Hail to the New Queen

Chapter 10

[Hunter’s POV]

The mirror shows me a man I barely recognize. Dark circles beneath my eyes. Jaw tight with tension I can't release. I adjust my cravat for the third time, fingers clumsy with nerves.

The image won't leave me. Christina stepping into that black car, battered duffel bag in hand, spine straight despite everything we'd done to break her. She didn't look back. Not once.

I've barely slept since that moment. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face in the foyer. Not shock. Not triumph. Just that terrible clarity—like she was finally seeing all of us for what we truly are.

I tell myself I need closure. Need to explain. Need to apologize, even if she throws it back in my face.

I tell myself a lot of things lately. Most of them are lies.

"Going somewhere?"

My mother's voice cuts through my thoughts like a blade freshly honed. She stands in the doorway of my room, arms crossed, expression sharp. She's already dressed for battle—immaculate silk, pearls at her throat, dark hair arranged with mathematical precision.

"The palace." I don't turn around. "I'm going to see Christina."

"Absolutely not."

"I wasn't asking permission."

She moves into the room, her heels clicking against hardwood with deliberate precision. "Stay out of this, Hunter. I'll handle Christina. I've been managing the girl for nineteen years."

Managing. The word lands wrong. Too cold. Too calculated.

"What exactly does 'handling' mean?" I turn to face her directly. "What are you planning?"

"Diplomacy. Negotiation." Her smile doesn't reach her eyes. "Finding common ground. These things require delicacy, not sentiment."

Something in her tone sets my teeth on edge. The same tone she used when dismissing servants. When discarding relationships that no longer served her purposes.

"I'm going anyway."

"You'll only make things worse." Her composure slips, revealing frustration beneath the polish. "Everything I've built, everything I've carefully positioned—"

"I'm the one who humiliated her publicly." The words taste like ash. "I announced another woman's name while Christina stood there in borrowed pearls. I should be the one to face her."

"Face her?" Mother's laugh is sharp, brittle. "And say what? That you're sorry? That you didn't mean it?" She steps closer, anger cracking through her careful composure. "You're sentimental. Foolish. Just like your father."

The comparison stings. She knows it will.

I don't respond. I simply walk past her, through the door, down the corridor that suddenly feels like a prison I've been living in my entire life without ever realizing it.

Her voice follows me: "Hunter. Hunter!"

I don't look back.

The irony isn't lost on me. Christina didn't look back either.

* * *

The palace corridors stretch before me like a gilded gauntlet. Every frame holds a portrait of someone who belongs here by right of blood. Every servant bows with practiced deference—not to me, but to the institution I'm about to beg for mercy.

Christina belongs here now. These halls. These paintings. This ancient power.

And I'm the fool who tried to discard her for political advantage.

Spectacular strategic thinking, Valdren. Truly your finest work.

A guard escorts me to a formal receiving room. The doors are heavy, carved with symbols I don't recognize. Two more guards stand inside, positioned near the walls. A pointed reminder that I'm not trusted here.

Fair enough. I wouldn't trust me either.

Then I see her, and everything else falls away.

Christina sits in a high-backed chair, dressed in deep blue silk that makes her grey eyes luminous. Her dark hair is swept up, revealing the elegant line of her neck. She looks like the portraits in the corridors. Like she was born to occupy this space.

She looks like a queen.

The silent girl I ignored for years has vanished completely. In her place sits someone regal, cold, utterly in control.

"Hunter." My name falls from her lips without warmth. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I needed—" My voice cracks. I clear my throat, hating how weak I sound. "I needed to see you. To explain."

"Explain." She tilts her head, the gesture achingly familiar and entirely foreign at once. "Please. I'm curious what explanation exists for public humiliation."

"The pressure," I begin, and already it sounds pathetic. "Everyone whispering that I was a fool for staying engaged to you. That sentiment would bankrupt the family. That I needed to think strategically."

Christina's expression doesn't flicker.

"I let it get to me. Year after year, the same voices telling me I was weak for wanting you. And instead of telling them to go to hell, I—" I drag a hand through my hair.

"I lost myself somewhere between ambition and cowardice. I should have defended you. Should have chosen you. Instead I let their poison convince me you weren't worth fighting for."

The words hang in the air between us. They sound even worse spoken aloud than they did in my head.

"I'm not asking for forgiveness." My throat feels raw. "I know I don't deserve it. I just needed you to know that I'm sorry. That I was wrong. That losing you is the worst thing I've ever done."

Silence stretches between us. The guards shift almost imperceptibly.

"Are you finished?" Christina's voice is cool, measured.

"I—yes."

"Good." She rises from her chair, the movement fluid and practiced. "Then you should know that your family's assets are currently being investigated for fraud. The crown finances show irregularities spanning nineteen years. Every charitable contribution. Every trust disbursement. Every single gift that was meant for me."

My stomach drops. "Christina—"

"Your Highness." The correction is gentle. Devastating. "In formal settings, you address me as Your Highness. Though I suppose proper etiquette was never your family's strong suit."

She doesn't raise her voice. Doesn't need to. The power in the room has shifted so completely that I feel it like physical weight pressing down on my shoulders.

I'm not speaking to the girl who accepted borrowed pearls with quiet gratitude. I'm speaking to a queen who holds my entire family's fate in her elegant hands.

Something twists in my chest. Not fear—though fear is certainly present. Something else entirely. Something that feels disturbingly like longing.

I remember her laugh. The warmth of her body against mine in the darkness, when I thought she was mine.

I threw all of that away. Discarded her like she was nothing.

And she became everything.

"You may go," she says. "I trust you can find your way out."

I bow—properly—and walk toward the doors. Each step feels heavier than the last.

At the threshold, I pause. Turn back.

Christina has already returned to her chair, reviewing documents like I was never there. Like I'm already forgotten.

I leave the palace with the sickening understanding that I destroyed something irreplaceable. Something precious and rare and freely given.

No amount of groveling will bring it back. No apology can undo the damage.

But for the first time since that night at the gala, I want to try. Want to earn back even a fraction of the trust I shattered.

I don't know how. Don't know if it's even possible.

But I'm done being the coward who listens to whispers instead of his own heart.

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