Chapter 100: That is not what a knight is supposed to do for his lady.

It didn’t take long for the days to blend into one another after that, Felix making his way from stall to stall, gate guard to gate guard, searching for a name that slipped further away as he tried harder to find it.

"Marin? No idea who that is, sweetheart. Almost half the girls in the capital are named that somehow."

"There’s always someone new coming from the capital with each change of the season, but you’ll need something better than just a name to describe the person you’re after."

Still, he persisted, questioning servants, stable hands, anyone he could get to open up with gossip on those who lived recently in the North Ward.

"I heard it wasn’t a fake Hakimi at all. The real one, I mean. He killed the impostor, quite neatly, and had the corpse left at the gate to make it look like someone else did it."

"You must be joking. What’s he doing killing a man who posed as him? It makes him seem guilty!"

"But isn’t that exactly the point? It’s too obvious to be true, which means nobody will think of that possibility."

"And the whole story’s probably nothing but the Duke’s people sweeping things under the rug quietly before it spreads too far."

Felix listened to each version of the story and didn’t correct a single one, holding onto what was important while letting the rest float away. No one had an answer for him. No one even knew whether there was really such a woman as Marin in Fillipo. And no matter where he went, no lead survived the pressure of being followed.

"You’re asking an awful lot of questions about a lady no one’s ever heard of," said one of the merchants, his brow knitting. "That either means she doesn’t exist or is doing a good job hiding herself so no one can find her."

"Thanks for your advice," he grumbled, heading off before the fellow could ask what was so important about the matter.

Three days into it and his feet were killing him more than his patience, with the trail going cold enough that he had to wonder if he hadn’t been following the wrong lead all along.

Diana leaned on the railing of the balcony with the green field before the castle wall spread in front of her eyes; sunlight sparkled on the top of the grass that swayed gently in the wind. Nicole stood next to her, looking calm as usual.

"Do you know the legend of the Weeping Star?" he asked, looking on the same view like she did.

"No."

"It’s an old fishermen’s tale; it’s told in the southern regions. They said that there used to be a star that fell in love with the ocean, watched it from above every night but couldn’t reach it. And it was crying all the time because of that, and its tears turned into little stars that can be seen at dusk near the horizon and flicker more often than the others." He looked sideways at her. "Fishermen used to believe that if one of those stars flashed twice, it meant that someone somewhere was being forgiven for something."

Diana sighed lightly through her nose. "Such a melancholic tale to tell carelessly."

"Most good tales are sad if one ponders about them for some time." He smiled lightly. "It was my favorite tale though; I found it quite comforting."

"Really? You think things will work themselves out on their own?"

"Not by themselves, no." He thought it over. "But I think people make it back to each other more often than they think they can, when they want to."

Diana fell silent at that, staring off into the fields for a while.

"But you don’t need to keep carrying this baggage anymore like you’ve been doing. All these rumors. They’re not your fault in any way."

"I know that." She spoke too quickly.

"No, I think you still don’t, really." He finally faced her. "None of this was ever really Hakimi’s doing either. He was the one being set up, and not by him, but by someone else. Someone who wanted to make him look guilty."

Her jaw clenched. "So he should have at least told me that much earlier on."

Nicole remained silent, letting her talk.

"And I begged him to tell me if I was wrong, to just come out and tell me that it wasn’t true. I begged him to say that. And he just told me that I wasn’t thinking straight, is what he told me."

"That was a very cruel thing to say to you."

"I tell him everything." Her fingers curled into the metal railing. "Everything there is about me, never held anything back from him. Doesn’t it work the other way around too? Shouldn’t it?" She shook her head fiercely. "He hasn’t even bothered coming to find me since. Once, because I was mad at him."

"That’s truly cruel of him." His hand came to rest softly over hers. "It’s not what a knight does for his lady. You deserve better than being left alone like that, over something you weren’t even guilty of to begin with." His thumb ran over her knuckles. "You can always come to me to talk whenever you need. I’ll always be here for you."

She pulled her hand away from his as though she had been burned. "Don’t."

His eyebrows rose in surprise.

"I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that." She started backing away quickly. "I don’t feel well at the moment. I should lie down."

Diana exited the balcony swiftly; the quick sound of her footsteps rushed along the hall to her room. Her hands remained clenched tightly at her sides the entire time.

I’ll always be there for you.

That is not what a knight is supposed to do for his lady.

No, no, please, why does she still keep hearing those words over and over, why won’t they stop echoing through her mind, why does she keep hearing it in his voice instead of Nicole’s. How come Hakimi did not come after me? He should have; that has been the one thing that remained unchanged regardless of where she fled or however long she remained locked inside some room; he always came after every single time, but now he just... Why couldn’t he have told her that it was not even him? That has always been his one job: answer her, no matter how much she throws at him.

A knight?

She shouldn’t have shouted at him. Even as she was doing it, she had known it. There was that one small clear part of her standing off to the side as she screamed at him and telling her,

Stop it, stop yelling. Let him talk first. You know that he could never do this.

Yet, she ignored that part of her completely. Should she apologize? Will it fix everything? Will her apology be the only words that could break through the door and undo the damage done or would they fall back on deaf ears. Maybe he has made his decision based on how she has reacted to him, maybe it is—

Will he forgive me?