Devoted and Foolishly Paid Love

I spared Julius Lander no further glance and turned to leave, making my way alone to a rundown, old cabin.

Perhaps he thought I was ungrateful, for he hadn’t bothered to send anyone to follow me.

Pushing open the door, I was met with the stale scent of decay.

Only one person sat within, illuminated by the dim light of a flickering oil lamp, quietly reciting from a holy text.

She was Edmund’s mother, once a mere servant in the Lander estate, someone everyone had overlooked.

When she saw me, her eyes welled with tears, and she shook her head repeatedly. “You don’t need to go this far. With all you’ve done for Julius over the past three years, for the sake of his reputation, he’ll still keep you in comfort and luxury.”

The countless scars I bore from risking my life for Julius were no secret in the capital. People whispered about the dangers I had faced, the injuries I had endured.

I sat down at the table, picking up a worn prayer book, and began to recite a passage of the requiem.

When I finished, I looked up, my eyes filled with unyielding hatred. “Those who killed Edmund must pay. None of them deserve to live.”

She sighed, shaking her head, and took out an emerald pendant from her sleeve, pressing it into my hand.

I ran my fingers over the smooth surface, tears falling and mingling with the bloodstains that had long since dried upon it.

Outside, the sky was clear and bright, just as it had been on the day Edmund sent this pendant to me through a trusted messenger, promising me that we would one day be together and that he would avenge my mother’s death.

But Edmund had died in his pursuit of the truth, his body never found.

By the time I arrived, all I saw was Julius lying there, covered in blood and barely clinging to life.

In my grief, I had mistaken him for my savior and given my heart to the wrong man.

I tended to Julius’s wounds, cared for him night and day, never leaving his side, while my true love, my Edmund, lay lifeless in the cold, forgotten wilderness of winter.