Imogen was there when I awoke. I must have slept through the night because it was a morning sun warming the room. This time she helped me sit up and placed a tray of food on my lap.
“You look like yourself again,” she said. “Whoever that is.”
I blinked a few times to put her in better focus. “An invalid? That’s the real me?”
“Of course not. But —” Short on words, she only shrugged. “You look . . . content. It suits you.”
I chuckled. “No, it doesn’t.”
“I suppose not.” She grew quiet for a moment, then said, “I shouldn’t have gone to the pirates, even on Amarinda’s orders.”
“Agreed.”
“We hoped that I could help. The hairpin, the flowers, they were meant to save you.”
“No, Imogen,” I said. “It’s you who saves me. And not just from the pirates. I need you. When we get back to the castle —”
“I’m not going back.” She exhaled slowly, as if hoping to silently express the worst news. “Jaron, please understand. I can’t be there anymore.”
“Why not?” Of course she’d come with me. How else would things return to normal? There was an edge to my tone now. “Is it the servants, or the princess —”
“It’s you. I can’t go back and be near you.” Her brows pressed together and a small line formed between them. “Things are different now. Can’t you feel it?”
In that moment, most of what I felt was frustration. When I’d dismissed her from the castle, I’d known that I had hurt her, but surely she understood my reasons by now. I said, “The night I sent you away, that was only —”
“It was the right thing to do and we both know it. Devlin would have used me to take the kingdom from you.”
I shook my head. “Yes, he tried. But it didn’t work.”
“What if he hadn’t let you fight him? Would you have told him about the cave to keep him from whipping me?”
She had made her point. Whatever my options, I could never have allowed him to harm her. Yet this was no solution. Finally, I mumbled, “You have to come back. It’s only a friendship, Imogen.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “No, Jaron, it’s not. Maybe it never was. Don’t you see that it hurts me to be close to you?”
Hurt — that was the effect I seemed to have on those closest to me. Maybe what I’d done over the past several days had been necessary for Carthya, but there was always a price for my actions. This time, it had cost me the dearest friendship I had.
Imogen brushed at an escaped tear with the tips of her fingers. “Besides, if I go back, I’ll be in the way of you and Amarinda.”
“That’s what’s bothering you? I can make everything work out there.”
She frowned, and even through tears her tone became brusque. “How is that? Will you choose me and humiliate the princess? Destroy the relationship with her country, our only ally?” She shook her head. “The people love her, Jaron, and they should. Choose me, and you would lose your people.”
Choose? I was so taken aback, I could only stammer, “I’m not choosing anyone!”
“You don’t have to. I’m making the choice.” Imogen’s eyes darted away, then she added, “Harlowe offered me a position to stay and watch after Nila, and I’m going to accept it. You must return to Drylliad and learn to trust Amarinda. Learn to need her.”
With a scoff, I turned away. After having come so far, I was back exactly where I had started. Imogen sat and touched my arm. “Jaron, she’s on your side; she always was.”
“She’s friends with a traitor.”
“She’s your friend, which you’d know if you had ever given her the chance to show it. How is it that you can see your enemies so clearly and never your friends?” Imogen closed her eyes, very briefly, to steady her emotions. “You are a king, and she is meant to become your queen. You’ll marry her one day.”
This time, I caught a tremor in her voice and wondered if I’d been mistaken before. Perhaps Imogen hadn’t been saying we were no longer friends. Maybe her message was that we were no longer only friends.
It was impossible to look directly at her as I mumbled, “Imogen, do you love me?”
My heart pounded while I awaited her response. With every endless second that passed, I felt increasingly certain that I never should have attempted such a question. I understood the concept of love but had long doubted anyone’s ability to feel that way for me. All I dared hope to ask of Imogen was friendship, and now it seemed even that was failing.