I Am The Game's Villain

Chapter 790: Aurora SS [3]

AURORA

I often found myself wondering what had happened to Edward, what could possibly have caused such a change within him. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that everything had begun after I broke our engagement, a year ago now.

At times, I even wondered whether my decision had been the very thing that triggered that change in him. Perhaps that was arrogant of me, to imagine I had held such importance in the turning of his life, but if my leaving had truly helped him become someone better, then I supposed I ought to feel some measure of happiness for it. Especially because, from that point onward, everything he did seemed more and more surprising, and more unlike the broken Edward I had known before.

I suppose, at first, the distance he kept from me and the harshness he still showed were only remnants of the final days of our engagement. I had not parted from him gently. In those last days, I had spoken to him with anger, disappointment, and a bitterness I had long kept buried, so it was only natural that some of that remained between us afterward. Even so, despite how much he had changed, I did not truly believe anything between us would change much.

That was before I met Amael.

He was a strange man, one I first encountered at a Familiar Treating Establishment. I had gone there to care for Ruma, while he had come in search of eggs, familiars, or perhaps the beginning of them. I had helped him then, and that was how our paths first crossed. He stood out immediately, of course, with his white hair and the blindfold he wore, and there was something unusual about him that could not be ignored. But despite that oddness, he seemed kind. Quietly kind, in a way that did not feel forced.

Later, I met him again through Elona. That was likely the moment my suspicions truly began, because the way Elena behaved around him was not normal, not if one paid close enough attention. There was familiarity there, and something guarded too, something that made me begin to wonder whether Amael was not who he claimed to be.

Then came the Iris Project. After that, and after the battles surrounding it, the doubts only grew stronger. One by one, little signs began to gather, each too small on its own perhaps, but together enough to form a truth I did not want to name. I grew more and more suspicious of his real identity.

And yet I ignored it on purpose. I did not try to probe deeper. I did not ask the questions already forming in my mind, because as long as I remained silent, our relationship could stay as it was. I enjoyed speaking with him too much to destroy that with a truth I was not ready to face. With Amael, I often felt I did not need to be a princess every second. I could simply exist, speak, and breathe without the constant burden of title and expectation pressing against every word.

But of course, that peace did not last.

I saw him again in the Enigma Dungeon, during one of our exams. By then, I had almost certainly confirmed who he truly was, though even so, part of me still refused to fully accept it. I did not want to say it aloud. I did not even want to think it too clearly, because naming it would make it real.

In that place, he saved me. And in that same place, I lost Louisa. I was broken by it, more than I wanted anyone to see, and yet he was the one who stayed. He comforted me when I had no strength left to hide behind pride or duty. I showed him my most vulnerable side there. I cried in front of him.

And selfishly, I wanted to believe that the person I had shown that grief to was still Amael. I wanted to believe that, because I knew that the moment I spoke the truth, truly spoke it, everything between us would end. Not only my bond with Amael, but whatever remained between Edward and me as well. In the end, I was only delaying the inevitable. I was postponing the death of both relationships, because I knew once the truth stood plainly between us, there would be no returning from it.

And eventually, that was exactly what happened. By the time I became engaged to Rythvel Arvatra, the end of that fragile in-between had finally arrived.

I still remember that conversation vividly, the one we had in the castle just before the birthday celebration.

Looking back on it now, I do not think there could have been a more fitting moment for that fragile bond between us to end. That strange, delicate relationship we had built there, me as Avia, and him as Amael, had always been living on borrowed time. Sooner or later, it was bound to break beneath the truth of who we really were.

I can still hear his words clearly.

He told me that if he had kept his disguise as Amael for just a few more weeks, if we had been allowed a little more time like that, if I had continued to know him not as Edward and not through everything that had existed between us before, but simply as a stranger I had happened to meet for the first time in that Familiar Establishment…

Then I told him the truth.

I told him I would have fallen for him.

Perhaps, in the end, I was still a woman before I was a princess.

I was never someone who fell easily. Over the years, I had learned very quickly what my duty was, what was expected of me, and what kind of distance I had to maintain, especially with men. It was not only a matter of propriety. It was survival, discipline, and responsibility. I knew very well how I was supposed to behave, and so I kept myself carefully restrained.

But with him, I had let my guard down.

Perhaps not all at once, and perhaps not enough for others to notice, but enough.

A few more moments like those, a few more conversations, a few more times standing across from him as Avia and Amael instead of Aurora and Edward, and my resolve would have weakened. No, if I were being honest with myself, it had already weakened at times. I had felt it. I had simply refused to name it.

He told me then that if Edward had changed while we were still engaged, it still would not have worked between us. He said it was because I would always put my kingdom before myself.

And remembering that now, I could not help the strange warmth that rose in me.

Because he had understood that about me.

He had seen it, learned it, and kept it in his heart far more deeply than I had once believed he ever would. That realization touched me in a way I had not expected, because it was exactly what I had once hoped for when I had first been engaged to him. Back then, I had wanted him to give the same care and attention to understanding me that I had spent trying to give him. I had wanted him to want to know me, to see beyond the role, beyond the title, and understand the person beneath it, along with all my burdens, doubts, and limits.

But that had not happened.

Not then.

And now, my life had already been promised elsewhere.

I had sworn myself to someone else, and that truth could not be undone by memories or by the quiet ache of what might have been.

Still, none of that changed the gratitude I carried toward Edward.

For what he had done this past year, I would always be grateful. I would not forget it. No matter what happened from this point onward, no matter how distant our roads became, I would not allow myself to forget the things he had done, the things he had endured, or the ways in which he had changed.

And as for the feelings that had taken root too late, those unripe emotions that had quietly swelled in the hidden corners of my heart…

I would get rid of them.

But I was not someone who forgot.

Pushing those thoughts away, I entered the royal throne room and interrupted the audience my father was holding from the throne.

The tension in the room shifted at once.

It had only been a few days since Ante-Eden’s attack on the Capital and the Holy Garden of Eden. The wounds left by that incident were still fresh, still open, still pulsing beneath every conversation and every glance in the court. My father, despite all that Uncle Walter had done, was still mourning his brother.

I could not blame him for that.

Grief was not erased simply because betrayal followed it.

And yet there were limits to what I would accept.

Because whatever he felt as a brother, he still remained king. And if, as king, he intended to turn that grief against Edward, if he intended to act against his life after Edward had saved Sylvia, after Uncle Walter had kidnapped her and murdered Elona, then I would never forgive him for it.

Never.

That would be unforgivable.

Irresponsible as a King.

And shameful as royalty.

That wasn’t what we were meant to represent.

I ignored the stares of the gathered nobles as I walked forward and stopped before the throne.

Then I raised my eyes to my father.

He looked exhausted sitting there, worn down by loss, duty, and the ruin left behind by recent events. But I did not let that soften what I had come to say.

I looked directly at him and spoke without hesitation.

“Father, may I know your intentions toward Edward?”