Chapter 11
Selene turned at the sound of a door from a direction far different from Anna’s entrance.
The man emerging from a small room off to the side of the corridor looked like he’d been digging hard somewhere.
Only four people were allowed to enter the inner castle: Selene, Barath, Zart, and Anna.
Unaware that the others were being kept out, Selene assumed he was mending the outer walls or fertilizing the garden.
She soon looked away and turned to Barath.
“But I can’t ride that horse.”
Barath lowered his gaze slightly and closed and opened his eyes. His expression was one of incomprehension.
“Now, did you say you can’t ride a horse?”
This time Selene’s expression matched Barath’s.
“Is it weird that I can’t ride a horse?”
Selene was puzzled by the response, as it was something she hadn’t expected to hear. Do all the commoners here, even the women, ride horses? Why? Because they don’t have carriages?
Then the gardener-like man from earlier walked up to Selene and knelt down in front of her.
Startled by his sudden behaviour, Selene tried to rise, but caught herself on the table in front of her and the hem of her long dress.
She groaned and fell quite heavily, and Barath clenched his fists and braced himself for a bounce.
He searched her expression intently, not wanting to miss a beat.
Suddenly, the pupils of her red eyes widened.
There was no hint of recognition in her expression, just surprise and bewilderment.
Selene pushed herself to her feet, eyeing the kneeling man warily, as if to make sure he knew she wasn’t coming for her.
Then she moved slowly to find a safe place, and the safest place she could think of right now was behind Barath’s back.
She thought he might attack her now that she had moved behind his back.
He thought she might ask him to flee with her, or at least buy her enough time to get away.
Still, he let her walk slowly behind him until she was completely out of sight.
He felt like this sugar bunny of a woman could do anything behind his back, even if she was hiding a hammer in that flowing dress and smashing his head in.
It’s not that he trusts her, it’s that he doesn’t care.
It doesn’t matter what choices she makes and what she does.
He doesn’t think it’s going to change his mind.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever let her go.
In the back of his mind, not sure if he’s delirious or crazy, he sees Selene’s face, the face that had just flashed by him.
Although he thought she was small, her height was similar to his own, sitting in this small chair.
Her face from the same eye level was different. She looked younger than she did from above. Younger and fresher.
Like a flower bud, he thought, and smirked. She’s right behind him, and he can’t see her face, he says again.
Still, he didn’t look back, thinking that if she was going to do anything to him, she would need to be ready.
It was Robin who felt like the sky was falling.
He had thought that she might be angry that he had come unnecessarily to talk about a past relationship.
He fell to his knees as she looked at him and quickly looked away. He could have slapped her angrily, but he was speechless.
Until he walked into this big castle, he thought she was from a big merchant family.
The man seemed to be a nobleman, and from Selene’s point of view, it must have been a very satisfying marriage.
Selene had a sense of entitlement from her life as a commoner, and if she had become a noblewoman, she might not have wanted to be reunited with him.
But perhaps his head understood, but his heart hadn’t yet recognized.
Now that she was married, he thought he could at least have a few words with her, if not run to her and hug her.
If she got angry at him for asking when he promised her a future with her, he’d tell her it was because he was in love with someone else and made a mistake.
As long as she was happy, he would keep the memories to himself.
But he thought that was a bit harsh, like he was looking at a complete stranger. And the way she hid behind that terrifying man, he wondered if she was the love he’d been searching for.
Despair was followed by anger.
“Selene!”
Robin’s shout startled Selene, and she took a step closer to Barath in front of her. Clinging to the back of the chair and hiding behind it, she couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
Who is that man? Does he know Selene? He doesn’t look like he was in the original novel at all. Did he appear in the second half? It was frustrating not knowing.
As she watched the scene unfold, Barath spoke low to her from behind.
“I hear he’s the one who promised you a future back home.”
Selene’s jaw dropped.
“Promised me what?”
Barath was in good spirits, despite the situation turning out quite differently than he had expected. Once she’d ducked behind him, it was as if she’d chosen the lesser of two evils.
And since he couldn’t find any affection in her eyes, it was safe to assume that she had already pushed him out of her mind.
Barath snapped his fingers, and Zart, who had suddenly appeared from nowhere, took Robin away.
Selene’s ears picked up the sound of his shouting and struggling, but she was too distracted to notice. She had already stopped looking at Robin.
Her head felt like it would explode from worrying about her own future. Then came a development she hadn’t expected.
That Barath Velias had arranged a reunion between the woman he’d bought and the man he’d once been?
If Selene had a past, he should have buried it. He’s the last person she’d expect to see like this.
There’s something wrong with this.
There’s got to be an agenda here, there’s got to be a reason. Honestly, she could bring in any man and set him up like that, and she wouldn’t know if he had a past with Selene or not.
On top of that, she could bring in a man named Abi right now and stand him up, and she wouldn’t recognize him.
Has he done a background check on Selene and found that her personality, speech patterns, etc. are too different?
Was there something in the meal that she didn’t eat? Was there someone she should have recognised when she was out and about, but didn’t? What was wrong with her?
Selene’s legs gave out and she slumped in her seat.
The sound of dry grass crunching made him turn around, and Barath’s expression was unchanged.
As she stared into his eyes, she wondered when this man had sensed something was wrong with her.
‘You said you were closing the inner sanctum to test me, to investigate me.’
A strange sense of despair and loss washed over her. While she had grown fond of him, he had been suspicious and suspicious of her.
A red light went on in Barath’s head as he looked at Selene’s dazed expression.
Something was wrong with her.
He slid down from his seat and crouched down in front of her. As she locked eyes with him, her eyes began to water. The tears grew and grew, forming a pool and eventually rolling down her face.
It happened so slowly and was so clearly visible.
Barath gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, not knowing what to do. His mind went white and bleached. She couldn’t think, couldn’t act, couldn’t do anything.
Her voice was tinged with sobs.
“What is all this?”
He couldn’t tell if there was anger or sadness in her voice.
Now that he was face to face with her tears, he wondered if he had made a mistake.
“Were you going to send me to him?”
Her next words made Barath’s heart drop.
“I never thought of that.”
“You’re lying.”
‘Yes, I was lying. I was going to let you meet him and kill him in front of you.’
But he didn’t tell the truth.
“He asked to see your face just once.”
Her eyebrows furrowed, and Barath realized he’d made another mistake. But he couldn’t take back the words he’d already spat.
“Are you going to show everyone who asks to see my face? Wouldn’t it be easier to just draw it big and put it on the front door of the castle?”
He spoke softly, but it was clear he was angry, and Barath’s voice dropped a little lower.
“I told he was your mistress.”
“You believed him? You couldn’t have asked me once? You took him at his word and had him meet me in the Inner City, a man whose identity you don’t even know?”
As disappointment began to creep into her voice, Barath admitted what he’d never thought to tell her, even though he didn’t know why she’d been so eager to save him.
“He was drugged.”
“What?”
“There is such a thing. I did my research, and all in all, his story was credible.”
That’s all he had to say, that he didn’t just take him at his word.
As soon as he realized that he wasn’t in her heart, something hard inside him melted like a bad melt.
What crept through the cracks was anxiety. He’s not sure what it was, but it was there.
He knew he had to say something to her, but he didn’t know what.
Something didn’t go according to plan. His excuses were lame and she was quick to criticise him. She even caught him using drugs on an ex-lover.
…
He should have locked her up at the beginning, just from the beginning.
***
She finally clamped her mouth shut.
‘Of course there’s nothing here. Drugs to make you tell the truth, drugs to make you fall in love.’
Those things didn’t really bother her. She shrugged them off, thinking it was all in a fantasy book. Given that the novel was a northern, she wouldn’t be surprised if there were worse drugs.
When she eventually realized that the man from earlier had been known as the ‘real Selene’, the first thought to take over her mind was this.
That he was so indifferent to her that he didn’t care if she met that man.
