I Woke Up as the Villainess Fated to Die, and Now the Emperor Can't Forget Me novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Villainess He Can't Forget

Edie grabbed my good arm.

"My lady, the release. Show him the release."

I had it in my lap.

I unfolded it with shaking fingers and held it up to the window.

The rider was looking back down the road toward the city.

A second horse was coming up the road at a gallop.

A huge black horse, with its neck dark with sweat.

The man on it wore no coat and no crown.

Just a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, and his gold hair blown every way by the wind.

He pulled up beside the carriage so hard the black horse half reared.

Then he swung down and stood in the dust of the road.

The rider and the coachman and both footmen dropped to their knees.

The Emperor didn't look at any of them.

He came to the carriage door and opened it himself.

"You signed it," I said. "In front of the whole court."

"I know."

"You said you keep your promises."

"I do. You're free. Nobody will ever stop you again." He put one hand flat on the door frame. "Except me. Once. For as long as it takes to ask you something."

"You could have sent a letter."

"I wrote six," he said. "They were terrible."

I laughed.

I hadn't meant to.

He looked at me the way he had on the fifth evening, like I'd done something astonishing.

Then he stepped back from the door and held out his hand.

I put the release down on the seat and took it.

He helped me down into the road.

The evening sun lay low and gold across the fields.

He let go of my hand.

Then the Emperor of the realm knelt down in the dust of the north road.

"Oh, my God," Edie whispered behind me.

"I won't make you my empress," he said. "There's no Selection. There's no council. There's no contest you're supposed to win."

He looked up at me.

"I'm asking you. That's all. You can say no. You've said it to me more than anyone alive."

"I know."

"You can say it again, and I'll get on that horse and go home, and you'll never see me on this road."

My throat was tight.

"And if I say yes?"

"Then you set the terms," he said. "All of them."

I looked down at him.

At the scar through his eyebrow, and the dust on his knees, and the hands he was holding very still on his thighs.

"Edie comes with me," I said. "Wherever I go. And she's paid like a lady's companion, not a maid."

"Done."

Edie burst into tears.

"My mother's portrait goes in the great hall," I said. "Not the cold gallery. Where everyone walks past it."

"Done."

"My father doesn't come to the wedding."

The corner of his mouth moved.

"I was never going to invite him."

"And one more."

He waited.

"You're going to learn to swim," I said. "I'm going to teach you. In the lake. In daylight, in front of whoever wants to watch."

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