Maude nearly gagged, and ended up stomping pretty hard on Silas’s foot. He clearly winced, surprised by the impact. “I’m alive but I had to change,” she said. “I believed you were going to stay in the empire. I had to move forward. And as you can see, I’m not exactly chained up and unable to leave.” She gestured at her gown.

Silas paused for a moment, and seemed to be taking her words in. “Do you love him?” he finally asked. Rage had taken over his features.

I’ve never seen him like this before, Maude thought. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Silas angry before, let alone raging.

“Why are you making this about Duke Rosenberg?” she asked.

“Because he’s clearly the reason you’re staying here!” Silas exclaimed. “Why else would you refuse to come with me? You were my woman before!”

Maude’s stomach lurched. “Have you ever considered that you are the reason I didn’t come with you?” she asked. “Listen to the way you are talking to me. What am I, some kind of object to you? Just a sword saint trophy to be had and displayed? Do you understand that you are speaking to me in the exact same manner that my father spoke to me?” she asked.

Silas looked taken aback. Maude had told him about some of the strife she’d had with her father in the past, so Silas likely had some idea that being compared to her father was not a good thing.

“Of course I was excited to potentially marry you when we were in the empire. Do you know how fervently I desired to be out of my father’s house? You can’t possibly know because I was too afraid to tell you. I would have done anything to be away from my father and Zara.” She huffed at him, feeling tears sting her eyes. “I gave up on all of that when Duke Rosenberg opened up the opportunity for me to turn over a new leaf and start my life here. You’ve given me no good reasons to abandon what I’ve started, and now here you are, working with my nemesis to spread rumors about me and the person who saved my life in hopes of me leaving with you. Why would that make me want to leave?” she asked him.

He spun her around, and she watched a symphony of emotions play out on his face. “I’m…sorry, Maude,” he said as they came back together, Maude nearly tripping over his feet. “I don’t think of you as a trophy or an object.”

“Do you really not?” she asked him critically, raising her eyebrows. “All of your actions suggest that you do.”

“You’re right,” he replied, looking like he had swallowed something slimy. “Is there anything that I can do to earn your affections?”

Maude looked up into the face of the man who had once been her dearest friend, her greatest life companion, and the man she believed she was going to marry. Some of the most important moments in their relationship flashed before her eyes. Telling him about how she’d become a sword saint. He’d been overjoyed and excited for her. Him nursing some of her wounds from one time when Zara had been overzealous with her punishment. The first time they had ever dueled, and he’d beat her, but only just barely. Meeting up with him from time to time in the marketplace to grab a bite to eat.

Yet through it all, she’d never felt that she’d have the capability to be fully honest with him about her life. They’d never shared the intimate details of their families. Maude noticed only now that she didn’t really know how well his parents treated him.

Maybe it was a product of the environment I was living in at that time, she thought. But even though I thought of him as a close companion, I never realized how little we knew about one another.

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She shook her head at him. I can’t instill false hope in him, she thought. Not only will he continue to try to pursue me, but that’s also just disrespectful to the time we’ve spent together and the memories we have together.

“I think it’s too late,” she told him.

Though she was no longer sure she’d ever had feelings for him, she knew that his shattered face at her words would probably haunt her for years to come.

“You’re right that I do have feelings for the duke,” she told him. “Though that doesn’t mean we’re together as Lady Von Wickten has suggested. Duke Rosenberg was just the first person to treat me as though I am an individual with my own feelings and thoughts. He doesn’t treat me in the way my father did. I just don’t know that you will be able to make up for the years I was never able to be honest with you about what my life was really like in the Holloway Manor,” she said.

Thankfully, the music ended. She curtsied to him, and he bowed. Maude noticed that he had tears in his eyes.”I’m sorry, Maude,” she heard him softly murmur. His eyes did not meet hers. He scurried off away from her, across the dance floor, into the crowd of people. Maude turned on her heel, walking back towards where she could see Jaspar waiting for her, no longer with Fronica.

My heart hurts, she thought. I would have never thought that this would be how my relationship with Silas would end. Though it had been some time since she had let go of her expectation of being with him, she still felt tears threatening to fall.

“How did it go?” Jaspar asked her as she came up to him.

Maude had to choke back her emotions so that she could explain to Jaspar what she and Silas had talked about. “He claimed that he was under the impression I still had feelings for him and was being held against my will.” Maude shook her head. “I told him that resting me like I was an object was reminiscent of my father.”

Jaspar’s jaw dropped. “My goodness, Lady Maude,” he said. “You really know how to bruise a man’s pride.”

Maude felt her face flush. “I was only honest,” she said. “That is how it feels like he is acting.”

Jaspar nodded. “I’m not trying to change your mind,” he said. “I was just surprised how blunt you were with someone I know you care about.”

Maude grimaced. “I’m not sure that he would have gotten the message if I didn’t phrase it so bluntly,” she said. “How did the rest of your conversation go with Lady Von Wickten?” she asked, shifting the attention over to Jaspar.

Jaspar scowled. “I don’t know what is wrong with that woman,” he said. “And I’m even more grateful that you are a guest in my home, because I’m not sure I would have discovered how unhinged she is without you,” he said.

Maude felt her eyebrows draw together, and she pursued her lips. “What did she say?” she asked.

“She straight up admitted to being the source of the rumors as soon as you and Lord Silas left,” he replied. “I told her that if she kept harassing the Duchy of Rosenberg and its guests, that perhaps we would need to evaluate whether the house of Von Wickten is appropriate for Rosenberg to do business with.”

Maude felt like her eyes were as big as dinner plates. “What did she say to that statement?” she asked.

“Only that she’s not harassing us, only telling the truth,” Jaspar replied, shaking his head, clearly disgusted with Fronica’s behavior. “It was all downhill from there. At one point, she told me that she would literally be willing to die if that meant I would pay more attention to her.”

Maude felt herself recoil in disgust. “What the hell?” she asked.

“I just told her that I’d be in contact with her father and had to walk away after that,” he replied, his lips curled back in a look of pure revulsion.

Maude just shook her head. “And she probably took that comment as something very different than how you meant it.”

“Oh, most certainly,” Jaspar replied. “But I can’t reason with her, so I’m just going to have to try to talk to her father about it. Though, I’m not quite sure what Marquise Von Wickten will be able to do either.”

For the first time, Maude couldn’t help but pity Fronica. What a sad way to live life, she thought. Surely she must realize that there are other ways to live.

“Well,” Maude replied, trying to look at the bright side, “Maybe they will at least leave us alone for a little while?”

“Maybe,” Jaspar agreed. “Heavens, that put me in a terrible mood.”

Maude nodded, an understanding look on her face. “Yeah, it did for me as well,” she admitted.

“Do you wish to go home?” Jaspar asked her.

“I think that is a fabulous suggestion,” she answered with a wry smile. He smiled back at her in a haggard way, and then offered his arm. Right as the fifth song was beginning, the pair walked out of the royal ballroom.