After slipping on her nightclothes, Chloe came down to the living room and plopped herself down on the sofa. Next to her, Lloyd patiently waited for her to speak.
She paused, her eyes distant, lips parting and closing as she rehearsed her story in her mind. “I suppose I should start by telling you my true identity.”
Chloe braced herself. Those dreaded words took shape, and yet she wasn’t wracked by pain as she had been the day before. What point was there in keeping up such plainly false pretenses?
Composing herself, she continued. “My full name is Chloe Ardennes. I am the second daughter of the Margrave of Ardennes.”
“I see,” Lloyd replied simply.
“You’re not surprised,” she remarked. It was a question but lacked the tone of inquiry.
“I had my suspicions,” Lloyd replied. “Your mannerisms, behavior, looks—all of it suggested a lineage beyond common birth.”
She gave a wry smile, her gaze settling on Lloyd.“Your insight shouldn’t surprise me by now, should it?”
From there, Chloe slowly began to unravel the complicated tapestry of her past. She told him about the curse associated with the birthmark on her back, and the ostracizing that came with it. She told him about how her mother had relinquished her child-rearing duties, leaving her upbringing to a lone servant. She told him about the plague that had afflicted their domain, leading to her father and brother’s demise and her mother’s illness. She told him about how her mother had changed and blamed her for their deaths, and the subsequent abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, her sister, and the household servants. She told him about how she’d been worked like a dog all around the estate, before finally, she told him about the day she’d fled her home.
She told him about her failure to clean up the blood her mother’s hand had drawn from her, her mother’s menacing knife, and her narrow escape from a deadly fate. She even told him about her harrowing journey through the mountains and wilderness to reach the capital, where she’d run into a group of thugs before her timely rescue.
She told him everything, and all the while, Lloyd sat in attentive silence, an unbroken thread of solidarity. His engagement was punctuated by the occasional nod, the crease of his brow, but never an interruption.
“...And that’s my entire story,” Chloe said, her breath leaving her in a long, tired rush. As her words settled, the crushing weight that had long plagued her began to lift. That sense of relief, however, was fleeting, soon replaced by a chilling dread. Her hands trembled, her heart hammered, her breaths ran shallow as she anticipated Lloyd’s response.
“It all makes sense now,” he muttered. His voice was its usual understated self, but underneath, a sliver of restlessness seemed to reside. “Your proficiency in sewing and household chores, your remarkable humility, the deep-rooted self-doubt—it was all a result of the life you led.”
His voice now thrummed with a clear note of ire. I-I knew it... Chloe thought. He must hate me... Lloyd was upset at her for concealing her identity as a cursed child, a harbinger of misfortune—she was sure of it.
“Please... I’m so sorry,” she pleaded, her voice choking back emotion. “I’m sorry for hiding my curse—for deceiving you all this time. I’m sorry—so truly sorry.”
Words of self-condemnation poured from her lips uncontrollably. This was it for her; there was no turning back. She wanted nothing more than to disappear—to just vanish from existence. Her thinking spiraled into self-destruction.
“Someone like me doesn’t deserve to be around someone as kind and gentle as you,” Chloe declared, rising to her feet. “I’ll pack up my things and leave at once.”
“Wait.” Lloyd’s hand shot out and grabbed Chloe’s arm. “Leave? What are you talking about?” His voice was a mix of frustration and bewilderment.
“I-I thought you were angry...” Chloe stammered, shrinking back like a frightened rabbit.
“Sorry, you picked up on that?” Lloyd explained apologetically. “I wasn’t angry with you. I was angry at your family, at your surroundings.”
A sound of confusion escaped Chloe’s lips. Ignoring that, Lloyd continued, “I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: I loathe what reason cannot justify. When I think about the people who’ve mistreated you, exploited you, used you since you were but a child, I... It makes my blood boil.”
Lloyd’s behavior reflected his words—his fists were clenched, his voice quivered, and his eyes blazed with righteous anger. The flames of his fury were stoked by the similarity of her circumstances to his own.
“Do you not find it repulsive, Lloyd?” Chloe asked, still grappling with Lloyd’s emotional state.
“Find what repulsive?”
“The birthmark,” Chloe mumbled. “On my back.”
“Repulsive? No, of course not.”
The sincerity in Lloyd’s voice pierced through Chloe’s self-doubt like a beam of sunlight through an overcast sky. But the warmth was fleeting. The cloud cover returned swiftly—years of being made to feel like a miscreant was like an unbreakable hex over her. “You’re—you’re lying,” Chloe shot back. “I’m cursed—misfortune incarnate, don’t you understand?”
“I fail to see how a mere birthmark could incite such misfortune. This sounds like nothing more than local superstition to me,” Lloyd replied.
Chloe opened her mouth to counter his statement, but couldn’t.
“Besides...” Suddenly, Lloyd began to undress.
“L-Lloyd?! What are you—?!” Chloe blurted out.
Lloyd removed his top, revealing his bare torso. She clapped her hands over her mouth, gasping. Right in front of her was his naked, chiseled body—and the countless scars that marred its surface. They were what remained of former wounds, welts, and bruises—each a testament to a painful past.
“More mars my body than just birthmarks. Yours doesn’t unsettle me in the slightest.”
✦ ✦ ✦
“May I...touch them?” Chloe said.
“They’re all old wounds; feel free.”
Chloe extended her hand, her fingertips delicately tracing his scars. Alongside the warmth of his skin, she felt the gnarled texture, tangible evidence of past trauma that had healed imperfectly. Whether these were from his days as a knight, or from even further before—traces of his grim past in that wretched compound—she couldn’t definitively say.
What she did know beyond doubt was that Lloyd’s past was also marked by torment and suffering. And yet here he was, making his best effort to ease her anguish over her body with shelter in his own battered form.
“There are so many...” Chloe whispered. “It must have hurt a lot, didn’t it?”
“Why do you say that, Chloe?” Lloyd asked.
Drawn by his solemn voice, Chloe lifted her gaze to meet Lloyd’s.
He began to dress again. “Why do you say that when it’s you who’s lived through so much pain and hardship?”
“I...” Chloe began, trying to deny it. But she couldn’t. What were her days in Shadaf if not ones of pain and hardship?
What was there to be done about it? She used to ponder. She was cursed—this was her nature, her fault, she had been conditioned to think. Under such circumstances, her mind had locked the pain away, never allowing her to dwell on it—it had been the best course of action to protect herself.
But now, those unprocessed memories were surfacing, laden with all their emotional baggage. With a piercing crack, the barriers within her heart began to crumble. Hot, wet tears began to well up in the corner of her eyes. “I-I...”
“It was never your fault, Chloe.”
Those were the words she longed to hear the most.
“The people around you—they are the ones to blame.” Lloyd’s sturdy arms cocooned Chloe in comfort and protection.
It was in that moment that Chloe realized that somewhere, deep inside, she’d known—she’d always known—that none of this was ever her fault. But that knowing had been buried, overwritten over and over again by the daily violence, the blame constantly thrust upon her.
It was as though she had been indoctrinated, and Lloyd, with one simple utterance—it was never your fault—had cut through it all, liberating her.
“Chloe,” Lloyd went on, his hand tracing soothing patterns across her back, “you needn’t pick it over for some faint trace of fault leading back to you.”
The warmth in her eyes began to overflow. Each stroke of Lloyd’s hand, an offering of comfort, seemed to coax droplets from her eyes that trickled onto his lap. Her thoughts became fragmented, swirling incoherently.
“You’ve endured so much,” Lloyd whispered into her hair.
An incoherent sound, half moan, half sob, escaped Chloe’s quivering lips.
“You’ve done well to come this far.”
And with that, the last barrier crumbled. Chloe’s chest tightened, and she collapsed against Lloyd. With a tremor that ran to her core, she let out a soulful cry that pierced the air. Her sorrow unrestrained, her tears uncontrollable, she surrendered to the weight of her grief.
Lloyd now bore witness to the darkest corners of her past, those haunting memories she still carried with startling clarity. He knew everything. And yet, he’d told her she’d done well, had acknowledged her struggle. The dam that had been holding back a reservoir of pain had been irreparably shattered.
At the end of her arduous journey from Shadaf, through those long days filled with torment, she had finally found it: a haven where she felt safe, if not yet fully sound, a sanctuary where she could be vulnerable.
As she clung to Lloyd’s chest, Chloe let the tears continue to flow, her sobs echoing through the house.