Destiny by Pedro Urvi Read Free Book Online

stayed with her gaze fixed ahead.
    “Aliana…” he said, coming to stand beside her and looking at her with his determined blue eyes.
    “Gerart…” was all she managed to say, overwhelmed by unexpected uncertainty and nervous tension.
    Gerart took her hands and looked at her. His eyes were full of remorse.
    “Forgive me, I beg you.”
    “There’s nothing to forgive, Gerart. You did the right thing. I’ve always felt that.”
    “Every day and every night since that fateful day have been an unbearable torture for me, not knowing whether you were alive or dead.”
    “I’m alive, I survived. We both did. We must thank the Light.”
    “I knew you had to be alive, hope never left me. But I was eaten up by remorse. Guilt at having left you when you needed me most. Day after day, little by little, in a slow agony. Every day I told myself you were alive, and straight away the weight of guilt would fall on me so that I couldn’t breathe.”
    Aliana looked at the Prince and saw anxious, honest pain in his face. She had to make him understand that he had acted as he should, to give his soul rest.
    “You did your duty to the Kingdom, to the Crown, Gerart. With honor, as the Prince of Rogdon should. You ought to be proud of yourself instead of feeling guilty. I want the pain to end here today. You mustn’t regret your actions, since they were noble and correct. What’s more, if the situation were to repeat itself, I hope you’d behave in the same way, since that’s the honorable way, and I would expect nothing less of the Prince of Rogdon.”
    “No, I’d never do it again. I wouldn’t leave you. I’d stay with you. I’ll never leave you in the midst of danger again, never,” Gerart said, shaking his head energetically.
    Aliana put her hands on his cheeks and looked at him firmly. Gerart was the most honest and honorable man on the face of Rogdon, and Aliana did not want that to change in the slightest, least of all because of her. She would not permit it.
    “Yes, you’d let me go, just as you did then. You owe yourself to the Kingdom, and to your people, not to me.”
    Gerart tried to shake his head, but Aliana held it firmly so that he was unable to. Gradually his look softened until once again it was as Aliana remembered it. With a smile she took her hands away.
    “I’m really happy to see you safe and sound,” Gerart said, his face illuminated by the joy he felt.
    “I’m happy too, to see you in one piece,” joked Aliana, trying to lighten the mood.
    “I’ve longed for this moment, to see you again, to have you by my side. Every long anxious moment, since the day we were separated. And at last my wish is granted, just when I was beginning to think it might never happen. You’re here, and there are no limits to my happiness. When I lost you I made myself a promise which I must now fulfill.”
    At these words Aliana became deeply uneasy. Her heart skipped several beats, because she guessed what the Prince wanted to say.
    “Gerart…” she said, trying to dissuade him, although she knew she would not succeed.
    “Let me tell you how much you mean to me, Aliana. I must say this to you. I’ve waited too long to do it, and if I don’t, I know I’ll always regret it. I don’t expect anything, I don’t ask for anything, I only want you to listen.”
    “All right…” Aliana conceded.
    She looked at him and was entranced by his gentle, gallant presence. His blond hair, his intense blue eyes, that face whose classic beauty took her breath away, his broad shoulders… she was trapped anew. For an instant she had to hold back a sigh. The old feelings she had kept buried surfaced again, and there was no denying them in the Prince’s manly presence.
    “From the moment I set eyes on you when I woke up from my poisoning and thought you were a goddess, I fell in love with you, Aliana. The days we spent together only gave wings to that feeling and allowed it to soar higher. And that feeling has grown,