Mott’s eyebrows rose. “Prime? That’s going to upset your other regents. Some of them have been there longer than you’ve been alive.”
“They were ready to give control of Carthya to a traitor. Once Gregor’s treachery is known, they’ll be a lot humbler. Harlowe is the right man to lead them.”
“He’ll serve you well.” Mott pressed his lips together and then said, “He couldn’t understand how a king could abandon everything to join up with thieves and pirates. He worried that you had forgotten yourself.”
“I never forgot myself, not once,” I mumbled. “That was the hardest part.” Then I looked up at Mott. “Nor can I ever forgive myself, if you won’t forgive me.”
“For this?” He tilted his head. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
“No, not for what I’ve done.” I lowered my gaze and fingered a loose thread on the blanket. “I ask you to forgive who I am. It will never be easy to serve with me.”
Mott’s eyes moistened. “I am certain of that. But I will serve you anyway.”
With that, I laid my head back on my pillow and rested. When Mott began speaking again, I opened my eyes but only stared forward.
“I should know better than to ever doubt you.” Mott placed a hand on my arm. “Today you live because of everything you’ve done right in your life. You did well.”
I smiled and returned to sleep. There was nothing kinder he could have said.
Imogen was there when I awoke. I must have slept through the night because it was a morning sun warming the room. This time she helped me sit up and placed a tray of food on my lap.
“You look like yourself again,” she said. “Whoever that is.”
I blinked a few times to put her in better focus. “An invalid? That’s the real me?”
“Of course not. But —” Short on words, she only shrugged. “You look . . . content. It suits you.”
I chuckled. “No, it doesn’t.”
“I suppose not.” She grew quiet for a moment, then said, “I shouldn’t have gone to the pirates, even on Amarinda’s orders.”
“Agreed.”
“We hoped that I could help. The hairpin, the flowers, they were meant to save you.”
“No, Imogen,” I said. “It’s you who saves me. And not just from the pirates. I need you. When we get back to the castle —”
“I’m not going back.” She exhaled slowly, as if hoping to silently express the worst news. “Jaron, please understand. I can’t be there anymore.”
“Why not?” Of course she’d come with me. How else would things return to normal? There was an edge to my tone now. “Is it the servants, or the princess —”
“It’s you. I can’t go back and be near you.” Her brows pressed together and a small line formed between them. “Things are different now. Can’t you feel it?”
In that moment, most of what I felt was frustration. When I’d dismissed her from the castle, I’d known that I had hurt her, but surely she understood my reasons by now. I said, “The night I sent you away, that was only —”
“It was the right thing to do and we both know it. Devlin would have used me to take the kingdom from you.”
I shook my head. “Yes, he tried. But it didn’t work.”
“What if he hadn’t let you fight him? Would you have told him about the cave to keep him from whipping me?”
She had made her point. Whatever my options, I could never have allowed him to harm her. Yet this was no solution. Finally, I mumbled, “You have to come back. It’s only a friendship, Imogen.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “No, Jaron, it’s not. Maybe it never was. Don’t you see that it hurts me to be close to you?”
Hurt — that was the effect I seemed to have on those closest to me. Maybe what I’d done over the past several days had been necessary for Carthya, but there was always a price for my actions. This time, it had cost me the dearest friendship I had.
Imogen brushed at an escaped tear with the tips of her fingers. “Besides, if I go back, I’ll be in the way of you and Amarinda.”