Maximilian leaned closer, his voice lowering until it brushed against her skin like a blade wrapped in velvet.
"The one you forgot," he said softly. "The reason for all your misery."
Catherine instinctively leaned back. "Isn't that you?"
The words were light.
The truth beneath them was not.
She remembered everything. The blood. The betrayal. The screaming… The weight of her dead child in her arms...
Maximilian straightened slowly. A flicker of raw, unguarded pain crossed his face before a wry smile replaced it.
"That is also true," he admitted.
His eyes reddened.
And for some reason, that hurt her.
Catherine pressed a hand to her chest as if to steady something that had no intention of calming down. Seeing him wounded like this… it unsettled her far more than his arrogance ever had.
But there had been someone else that day.
Someone was behind her.
A shadow.
Is that whom he means?
Her mind sifted through memories.
Could it be Dorian?
No.
