Page 80 of Duke of the Sun

Why did he leave Cordelia to the same fate his father subjected his mother to?

“Michael,” the voice came again, “Look at me.”

The voice strangely sounded like Cordelia, but he knew that wasn’t possible. He pressed his face into her hand, desperate to feel her touch though he knew it would never be the same. A shudder ran through his body. It would never be the same again.

Michael was too far within his memories to notice how Cordelia was leaning forward in her bed, reaching with her other arm to wrap herself around him. Her breath, steady and even, trickled down his shoulder, brushing the hair on his neck. Despite how drenched he was from the rain, the side of Cordelia’s face pressed against his own, her warm cheek almost jolting him backwards.

She waswarm.

“Michael,” Cordelia murmured into his ear. “Michael, open your eyes.”

He blinked a few times before he realized what was happening. The room came rushing back to him, the roasting fire on one end already in the process of drying his clothes. Cordelia stretched across him, holding her arms around his neck and squeezing as hard as her slender frame allowed her to. Even with the wound at her leg, even though the cold threatened to nip at her. She came for him all the same, trying to bring him back to the reality he stepped away from. Michael inhaled deeply, recognizing her citrusy scent, and wrapped his arms around her torso.

“My Cordelia.” The words came out before he could even think about them.

They remained like that for a few moments, merely holding one another. The shakes threatened to come back to Michael every now and then, but Cordelia merely tightened her embrace on him, as if she was trying to hold all of his fractured pieces together. All the words they never said hung in the air above their heads, and Michael was desperate to let them out. Even if Cordelia wished for him to leave in the end, too betrayed by how he had left a second time, Michael would still say what he needed to say, and he would leave her all the same.

Michael pulled himself out from her tight grasp, holding her upper arms and guiding her back towards the bed, before taking a seat beside her. He reached to tuck a thick strand of brown hair behind her ear. Cordelia, much to his surprise, leaned into his feather-like touch.

“You came back,” she whispered.

Michael sighed. “I came back.”

“Why?”

“I-I thought you were,” he began, the panic quickly returning to him. He looked up at her window, where she could see the lake. He fisted the sheets, trying to stop himself from trembling like a madman but hardly able to control it. “I thought that the lake had claimed you. And I cannot - I cannot - I cannot lose you.”

Cordelia’s eyes widened.

“I love you,” he whispered, staring into her sharp green eyes. “I love you, and I will drain the lake if that would make you happy. I love you, and I will fly into an untamable rage if I were ever to lose you.” Michael raised her hand to his lips, merely brushing the skin against him, desperate for her contact. “Anything you ask, anything you wish, I will deliver, as long as you never leave me, Cordelia.”

Her eyes searched his face quietly for a moment, her expression warping into something of concern. “Michael,” she finally said, a small smile tugging at her lips, “You need not do grand things to have me.” Cordelia’s smile broadened. “I love you. I loved you before you left. I still love you now.”

Michael shuddered again, the words falling over him like the torrential rain outside her window. He leaned forward, his forehead falling against her arm. He did not feel close enough, still wrangling with the idea that she did not survive the lake, that at any given point, she’d be whisked away from him without another word. He gripped onto her tightly, determined to keep her beside him.

“Michael,” she breathed, using her small hand to raise his face, “Why do you look so burdened? I am alright, I promise. It was a silly fall, with no one to blame other than myself. The doctor said my leg was fractured, and the cold air threatened to take me, but I am well.” Cordelia grasped at his face, forcing him to stare into her eyes. “I amwell, Michael.”

“But you could have not been,” he murmured.

Cordelia’s head tilted. “Tell me what burdens you.”

“I cannot.”

“Youcan,” she said. “Perhaps you were unable to in the past, but I am not your past, Michael.” She straightened to sit up on the bed, meeting his eyes and refusing to let them go. “I wish to be your future. And the only way forward, is to relinquish that which burdens you. Rest it upon my shoulders, so that I might carry it for you.”

Michael stared at her with wide eyes. Never had another person said such words to him, in a way that resonated deeply within his heart. There wasn’t any doubt behind her voice, no betraying emotions that meant she didn’treallywish to hear it. Cordelia wanted to know his truth, and he was beginning to feel as though he could release it.

“I feel as though that lake was meant to torment me all my life,” he finally murmured.

Cordelia sighed. “It is only a lake.”

“Perhaps,” he whispered, “But it has swallowed more than simply water.”

Her eyes narrowed as she watched him, entirely listening to what he had to say.

“It has always been known that my father, the old Duke, was a beast of a man,” he began to explain. “When the time came for him to take a wife, he found my mother, who wished for nothing - except for her freedom. The marriage between them was forced down her throat. The old Duke grew older, and he needed an heir from a young wife to continue his legacy. Courtship was out of his hands. And so, he took what he wanted, and got everything he needed.”

Michael gulped down his fears, and continued. “Not long after their marriage, my mother tried to escape from Solshire, only to find out that she was pregnant, and was too bound to my father to even consider leaving.”

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