Chapter 73

Vincent’s POV

Adeline’s words wouldn’t leave me.

They trailed after me from the park, clinging to the corners of the hall, whispering through the hush of my footsteps. Even when I shut the door behind me, they slipped through the cracks like ghosts that refused to fade. The silence of my chambers did nothing to drown them—if anything, it made them louder.

“You abandoned me.”

I pressed my palms against my ears, but it was useless. You can’t unhear something that came from the heart.

I had faced warlords, council mutinies, and assassination attempts, but none of those things lingered the way her accusation did. Adeline’s voice had trembled, but the conviction in it had been real. She believed what she said. And that truth…her truth… unsettled a part of me I had buried a long time ago.

How could she call it abandonment when she was the one who had left?

I remembered that night far too well…the tension in the air, the threat circling us like wolves around wounded prey. My pack was fractur