Aldric pressed forward before that silence could consume him. "You cannot blame the Princess when you gave her reasons. She barely knows you—"

"Barely knows me?" Leroy’s laugh was sharp, hollow. Aldric dared to say that when no one knew her better than he did? Shouldn’t his wife know him, too?

Aldric did not flinch. "You were never together. You never wrote. You never listened when she tried to show you herself. You never built any meaningful connection, and now—"

"Ah, is that so?" Leroy’s laugh turned dark, jagged. He sank into his chair, but the storm in him did not settle. His smirk was a mask, but the despair beneath it gnawed. "Then explain to me, Aldric. Tell me what my wife believes. Tell me why."

Relief touched Aldric’s face, though it was the kind that came before walking a knife’s edge. He looked toward Emma.

"Emma," he said softly, but with purpose. "Explain to His Highness why the Princess believed Zara was his mistress."

Emma froze, her breath catching. Why her? But Aldric’s gaze left no room for refusal. He was giving her a chance, perhaps her only chance, to make amends for her mistake.

And yet, as she felt the Prince’s eyes fall on her, sharp and gleaming like the edge of a sword, she knew that one wrong word could shatter everything.

Leroy leaned back, smirk still fixed, though his jaw was tight. So, this was the game Aldric wanted to play? Very well. Let’s hear it.

But the air in the room was so heavy, Emma felt as though every word might set fire to it. She pressed her hands to her skirt and forced herself to speak.

"On the day you returned with Zara, the Princess had prepared eagerly for the gala. But... you sent Zara to inform her that you would not be taking the Princess, but her. Zara mocked her... mocked Her Highness for getting dressed, and even asked for the Princess’s jewelry."

"I told her to ask for the jewelry," Leroy snapped. Zara didn;t have any jewelry and he asked his wife to share. Was it that terrible to share? His jaw tightened. But he had not told Zara to deliver that insult.

Emma’s throat went dry. She darted a glance at Aldric. His nod was steady, commanding. She continued.

"The Princess also saw you... laughing with Zara in the flower garden. Destroying her flowers."

"I was training with her." Leroy’s voice came low, clipped. He had planned to surprise Lorraine with the blooms later, to gift her what he had nurtured with his own hands. But in her eyes... had that simple sparring looked like intimacy? The thought cut him raw.

Emma faltered but pressed on. "You often went into Zara’s room..."

Leroy’s glare pinned her, molten and sharp. His blood surged. So this was what his wife believed? That stepping into a woman’s room was proof enough of betrayal? Did she think him so weak, so depraved, he would bed another under his own roof? He had denied himself her

, his own wife, for years, yet she thought he couldn’t restrain himself with Zara?

Zara of all people?

Then what of her secret meetings with Damian in shadowed rooms? Shouldn’t he assume the same? And yet he hadn’t. Because he knew her, he knew she wouldn’t and couldn’t betray him.

Why couldn’t she grant him the same trust?

That was when he felt it... her presence. No sound, no words, yet he knew. She was descending the stairs. Lorraine.

He rose at once, still burning.

"Your Highness!" Emma gasped, desperate. "There’s more! The Princess was told—"

Leroy strode toward the door.

"—Zara told the Princess she would kill her. That she’d take her bedchambers."

Leroy’s steps faltered, if only for a breath.

"That’s impossible!" Cedric shouted, aghast. "Zara would never—she wouldn’t dare!"

But Leroy said nothing. He only walked on, leaving the words behind like stones in his wake.

Emma turned stricken eyes to Aldric. "I’m not lying. I was with the Princess."

Then she whirled toward Leroy, panic breaking her composure, and chased after him. Her voice rang out, raw and pleading.

"Whatever you may think of Zara... Zara believes she is the mistress. That is the truth!"

Her words cracked through the corridor like a whip.

Aldric exhaled slowly, shoulders heavy, his gaze lifting to the staircase.

The Princess stood there, half-shadowed, her silence heavier than any accusation.

And in that silence, Aldric thought grimly, nothing good could be born.