DAPHNE.
I wore the blue dress Rovian got me for my birthday this year because I knew he loved it.
Three weeks.
He'd been gone three weeks fighting some border skirmish, and I'd spent the entire morning getting ready for his return. I had my hair braided the way he liked and I was wearing that perfume he'd bought me that made him bury his face in my neck often.
I missed him so badly it physically hurt.
The courtyard was packed when the procession arrived. There were soldiers everywhere, advisors pushing through, guards flanking the edges. I stood on the palace steps with my heart racing, scanning faces until I found his.
Twenty-one days I'd been waiting for this exact moment.
When I finally spotted him through the chaos, relief crashed through me hard enough to make my knees weak.
There he was. Alive. Moving through the crowd with that presence that made everyone step aside without him having to ask. He looked exhausted though. And there was something new on his face, a thin pink scar cutting across his jaw.
He'd been hurt.
My chest went tight, but he was walking fine, talking to his commanders, clearly not badly injured. Just... reminded that even kings could bleed.
I waited while his men swarmed him with reports. Let them have their moment.
Mine was coming. I could feel it building inside me, that anticipation of when he'd finally look up and see me standing here. When his whole face would change the way it always did—like everything difficult about being king just melted away because I was there.
I couldn't stop smiling, probably looked ridiculous standing here beaming like an idiot, but I didn't care. He was home. He was safe. Nothing else mattered.
The advisor beside him shifted, pointed at something, and Rovian's gaze lifted.
The world stopped as our eyes met.
I smiled wider, my whole body flooding with warmth and relief—then I actually saw his expression.
Seeing absolutely nothing there when he looked at me.
Nothing but... disgust.
That new scar across his jaw pulled tight as he clenched his teeth hard enough I could see the muscle jump.
His eyes—the ones that used to soften when they found me—were flat and cold and filled with something that looked horribly like hatred.
My smile didn't fade. It collapsed. Died right there on my face.
He kept staring. Long enough that people around him started noticing where he was looking, started following his gaze to where I stood frozen on the steps.
Long enough for something in my chest to crack.
This wasn't surprise or confusion. He knew exactly who I was, and this was how he was choosing to look at me.
Was he exhausted? Traumatized from fighting? Maybe—
He looked away.
Just dismissed me completely, turned to the guard beside him like I wasn't even standing there. "Move her things out of my chambers."
His voice carried across the courtyard.
Every conversation within earshot died.
I felt dozens of eyes swing toward me, heard someone nearby suck in a sharp breath, but I couldn't move. Couldn't process what I'd just heard because it didn't make sense.
The guard beside Rovian went pale. "Your—Your Majesty?"
"The Luna's belongings." Rovian brushed dirt off his sleeve like he was discussing the weather. "Remove them from my chambers." He paused, glanced around at the crowd pressing closer, "Put them in the maids' quarters if you must. I don't care where specifically."
The whispers exploded around me like something physical.
I couldn't breathe. My lungs had just forgotten how.
This couldn't be real.
"And send one of the call girls up to my bedchambers." He started walking again, climbing the steps toward me. "It's been a long journey. I could use the pleasure."
The words punched straight through my chest.
I watched him get closer, watched his face stay completely blank, watched shock ripple through the crowd in real time
"Wait." It ripped out of me, desperate and too loud. "What did you just—"
He walked right past me like I was furniture he'd already forgotten about.
I spun around, my dress tangling in my legs. "Rovian!"
He stopped but didn't turn around. Just stood there with his back to me, every line of him rigid.
"Did you just—" My voice cracked. I swallowed hard, tried again. "Did you just order my things removed from our bedroom and ask for a prostitute to be sent to our bed?"
The courtyard went so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat hammering.
Slowly, like it cost him effort, he turned around.
And then he looked at me like I'd asked the stupidest question he'd ever heard.
"Yes." The word came out flat. Bored, even. "Is there something confusing about that?"
My mouth opened but nothing came out. My brain couldn't form words because none of this made any kind of sense.
"I'm your wife." It barely came out as a whisper.
"I'm aware." He tilted his head, studied me with those dead eyes. "That doesn't mean I want you in my bed."
Someone in the crowd made a choked sound. I could see the advisors staring at him like he'd lost his mind, guards shifting uncomfortably like they didn't know where to look.
"I don't understand." My hands were shaking badly enough I had to press them against my stomach. "What's wrong? Did something happen out there—"
He laughed, actually laughed. And it made my skin crawl. "What's wrong is I'm standing here wasting time on you when I should be inside washing three weeks of blood and dirt off."
"Rovian, please—"
"It means you're nothing but a whore, Daphne." He said it so casually, like he was stating a fact everyone already knew. "And since I'm a king, I get to pick and choose which one of my whores shares my bed at night. Today, you're not my lucky pick."
Whore.
He called me a whore?
I felt every eye in that courtyard burning into me.
"I don't know what you think I did," I managed, my voice shaking so badly I barely recognized it, "but I'm not—"
"Oh, don't play innocent now." He actually looked amused, like this was entertaining to him. "It's insulting."
"I'm not playing anything!" Tears were burning behind my eyes now. "I don't understand what's happening—"
"Enough." The word cracked like a whip. His face went from amused to something darker, something that made me take a step back. "I don't want to hear your voice. I don't want to see your face. Go to whatever hole they put you in and stay there."
One of the older advisors stepped forward, his face pale with shock. "Your Majesty, perhaps this is a conversation better had in private—"
"Is there something unclear about my orders?" Rovian's voice went deadly quiet.
The advisor froze.
Rovian looked around at everyone watching, daring anyone else to speak.
Silence.
He turned and walked into the palace without another word.
The doors slammed shut.
I stood there shaking, feeling like my legs would give out. Everyone was staring. Some looked away when I met their eyes, embarrassed. Others kept watching like they couldn't help it.
The guard approached carefully. "Luna, I... your things..."
My voice was hollow. "Do what he said."
The room I was relocated to was more like a closet with a bed shoved in it. Plain stone walls. Cold floor. A window so small barely any light got through.
I sat down on the floor.
My brain kept trying to rewind, to find what I'd done wrong, but I couldn't think straight.
Three weeks ago he'd held me all night. Kissed me goodbye. Promised to come home safe.
Now he'd called me a whore in front of his entire court.
And that's when I heard it.
From above me. The royal chambers. Our bedroom.
He was having sex with someone else, and he'd stationed me right under his room. Right under our bed.
The same bed where he'd been so careful with me when we'd finally had sex, where he'd whispered promises about forever.
Now someone else was in it.
Something in my chest broke.
I sat there on that freezing floor in my blue dress and listened to my husband fuck another woman, and the only thing running through my head was the same question over and over.
What changed?