It had been his name for her before Dahlia, but he had rarely called her that afterwards save when it slipped out. She was his daylight, but like the sun, she was hidden behind the thick clouds of his love for Dahlia. Her loving rays were blocked, and no longer of any use.
“Why did you choose her over me?” she said at last, her voice breaking.
Stephan paused, his eyebrows drew together in confusion. “Who, dear?”
“Dahlia,” Ismena spat the word.
Stephan pulled back as if she had slapped him.
“We were happy. We were going to be married, and then you chose her. You only came back to me after she was gone.”
Stephan squeezed his eyes shut, pain crossing his features. When he opened them again his eyes were resolved. He pushed to his feet and strode to the cord hanging from their wall. He rang the bell for servants before turning back to her, running a hand through his hair. “I realize now that this is a conversation we should have had years and years ago, but I was too much of a coward to mention it and you seemed content to pretend that it had never happened. But I see now that I was a fool. You’ve carried the pain all this time.”
The door opened and a maid stepped in, curtsying. “You summoned me?”
Stephan nodded. “Yes, please run down to the kitchens and bring us up something to drink.
“So you have an explanation?” she asked arching her brow as the servant left.
He shook his head. “I have none. I was a fool when I was younger. I did not see your true qualities. I was blinded by the fact that Dahlia was more beautiful. I lied to myself about what love truly was. You have always been there for me, Ismena, offering me strength when I didn’t have any. I don’t deserve you.”
She took a shuddering breath.
“Dahlia was… perfection. I was swept away by her beauty and grace like a man lost in a riptide. When I was with her it was as if I existed on another plane, one higher than the rest of the world. What I realized after I lost her that I was never swept away. We had both been here in Illesya the whole time. She was perfect and this world was broken and bleeding… she could not survive here.”
His words tore deeply into her heart, destroying what remained layer by layer of what had grown over the broken mass of bleeding black over the years until it was all that remained.
Ismena pushed to her feet to and turned to her vanity, blinking so that he would not see her tears, but she knew that he knew they were there.
“I should never have done that to you, Ismena. I am truly sorry that I hurt you. I shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t take back my actions, even if I had a chance though. I couldn’t give up that time, no matter how short it was, I had with Dahlia. I could not make it so that I never had Elisabeth. I wish every day that it had not come with hurting you.”
A knock sounded on the door and it opened revealing the maid. She came in with two glasses of red liquid balanced on the tray. Stephan stepped up and took the glasses. He held it out to Ismena but she didn’t accept it so he set them down on the dressing table next to her and stepped away, running a hand over his face.
“I don’t know how to make this right. I’ve tried so hard over the years.”
“Have you really?” she asked, sneering. “Because as I recall, you held tightly to Dahlia. If you were truly trying to make it right then why could you not forget her? Let her remain buried in the past?”
Stephan squeezed his eyes shut. “Because I simply cannot. Dahlia was my first love. There will always be a portion of my heart that will belong to her.”
Ismena caught herself on the dressing table as even her black heart shattered. So… Dahlia was his first love? No matter how much she had cared for him in the beginning. They were to be married… but he had not loved her.
She supposed that she had always suspected it. Why would he have left her if he had truly loved her? But the truth still tore through her.
As the contents on the dressing table shook under her and she looked down to see a small little vial sitting there. It didn’t look like much, but she knew otherwise. It was poison, from her invisible chest. She must have taken it out as she made the snatching potion earlier that night and missed it when she put everything back away.
Her hand crept across the table and she palmed the vial just as Stephan stepped up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her. “But I’ve since realized that what she and I had was not meant to last. What I had with Dahlia was borrowed time, you are my life’s companion.”
She nodded against his shoulder. She understood. Even now she was second best, the companion he had because he could not have Dahlia.
When they died, it would not be her he remained with in the afterlife. He would finally be with his beloved Dahlia. She had always enjoyed the tragedy of Brunhilde and Sigmund because she had thought herself a Brunhilde of sorts. No matter how many horrible things she had been forced to do for love, she was the one who had Stephan in the end. Now she knew otherwise. She was not Brunhilde at all, but Sigmund’s wife in life. The one he abandoned afterward.
Ismena raised her chin, staring at their reflection in the mirror. Stephan with his arms locked around her, and her cold eyes glinting in the flickering light. If she could not have Stephan fully then she did not want him. Not at the cost of what it would do to her heart.
She reached for the glasses, the vial clutched tightly in her hand. With just a flick of her wrist it was over and she was holding two inconspicuous glasses in her hand.
If he mourned his precious Dahlia so much. Then she would just have to see about reuniting them.
She turned in his grasp and pressed one last kiss to his lips. A farewell kiss. It was supposed to be a quick kiss, nothing more, but Stephan pressed his mouth against hers fervently, trying to prove his love. A love that had always been false.
Even though she knew it was not there, she allowed the illusion to last a moment longer. Let herself believe that he truly cared about her.
She would destroy the illusion later, but for now she could live in these few minutes of perfect bliss.
Because Stephan was her Dahlia, when she was with him, she existed on a different plane. However, as he had said, she had been in the world all along. Lying to herself more than anyone else into thinking that it could work. If she just tried hard enough, if she just proved her love. But now she knew that she never could.
A love like hers was too perfect for this world. And as such, it had been betrayed. Destroyed. Torn up until there was nothing recognizable left.
Ismena pulled away and held up the glass between them, smiling at him. Her final lie.
“Don’t you think that you should drink this since you put the servant girl through all the trouble of retrieving it?”
Stephan smiled and took the glass from her. He tossed back the contents without a second thought. As Ismena watched him swallow she found that she could not breathe.
He pulled the glass from his lips, frowning as he looked down at it. “What did she bring up? That tasted awful.”
Ismena swallowed and tried to speak, but her throat was too dry. Much, much too dry.
The sound of the glass shattering filled the room. Stephan had grown several shades paler as he stumbled back, holding up his hand. “I can’t feel my fingers anymore.”
She had chosen a quick death for him. It was a kindness, the last labor of her love.
His next breath came as a wheeze. “What-what?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, the words finally making it past her lips.
He looked at her for a long moment as he tried to comprehend her words. She knew the exact moment when he realized that she was the one to poison him. His eyes shattered into a thousand fragments. “Why?” he gasped, clutching at his throat as he sat down hard on the bed.
She swallowed hard. “Because as you said, I’ve always been there for you. But you were never there for me. That’s why.”
Stephan gripped the frame of the bed gasping for breath a
nd the full weight of what she had done settled on him. Tears streamed down her face and she found that she couldn’t breathe as she watched Stephan struggle for his own breath.
“Why couldn’t you just love me?” she wailed.
She wanted to undo it, make it so that it had never happened. Suddenly the idea of a life without Stephan was such a terrifying thing that she didn’t know how she could live. But if she saved him now, surely she would be executed for treason. She had poisoned the king and if he lived, he knew and surely she would not escape punishment.
Stephan laid his head down, clutching at his throat and she realized that she did not care. Let her die for this, only allow him to live.
She turned to her invisible chest. Her hands groping the air until she found it and yanked it open, rummaging through trying to find the cure. She did not have it already made in a vial. As she threw fire hemlock into the pot to boil everything she began tossing in the other ingredients. Pausing in her counting realizing that she didn’t have one of the key ingredients.
Behind her, Stephan's breathing grew shallower and shallower.
She needed salt. Oh curse her inability to prepare, she needed salt.
Ismena rushed out of the room and down to the kitchen, ignoring the surprised cries of the kitchen staff as she reached her hand into a barrel of lamb and scooped out a handful of salt. By the time she had made it back to the room, most of the salt had been left behind in a trail behind her, but she had enough. She dumped it into a pot.
Then she hurried to the bed as the contents boiled, creating the cure. She climbed onto the bed, gripping his hand and brushing back his hair. “Only a little longer. Please you only have to last a little longer.”
Tears dripped over her nose, landing on his cheek.
Stephan’s eyes were oddly vacant as he looked at her, hardly any air was passing through his esophagus. He raised his hand to brush at her cheek. Lightly like the brush of a feather, but the touch might have burned her.
She flung herself from the bed and picked up the cauldron, not caring if the potion was ready or not. She poured it into a small vial, burning her fingers as the liquid dripped over in her haste. She quickly turned back to Stephan, but he wasn’t moving. She hurried to his side, climbing onto the bed next to him. “Stephan?” she said, shaking his shoulders. “Stephan, drink this.”
With trembling hands she raised the vial to his lips, but much of the contents dripped across his cheek. He did not move, or swallow. His gaze was empty and his eyes open as he stared at the tapestry over their bed. He didn’t move at all or register her voice. His chest had ceased moving and she could no longer hear his shallow breaths.
“Stephan!” she screamed. “Ste-stephan!”
Sobs wracked her body. Her fingers moved across his skin. Already it was beginning to feel cold, void of its usual warmth. The greenish liquid of the potion stained the bed sheets around his head. She had tried and failed to fix this, but perhaps someone else could. “Help!” she screeched. “Help, somebody help me!”
She couldn’t lose him.
Not Stephan.
He was her heart. It didn’t matter to her if she didn’t have his, not anymore. As long as her heart existed, so could she.
The door burst open and guards rushed in.
Ismena raised her tear stained face as she looked at them all taking in the room. “Help me!” she shrieked.
They surged forward, but paused at the foot of the bed as they took in the king lying there. Ismena saw the shock and horror on their faces, telling her more than she needed to know. These men had fought in the war. They knew firsthand what death looked like.
“I’m sorry, My Queen,” the first guard said quietly almost too quietly to be heard over her sobs. “So, so sorry.”
Ismena wailed and buried her face in his chest. “You weren’t supposed to leave me! You weren’t- su-supposed…. Why would you go?!”
There was no answer. Even his heartbeat was silent. And in that moment she knew that her own heart would never beat again.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
Ismena shuddered as Cillian placed the crown on her head, but she would not cry. She would not weep in front of the entire congregated court.
As Cillian stepped back, Ismena turned to look over the people gathered in the temple. She was their queen, and was now their regent. She would rule over them until the fifteen year old princess came of age to inherent the throne.
Her eyes landed on Elisabeth, standing at the very front of the crowd, and she regretted it immediately. Elisabeth did not look like she had slept for several days. Her face was lined with sorrow and her eyes red from tears. She looked exactly how Ismena felt on the inside, but dared not to allow herself to show.
Elisabeth glared at Ismena with such hate that it caused her heart to nearly stop.
Regret laced through her. She had once loved that girl and she knew that Elisabeth had loved her. Back when they were a family. When they had a family.
Elisabeth suspected that Ismena had killed Stephan. She knew that she had but the girl had no proof. No evidence.
No one else suspected her, not after they saw the fierceness of her grief. Not when they saw the burns on her fingers she had gained from trying to save him. The blame had fallen on the maid who had brought them the wine. She had been executed yesterday, proclaiming her innocence until she could not anymore.
Ismena was their tragic queen who would have died as well if she had drunk the wine as well.
And that was how everyone would know her, even if Elisabeth knew otherwise.
Ismena held her gaze, silently daring her. But instead she was locked under the stormy blue gaze that reminded her of everything she no longer had. Those eyes. She would be blessed if she never saw those eyes again. She quickly yanked her gaze away. She would have to see about sending Elisabeth away just as she did Eirwen. She did not need the reminder of everything she had lost. Of the lifetime she faced alone now.
Without him.
She shuttered out the pain. After fifteen years as Stephan’s queen, a life without him was foreign. She regretted what she did every breath that she took, but there was no way to undo it. He was gone.
It had been his fault anyway, that he drove her to it.
But she would still never be the same again. Her heart had been buried when Stephan was, out under that flowerless mound.
However, now as she thought about it, she wondered if that was such a bad thing. What had her heart ever done but weighed her done, but shattered like the frail thing it was?
She was better off without the constant pain in her chest.
She was now the sole ruler of all three of the kingdoms that had once made up Illesya. She was the fairest in the land. The quest for power had brought Morren’s kingdom to its knees and now he lived out his days exiled in a mirror. Stephans’s love for beauty had killed him.
And here she stood before the nobles of Havenkeep in possession of the very things they destroyed themselves to have. Power and beauty were hers.
Who needed love?
Acknowledgments
This book, short as it is, was extremely hard to write. I blame the subject matter. I was nearly bawling by the time I got to the end. But I made it and so did you! So here we are, at the very end of my book
To God, and my family. You both mean so much to me that words cannot even express.
To Hannah and Faith my alpha readers. I know I didn’t give you too much time to work on, but you still managed it.
To Anne Elisabeth Stengl because again, this story would never have existed without her contest.
And to the judge who read my story for the Five Poisoned Apples contest. Without your suggestion on Ismena needing more depth, she would not be the character that she is today.
To you, my reader, for joining me on this journey. If you enjoyed A Winter Grim and Lonely please consider leaving a review for it on Goodreads, Amazon, or the store that you bought it from. Thank
you so much for your continued support. It means so much to me!
Don’t Miss Elisabeth’s Tale in Winter Cursed
Mirror… Mirror…
Elisabeth is cursed. Her kingdom is locked in an eternal winter. And her stepmother Ismena has stolen her throne. When Ismena comes to kill her, Elisabeth is forced to flee to the only place her stepmother cannot reach her.
All must fall…
Deep in the heart of a dangerous forest, teeming with unbridled magic and fearsome beasts, Elisabeth is faced with a choice. She knows what she must do to end this winter. Kill her stepmother and reclaim the kingdom that should have been hers. But to do so, Elisabeth must either learn to control her powers over ice and snow- powers that she shares with her stepmother. Powers that are responsible for the eternal winter. Or she must put her life in the hands of the enemy.
Till I’m the fairest…
But can she truly trust the band of mercenary dwarfs who are offering to help her? And even if they don’t actually plan on killing her- can she trust their leader, the exiled Prince Cedric? A dark lord who also happens to be the son of the man she blames for her mother’s death.
Of them all.
With Ismena bent on killing her, and the dark prince bargaining for his freedom- the fate of a kingdom rests on Elisabeth’s choice. In this battle for love, power, beauty, and the right to rule- who will come out the victor?
Also by Nicki Chapelway:
My Time in Amar book one: A Week of Werewolves, Faeries, and Fancy Dresses
My Time in Amar book two: A Time of Trepidation, Pirates, and Lost Princesses (Coming Soon!)
Return to Amar book one: A Certain Sort of Madness
Still want more? Check out Jes Drew’s books:
The Ninja and Hunter Trilogy book one The Time I Saved the Day
A Winter Grim and Lonely Page 12