Her voice is sharp, trembling with fury. “You mock my pain!”

Wesley keeps his posture relaxed, masking the way his heart clenches at her words. She does not know him. Does not recognize him. Not yet.

“Life is pain, Highness,” he says, keeping his voice even. “Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

She is beautiful in her anger, radiant even in despair, but he cannot falter. Not now.

Her fists clench. Her breathing is unsteady. “You killed my love.”

The words strike him harder than he expects. He swallows the urge to tell her the truth right then and there, to drop the pretense and say his name. But she is speaking again, and the pain in her voice twists like a knife in his ribs.

“He was a farm boy. Poor.” She swallows, her voice breaking. “Poor and perfect. With eyes like the sea after a storm. He loved me. And you murdered him.”

He nearly flinches.

Does she know? Does she truly not see?

His voice is quieter when he answers. “Yes, quite possibly I did. I can’t remember.”

A lie. He remembers everything. The day he left, the way he had promised to return. How, for all these years, her face had been the only thing that kept him from losing himself completely.

But she does not give him a chance to say more.

With a cry of fury, she shoves him. Hard.

For one terrifying moment, Wesley stumbles back—too far, too close to the edge. The ground vanishes beneath his feet, and he is falling.

The world spins, sky and earth blending together as he tumbles down the steep incline. Instinct takes over—twisting, rolling with the fall—but the impact is still brutal. Rocks scrape against his arms, his ribs ache, and for a moment, he is weightless.

And then he hears it. Her gasp.

She is looking down at him, her face pale with shock, and he does the only thing he can do.

“As you wish!” he calls.

The words tear from his throat, desperate, aching. A plea. A confession.