Reborn To Change My Fate-Chapter 97 - Ninety Seven

The morning light was cold, cutting sharp, unforgiving lines across the marble floor of the great hallway. Derek was dressed as the commander of the Thompson’s Army. His black, high-collared military uniform was immaculate, the silver buttons polished to a mirror shine, his black boots so high they almost reached his knee. He looked hard, cold, and dangerous.

He was walking fast, his strides long and purposeful. Ian, his personal guard, followed a step behind, a silent, grim shadow.

"There is no need for you to come to camp with me," Derek said, his voice a low, clipped command. He didn’t slow his pace. "Go to the Golden Swan. The place will be quiet. Check if the spies have sent any new information."

"Yes, Your Grace," Ian replied, his voice a respectful murmur.

"After I am done with the barracks, I will meet you there," Derek continued, his mind already three steps ahead.

They were almost at the grand entrance. Derek suddenly stopped. Ian paused, a respectful distance behind him.

"And Ian," Derek said, his voice dropping, his tone changing. It was no longer the voice of a commander; it was the voice of a man nursing a deep, cold, and very personal wound. "Investigate Senna’s background. Everything."

"Your Grace?"

"She seems... different," Derek said, his gaze distant, his mind clearly back in the drugged, hazy, terrifying chaos of the night before. "She is different from the person who saved me, all those years ago." He paused, a strange, complicated expression passing over his face. He reached into the inner pocket of his military coat. His hand emerged with a small, old, and very worn silver locket, the chain long since broken.

He opened it, his thumb brushing over the torn, headless picture inside. "Very different," he whispered, his voice soft, almost sad.

He turned, his eyes—cold, hard, and now full of a new, sharp, and terrible suspicion—meeting Ian’s. "You know," he said, "in all the years I have known her, in all the years I have provided for her, in all her endless talk of our ’shared past’... she hasn’t said a single word about this locket."

Ian knew the story. The locket was Senna’s, a simple, worthless trinket she had been wearing when she, a poor, terrified girl, had supposedly found him, a half-frozen boy, in a snowdrift. He had kept it as a memento, a symbol of the life debt he owed her.

"She has never asked for it back," Derek said, his voice a low, cold growl. "She has never mentioned it. Not once." He snapped the locket shut, the click of the metal a sharp, final, damning sound in the silent hall. "It seems it wasn’t very important to her in the first place."

His trust, the foundation of their entire, complicated relationship, had been poisoned, and it was dying.

"Is my horse ready?" he asked, his voice now flat and cold. He pushed the locket, and the last of his old, foolish sentiments, back into his pocket.

"Yes, Your Grace. Waiting in the courtyard."

They reached the grand entrance hall. The massive front doors were open, the bright, morning sun streaming in. His black warhorse, its breath fogging in the cool air, was being held by a stable boy.

And standing by the door, as if she had been waiting for him, was Senna.

She was a picture of perfect, fragile, and tragic beauty. She was dressed in a simple, pale-grey gown, her face pale, her beautiful amber eyes red-rimmed and swollen from what looked like a long night of weeping. She looked like a heartbroken, abandoned, and innocent victim.

Ian, seeing her, gave his master a single, knowing, and almost pitying glance, bowed his head, and then, as silent as a shadow, he took his leave, disappearing down a side corridor.

Derek was left alone with her. He did not stop walking. He did not pause. His face, which had been so full of anger, now settled into a mask of blank, and icy indifference. He pulled on his heavy, black leather gloves, his movements sharp, angry, and precise, pulling each finger tight with a series of sharp, violent tugs. He was building a wall.

"Your Grace," Senna whispered, her voice a trembling, broken sound.

Derek looked up, his eyes, over the top of his gloved fingers, were not kind. They were not the eyes of her protector, her friend. They were the eyes of a stranger.

She saw the look, and her own, perfectly rehearsed, pitiful mask faltered. A flicker of real, genuine fear crossed her face.

" I never expected..." he said, "I never thought you would... you would be so cruel. To use such methods against me..." Derek said, anger lacing his tone.

"Your Grace, what do you mean?" she said, her voice full of a false, wounded confusion as she took a single, desperate step towards him.

Derek took an immediate, instinctive, and utterly brutal step backward.

The rejection was physical. It was public. It was unmistakable. It was as if she were diseased, as if her very presence disgusted him.

Senna froze, her hand still outstretched, her face crumpling. "I... I don’t know how it happened," she whispered, her hand flying to her head, a perfect picture of a frail, confused, and wronged woman. "One moment we were... we were just talking, and the next... I..."

"Aphrodisiac incense from the Western Region."

His voice was not a shout. It was a flat, cold, and dead statement of fact. He had named her weapon. He knew.

Senna flinched as if he had slapped her. Her "confused, frail" act shattered, her eyes widening in pure, cold, guilty terror.

"The incense burner in my study," Derek continued, his voice a low, merciless, and utterly calm monotone as he finished pulling on his second glove. "It has been replaced by now, right? The evidence of your little trick is all gone."

She had no defense. She fell back on her one, last, and only weapon: her tears.

"No!" she shrieked, her voice high and ragged. "Your Grace, no! I swear! I admire you so much! I... I love you!" She was crying, her shoulders shaking, a perfect, heartbreaking performance of a woman consumed by a desperate, uncontrollable passion. "Why would I... why would I ever use such cheap, terrible tricks on you? I would never! I would die before I hurt you!"

He looked at her. He looked at this beautiful, sobbing, and utterly broken-looking woman. And he felt... nothing.

The fog was gone. The magic was broken. The last, lingering wisps of his childhood gratitude, of his "life debt," had been burned away by the poison, and then washed clean by the cold, sharp, and terrifyingly real presence of his wife. He looked at Senna’s desperate tears, and he compared them, in his mind, to the image of Marissa, her face stained with his blood, her eyes full of a cold, clear, and unbending resolve as she had faced down the Royal Guards.

One was a lie. The other was the truth.

He took a step towards her, his movements slow, his new, leather-gloved hands clenching at his sides. He loomed over her, a dark, cold, and final judgment.

"Some affections, Senna," he said, his voice quiet, but carrying a terrible, final, and brutal weight, "once they are exhausted... once they are proven false... they can never, ever, be restored."

She stared up at him, her sobs catching in her throat, her eyes wide with the dawning, terrible, and absolute understanding of his words. It was over.

"Find new lodgings," he said, his voice flat, the voice of a master dismissing a servant. "A room at an inn, in the city. Then leave the estate."

"Leave?" she whispered, her voice a small, broken, and uncomprehending sound. "But... my home... Lord Ashford... I am not safe!"

"I will pay the workers double-time," Derek said, his voice cold, practical, and utterly devoid of any of the warmth he had once shown her. "I will have your manor completed early and send some men to protect you. But you will not stay here."

The sound of his horse, a sharp, impatient neigh, echoed from the courtyard, ending the conversation. He was done.

He walked past her, his heavy, military boots loud on the marble floor. He did not look back. He did not give her a single, parting glance. He walked out of the grand entrance and descended the steps.

He swung himself onto his horse in one fluid motion. He gathered the reins, and with a sharp flick, he spurred the horse into a full, desperate gallop, fleeing the estate.