Chapter 41

MILA

Felix looked from the book in my hands to my pale, shocked face. I felt like a child who had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“What are you doing?” Felix asked. His voice was strained in a way I didn’t recognize.

“I was just looking at your books,” I said, trying to keep my own voice light. If Felix had secrets to hide, he shouldn’t display them prominently on his bookshelves.

He seemed… nervous. This was a side of Felix I’d never seen before. I stood there, holding the book, feeling like a fool. I knew Felix had secrets, but I never imagined that a book on dragons would cause him to unravel so spectacularly.

“This one seems interesting,” I continued. How I managed to keep my voice calm was beyond me. “It talks about dragons and Fresonia like it’s a history textbook. That’s interesting, don’t you think?”

“That book?” He studied the cover, his frown deepening.

Tell me the truth! I screamed at him in my mind. Stop lying to me!

Deep down, I knew all of it was connected–his ability to sense my feelings, our shared injuries, this odd book on dragons. I just needed Felix to put the pieces together for me.

I loved him. I loved him deeply and truly and consumingly.

I just didn’t know if I could trust him.

Please, I begged him silently.

Felix took a deep breath and prepared his answer.

FELIX

Nothing could have prepared me for the shock of walking into my chambers and seeing Mila holding my book on the history of Dragon Knights.

It was an odd sensation of worlds colliding. I wanted to rip the book from her hands, wanted to erase any memory of the text that might be burned into her brain, but she was looking at me with such doubt and horror in her eyes that I couldn’t think.

Inwardly, I could feel Mila’s yearning for the truth. Every fiber of her being was screaming at me to stop the lying, to ease the misgivings she was clearly harboring. But there was nothing I could say that would allow me to tell her everything and preserve our relationship–not to mention uphold the oaths I had sworn to my family and the Dragon Knights.

“That’s an old book from when I was younger,” I said, each word burning like acid on my tongue. “It’s a fairytale of sorts, about the local myths and legends from Fresonia. Our lore is… a bit wild, I must confess.”

Mila arched an eyebrow. “A textbook on how the Fresonian royal family are actually something called Dragon Knights is just a book of mythology?”

I attempted a laugh. “I think one of my great-great-great-grandfathers came up with that idea and told it as a bedtime story. Obviously no one in my family is some sort of magical being. My father used to read that to me as a child, and it led to me having a dragon phase for a while.”

A lie. It was all lies. But I had to do it, to protect both of us. Mila nodded slowly, as if accepting my words.

“Is that why there are so many books on dragons here?” she asked, looking back at the shelves. “And why your doors have dragon carvings on them?”

I exhaled. Maybe this could work.

“Yeah,” I said, even throwing in a small chuckle for emphasis. “It’s kind of embarrassing. My mother is the kind of person who will really support your childhood obsessions, even if they’re a bit silly. So she bought me all these books and let me redecorate and everything.”

Mila shifted from foot to foot, considering. I could sense that a part of her believed me–or at least wanted to believe me, which was something I could work with.

“I was really into horses when I was little,” she offered up as an olive branch. I was so relieved, tears sprung to my eyes.

“Horses? Really?” I teased. She shot me a look of faux outrage.

“Don’t make fun! Horses are way cooler than dragons. You can actually ride them, for starters,” she said.

I did not tell her that you could, in fact, ride dragons. I chose to keep going.

“There is something I need to talk to you about, though,” I said, allowing a weight of confession into my words. “I haven’t been completely honest with you about something.”

It was as if the air had been knocked out of Mila. I knew she had been waiting a long time for me to say whatever it was that I had to say.

“Yes?” she said, trying to sound innocent. Her desperation for answers was palpable in my own body.

“I…” I swallowed. I was going to tell her the truth about something, just not the big thing. And if I wanted her to believe that this was my true secret, then I really had to sell it. “I have a really difficult relationship with my brother. More difficult than I have been willing to share with you, I guess. I just didn’t want you to see me differently. Or change whatever your feelings are towards me.”

Mila’s eyes shone with compassion. My heart hurt. “There’s nothing you could say that would change my feelings for you, Felix.”

I swallowed at that. She had no idea.

“My relationship with Charles has always been complicated,” I said, sinking into one of the couches in the room. “There’s always been animosity with me being the heir to the throne and him being the second-born. He couldn’t stand that people placed more value on me than they did on him. I knew that it was hurting him, and I tried to fix it for years and years, but it felt like the more I tried, the worse I made it. He made me feel terrible about myself, like I needed to apologize just for existing.”

Everything I’d said was true. It might not have been my deepest secret, but it was certainly something I wanted–well, needed–to share with her.

Mila sat down next to me. She bowed her head for a moment, and then said softly, “My sister back home–well, I’m adopted, so she’s not really my sister, she’s the golden child. My parents always favored her over me and didn’t make a secret of that. They treated me as a second-class citizen in my own house.”

I tugged her against me, letting her rest her head on my chest. She let out a heavy sigh, as if releasing years of tension.

“I didn’t think I could be loved,” she said. Her voice was so quiet I could barely hear her, but her words pierced my heart nonetheless. “They treated me so poorly, and made me feel so bad about myself, that I just thought I never deserved any sort of love or affection. I always felt like my presence in the household was a mistake.”

“You could never be a mistake, Mila,” I assured her. “And believe me… you are very capable of being loved.”

“Thank you, Felix,” she murmured. “You have no idea how much that means to me. I… I care very deeply for you.”

“I feel like I have many heavy responsibilities to the crown,” I said finally. “I have ignored my future as King for too long. You’ve made me realize that I need to grow up and start being more responsible.”

Mila smiled at me, sincerity all over her face.

“I love you,” I said. I didn’t know if I meant it, but it needed to be said.

For both of us, I reminded myself.

It was as if the sun was shining on Mila’s face.

“I love you too,” she said softly.