Chapter 161: Not mine to tell 1

LYSANDER

The gravel crunched beneath our boots, too loud in the quiet of the evening. The sun was almost gone, sinking behind the trees and leaving a thin band of fading light along the horizon. Around us, streetlights and lanterns flickered on one after another, their warm glow pushing back against the gathering dusk.

I kept my eyes on the path ahead, watching our shadows stretch across the ground, long and thin beneath the lights. They wavered with every step, making us look taller, almost unnatural.

My hands stayed buried in my pockets, fingers curled into fists, my nails pressing crescents into my palms. I needed the pain. It was something I could control, something solid enough to hold on to while everything else felt like it was slipping out of my grip.

Fia walked beside me, her stride shorter than mine, her shoulders slightly hunched as though she were carrying a weight she had no idea how to set down. She probably was. We all were.

The car waited at the end of the drive, its headlights already cutting through the deepening dusk, but neither of us made any effort to reach it.

"How are you holding up?" she asked, her voice low enough that the wind almost carried it away.

A laugh escaped me, but there was nothing amused about it. It came out brittle and hollow.

"Powerless." I stared ahead, swallowing against the tightness in my throat. "I feel fucking powerless."

Fia slowed, then stopped altogether. After a moment, I did the same.

She turned toward me, the light from the house catching her eyes and turning them almost gold in the gathering darkness.

"You’re not powerless, Lysander. You’re the Regent. You hold the entire kingdom in your hands."

"I have a mate."

The words came out before I could stop them.

Fia fell silent.

"I have this..." I dragged a hand over my face, struggling to put the feeling into words. "This bond. This connection that’s supposed to mean something. Something good. And I haven’t even had a moment to enjoy it. Not one."

My voice tightened.

"Every time I think I can finally breathe, something else happens. Someone else dies. Another crisis lands at my feet, and I’m expected to fix it." I looked toward the house behind us, toward the kingdom that seemed to demand something from me every time I turned around. "I’m always reacting. Always trying to clean up whatever disaster comes next."

I let out a slow breath.

"I’m never ahead of anything, Fia. I’m just trying to survive the next thing long enough to deal with the one after it."

I dragged a hand down my face, feeling the roughness of the stubble along my jaw. Exhaustion clung to me, heavy beneath my eyes, deep enough that I could feel it in every part of my body.

"It’s like we’re being played." I stared into the darkness ahead. "Like someone is holding the strings and watching us dance, and I can’t see the puppeteer. Hell, I can’t even see the stage."

Fia nodded slowly, her gaze dropping to the gravel between us.

"I know that feeling." Her voice softened. "The feeling that your life stopped belonging to you a long time ago. That you’re just another piece on someone else’s board."

She looked up at me, and there was something sad but genuine in her expression.

"But it gets better. I know it does." She gave me a faint smile. "I can attest to that. Cian and I... we eventually found our footing. It took time, and it wasn’t easy, but somewhere in all that chaos, we found something solid to hold on to."

"I just need to find mine," I muttered.

I started walking again, and she fell into step beside me.

"Or maybe I should stop looking." I shoved my hands back into my pockets. "Maybe I should just say to hell with it all. Kill whoever is responsible and be done with it."

The words were quiet, almost conversational, but the intent behind them wasn’t.

"I know I’m not wrong about them. Edelina. Johann." My jaw tightened around their names. "They’re poison. They’re killing this kingdom from the inside, and I’m supposed to sit here worrying about what happens to my position if I move against them?"

Fia’s hand closed around my arm.

"Lysander."

"There will be consequences," I said, barely hearing her. "I know that. There will be political fallout, people questioning my judgment, maybe even a war for all I know." I finally looked at her. "But the people matter more than my political survival. They do. They have to."

Her fingers tightened around my arm.

"I wouldn’t recommend that."

I turned on her. "Why not?"

My voice came out sharper than I intended, but I didn’t lower it.

"You saw what they did today. You saw what they’re capable of." I could still see it, every body, every consequence, every moment I had been too late to stop. "I know it was them, Fia. I know it in my bones."

I pulled against her grip, but she held on.

"Why should I let them keep breathing when every breath they take costs someone else their life?"

Fia held my gaze for a moment before her grip finally loosened.

"I have a mate who happens to be hot-headed," she said, a faint smile touching her mouth. "And he’s getting better. Slowly, but he is."

I huffed a humorless laugh.

"But that isn’t you, Lysander." Her expression softened. "You think things through. You weigh the consequences. You’ve spent your entire life doing that, probably more than you should have. Maybe that’s why your uncle thought you were the right person for this role."

"To be frank, I doubt it."

The words came out quietly.

Fia studied me, but I looked away, my attention settling on the car waiting ahead of us.

"I used to think I knew my uncle." I swallowed, feeling something bitter settle in my chest.