CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN – THE PAIN OF BETRAYAL

For the first time since the joyful night had begun, the full weight of her indiscretion, of her coy flirtations and roaming fancies, slammed into her like a smithy's hammer. In her selfish quest for some fleeting taste of freedom, she'd only succeeded in wounding the man she loved most while stirring a bitter desire in another she'd have done better to avoid entirely. With ill-timed clarity, she realized the true depths of her culpability, the tangled web her actions had spun. And as that awareness washed over her in a cold, hollow wave, she could no longer bear to be a party to this grotesque confrontation. Her feet were moving of their own accord as she turned blindly to flee. The ground seemed to tilt and buck like the heaving deck of a ship as she somehow found purchase and ran, desperate to put as much distance between herself and the scene as her trembling legs could carry her. She ran and ran until the jeering shouts and raucous sounds of the festival had faded completely fr