Chapter 4 - The Woman I Thought Was My Husband’s Rival Was Actually the Only Person Who Knew How to Save My BabyWe hid in an abandoned monastery in the mountains.
Declan's wound worsened.
I refused to let Beatrice anywhere near him.
Genevieve took charge.
She knew field medicine.
She also knew things about the royal bloodline that made my head spin.
“Your baby has already started resonating,” she said.
I touched my stomach.
“How?”
“Because you're close to the eclipse.”
“Will it hurt him?”
“If we let the Council perform the extraction, yes.”
“And if we don't?”
She looked at me.
“We don't know.”
That answer terrified me more than certainty.
Declan sat against the stone wall.
He had lost a lot of blood.
I avoided looking at him.
He finally said, “Avery.”
I turned.
“What?”
“I was wrong.”
I swallowed.
“That's not enough.”
“I know.”
He looked exhausted.
“I thought saving Genevieve meant saving the kingdom.”
“You loved her.”
“I thought I did.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
His eyes met mine.
“I loved the memory of her.”
Genevieve looked away.
“I loved who I thought I was before she disappeared.”
I stared at him.
“And me?”
His voice broke.
“You were never part of the plan.”
That hurt.
“But I became everything in the plan.”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“And then somewhere between the first winter and the night you told me you hated thunderstorms, I stopped pretending.”
I looked away.
“Don't.”
“I fell in love with you.”
I said nothing.
“I didn't know when it happened.”
“Probably when you realized my blood could save your throne.”
He shook his head.
“Before that.”
“Then why didn't you stop?”
“Because I was a coward.”
The honesty stunned me.
“I knew the Council would kill you if I refused.”
“So you chose to let them.”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“And that is the choice I will regret until I die.”
I didn't forgive him.
But for the first time, I believed him.
That night, I woke to voices.
Genevieve and Declan were arguing.
“The Crown has marked her,” Genevieve said.
“I'll break it.”
“You can't.”
“I'll find a way.”
“There is one.”
Silence.
“What?”
Genevieve said, “The First Moonstone.”
I sat up.
“The relic your mother protected.”
My heart raced.
“Where is it?”
“Under Cedar Ridge.”
I stared at her.
“My ranch?”
She nodded.
“Your family wasn't poor.”
“What?”
“The debt was manufactured.”
I froze.
“What?”
“The Council bought your father's lenders.”
My hands went cold.
“They needed to force your family into a position where you would accept the king's proposal.”
I felt sick.
Every hardship.
Every collection notice.
Every humiliating conversation.
Every night my father cried in secret.
Manufactured.
I had not been chosen because Declan saw something special in me.
I had been cornered.
“Why?”
“Because desperation makes people predictable.”
I looked at Declan.
He lowered his head.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
My heart cracked again.
“You knew my father was being destroyed.”
“Yes.”
I slapped him.
The sound echoed through the monastery.
He did not defend himself.
“You let me believe you saved us.”
“I know.”
“You watched me thank you.”
“I know.”
“You let me fall in love with you.”
“I know.”
I turned away.
I wanted to hate him.
Maybe I did.
But beneath the anger was grief.
Because I remembered our first Christmas together.
The way he had danced with me in the kitchen.
The way he had kissed my stomach after learning we were having a boy.
I wondered how many of those moments had been real.
Then Genevieve said quietly, “Some were.”
I looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because I watched him change.”
She stepped closer.
“Declan may have married you for your blood. But the man who brought you flowers every Tuesday wasn't the Council. That part was him.”
I closed my eyes.
A tear escaped.
I hated that it mattered.
But it did.
We left before dawn.
We returned to Cedar Ridge.
Beneath the old barn was a stone staircase.
My father unlocked it with the silver wolf knife.
We descended.
At the bottom stood a chamber carved directly into the mountain.
In the center was a pool of black water.
Above it floated a silver stone.
The Moonstone.
I stepped closer.
The stone pulsed.
My son kicked.
The chamber filled with light.
And a voice whispered inside my head.
Not a man's voice.
Not a woman's.
Something ancient.
Blood remembers.
The ground shook.
Declan grabbed me.
Then the walls exploded.
Beatrice entered with armed soldiers.
She smiled.
“Finally.”
Her eyes fixed on me.
“The last Hale.”
I stepped forward.
“What do you want?”
“Not you.”
May you like
She looked at my stomach.
“Your son.”
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