The next day...
For several years, Dyana had been thinking about what she would do the day she saw Kaiser again. Should she completely ignore him? Pretend that nothing had ever happened between them? No, that was impossible.
She had witnessed with her own eyes the horrific scene where he had thrown himself at her son with inhuman violence. There was no point in looking for explanations; that excess of rage was linked to her. To what had happened between them.
That morning, she got up early. She put on a long blue dress, fitted at the waist, highlighting her beautiful body. She gathered her hair into a chignon. After carefully preparing her lesson on warrior-mage combinations, she headed toward the main training hall.
The hall, built in the shape of an amphitheater, was a vast circular room where stone bleachers descended toward a central arena, wide and flat, ideal for practical duels. Her lesson that day would focus precisely on the opposition between a warrior and a magic user.
When she entered, the room was already buzzing with the murmur of students taking their seats. She climbed the few steps leading to the professor’s platform, placed her notes on the lectern and raised her eyes toward the audience.
And that was when she saw him.
...
[POV Dyana]
He was already seated in the third row, elbow casually resting on the bench, head propped on his hand. Kaiser had grown. He had to be at least one ter ninety. His shoulders had broadened, his chest looked powerful under his black shirt, slightly open at the collar.
His silver hair, longer than before, waved gently under the breeze coming through the high windows. He kept his other hand resting on the bench, in a relaxed posture that bordered on nonchalance. His face was impassive, his blue eyes were truly captivating.
Two years ago, he had been smaller, thinner, his features marked by adolescence. Today, the transformation was striking. He was a man, with a masculine build and a presence that imdiately captured attention.
Excited whispers ran through the bleachers, mainly from the young girls. I could see the looks they were giving him, which made purse my lips.
"Look at him...", one murmured.
"He’s really handso...", another added, in a low but distinct voice.
"The young Paragon, though... They say he’s really powerful."
I heard every word. They weren’t wrong, and that realization only tightened the knot forming in my chest.
I remained motionless on the platform, throat tight. My heart was beating at a disordered rhythm. Was it joy at seeing him again? Anger for everything that remained unresolved? Sha for the past? Probably a suffocating mix of all three.
After his departure two years ago, loneliness had settled in permanently. Randal spent his entire days training with his spear, as usual.
He ca ho late, ate in silence, and left again at dawn. Our marriage had never been passionate, but it functioned on a predictable and peaceful rhythm. Until Kaiser walked through the door of my life and disrupted all the balances.
I rember our eting very well. Discussing excitedly the culinary project we had agreed to carry out. But everything changed when he kissed ... a proposal I hadn’t expected from him. I pulled back because I was afraid, afraid of the consequences. It was far too dangerous.
He was exactly the sa age as my son. I am a married woman. I am Duchess Donoghan. I couldn’t do that kind of thing.
I had pushed him away. Our relationship had then shattered. He hadn’t replied anything. He had simply looked at . Then he had stood up and left without another word. That was how two full years had passed.
At first, I convinced myself it would pass. That it was just a passing fancy, a montary attraction. I was the adult, and he the young man. He would forget . He would find a girl his age, without the chains of title and past. I repeated that to myself endlessly. But he didn’t disappear from my mind.
The first months, a deep sadness overwheld . I drowned myself in work, organizing increasingly lavish charitable events, managing the estate. I persuaded myself that ti would fix everything.
It did nothing of the sort.
Sotis at night, when Randal slept deeply beside , I closed my eyes. Then, despite myself, I thought of him. Of his mouth, the texture of his hands, the timbre of his voice when he whispered my na.
In the darkness, under the sheets, I touched myself then. In silence, teeth clenched, body taut like a bow. I gave myself to him, imagining it was his fingers, his mouth; I wanted to feel him inside.
Each ti, after the wave of pleasure, sha arrived. It didn’t really co from the betrayal of Randal after all the passion had long deserted our bed but from the betrayal of the woman I was supposed to embody: the duchess, the mother, an irreproachable wife.
And yet, I started again. Again and again. Without wanting to stop.
I often wondered what would have happened if I had accepted his advances. What would have happened if I had said yes that day? If I had let his fingers close around my wrist to pull out of that dull life?
If I had accepted that one-way ticket to the unknown? Would I have known even a month of wild, authentic happiness?
Or would everything have collapsed much faster? I would never know. But the dominant feeling, obsessive, was regret. A regret that gnaws at from the inside.
And now, he was there. Seated in the third row, only a few ters from the platform where I stood attending my own class. Tall, more mature, features hardened by ti, of a cold and distant beauty.
I saw the students devouring him with their eyes, whispering among themselves, treating him like a god fallen from the sky. He, Kaiser, seed indifferent; he didn’t care at all.
My heart started pounding against my chest. An incoherent mix of feelings I could no longer even na overwheld . Was it joy at seeing him again? Anger at myself? Regret rekindled raw?
I quickly lowered my eyes to my notes, pretending to look for a reference, struggling to regain control of my breathing.
"I hate myself when I think of you, you bastard Kaiser." I told myself, for myself.
And then I began my lesson.
End of POV
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