My heart races as I lie down in the small bed I’ll be sharing with Felix. Somehow, it feels different here. In our bedroom at the palace, there’s always so much distance between us, and not just physically. The distance between us is notably absent here, but perhaps there is more to it.Was Felix right? Am I truly jealous of the past he shares with Alison? The mere thought of him touching her the way he touched me fills me with rage. Knowing that she’s more intimately acquainted with his body than I am fills me with a desire for pure violence. Is it simply possessiveness that any wife feels toward her husband, or something more?“Arabella.”noveldramaI look up to find Felix standing in the doorway, a loosely tied robe covering his body. His eyes flash with a mixture of humor and intrigue as he walks toward the bed.“Wife, are you once more plotting my death? Might I request that you refrain from attempting to murder me in my sleep tonight? I am rather tired, beloved.” He smiles at me as he gets into bed, turning toward me as he lies down next to me.“I… I wasn’t.”He props himself up on his side and smirks at me. “Then why is it that your beautiful honey eyes are filled with murderous intent?”My eyes roam over his chest, taking in the robe that barely covers him. Images of him with Alison flash through my mind, and I grit my teeth. When he told me that he’s never shared a bed with her, what exactly did he mean? Is he insinuating that their encounters were so passionate that they never made it to a bed? “What murderous intent?” I snap. I turn my back to him, my mood inexplicably sullen.Felix moves closer and wraps his arm around my waist, enveloping me in his embrace from behind. “You need not worry about her, Arabella. Many women have come and gone, but you will always be my empress, my wife.”His words are sweet, but we both know I’m just a means to an end for him. “When we first arrived, you said she wouldn’t let you save your people,” I murmur eventually. “Who is she? Who were you referring to?”Felix tightens his grip on me and pulls me flush against him, his nose settling against the back of my neck. “My mother,” he tells me, his voice filled with torment. “It was my mother that cursed us.”My eyes widen as deep-rooted shock settles in my chest. “What kind of mother would ever curse their own child?”“One that didn’t want to have a child,” he murmurs, his body relaxed against mine. He’s never held me this way before, and I’d like to think that my presence offers him at least a touch of solace.A curse so cruel cast by his own mother… it makes me think that perhaps, I may not have had it so bad with my own father. I’m uncertain whether I can even truly understand the depth of his pain. I’ve hated him from the moment he first stepped foot in Althea, but the more time I spend with him, the more I find myself wondering whether he deserves my hatred at all.“If anyone understands the damage a parent can cause, it is you, isn’t it, beloved? You should know that you have me now, for as long as you want me. My country is yours. My people are yours.”My eyes fall closed and I inhale shakily. Even now, he’s concerned about me. I turn toward him, and he wraps his arms around me, holding me tightly and offering me the consolation I’m silently asking for. What has his life been like? I know more than anyone what it feels like to be the one outsider in a crowd, to feel lonely in a place you call home… and I can’t imagine spending over a century feeling that way. The curse must have taken so much from him, and the guilt that weighs down on him must be heavy.“Will you tell me about your mother?”He looks into my eyes for a moment before nodding hesitantly.“Her name was Myralis,” he whispers, as though he doesn’t dare say her name out loud. “She was rumored to have been the most beautiful woman across the seven seas, and my father insisted on having her. What he did to her is similar to what I did to you. He proposed marriage by arriving with an army that could easily overthrow her small kingdom. Not only am I cursed, I’m born of a monster. No matter how I rebel, I ended up walking in his footsteps.”“So she married him to save her kingdom.”He nods. “He took her away that very day, not even giving her a chance to break her engagement. You see, my mother was about to marry the man she loved, and my father arrived mere days before the wedding. He forced her to marry him on the very day she would have married the love of her life, and she never forgave him for it.”Felix pulls away from me and runs a hand through his hair, his expression telling me that he’s as aware as I am that history is repeating itself. There’s regret in his expression, and it makes me wonder how he truly feels about our marriage.“You can make someone marry you, but you can’t make them love you. My father learned that the hard way. She died shortly after giving birth to me, and she cursed me with her very last breath. My father told me that she’d been trying to curse the only thing she thought he would ever truly love, which only proved that she didn’t know him at all. My father never loved anyone but himself. He barely paid me any mind as a child and left me in the care of palace attendants, but in the years before he died, he’d call me to his quarters nearly every day. Each time, he’d tell me a little about my mother. At first, he’d only ever talk about how much she hated me, and how desperately she’d wished to get rid of me before I was even born. Often, he’d ponder if she’d been happier if I’d never existed, and if he’d have won her over if not for me. It wasn’t until he was closer to death that he began to tell me about the way he forced her into marriage, and everything he’d done to her. It’s as if he thought telling me the truth would offer him atonement of some sort. It’s sickening to know that as much as I’ve tried not to, I’ve become just like him.”He looks so tormented that I wish I could take away some of his sorrows. If I could share them with him, I would. I blamed him for taking away my future, but his was forsaken from the moment he drew his first breath. His entire life has been in the curse’s clutches, and his marriage was no different. Does a small part of him resent me?“You’re wrong, Felix,” I tell him. “Our circumstances aren’t the same. Your mother was trapped for life… but you? You’re letting me go when this is all over. You requested assistance, not acquiescence.”He nods at me, his expression hardening. “Someday, we’ll both be free,” he says, his tone carrying a hint of exhaustion.I never considered that our marriage coming to an end would result in his freedom, too. What would he do with it? When he’s no longer bound by this curse, who will he choose to spend his days with?