"Why?"
"He's been lying to you the entire time," Ben said.
"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked, growing a little uneasy.
"Our people came up, and they're looking for us. And they've tried to contact Lex."
"W-what?" she asked. There was no way that she had heard him correctly.
"I swear, Aria. Our people are here. He's known the entire time," Ben said.
"I-I don't believe you."
There was no way Lex wouldn't have mentioned this. No way he could keep that a secret. Ben was lying. Yes, that's it. He's lying. Probably trying to stir something up. There's no way Lex would keep that from her.
"I know that you don't trust me. Not after what I did," Ben said, grabbing her hand. "But Aria, I swear I'm not lying. It's true. Our people are out there."
"And where did you come by this information?" she asked, unsure now.
"That doesn't matter. It's not important. We need to decide on what we should do next," he said.
"Ben, you-you might be wrong," she said, but it sounded weak, even to her.
"I'm not, Aria. Think about it...I mean, why else would he want to marry you, to make an alliance? Because he knew it would be beneficial to him because there are so many of us?"
Aria felt like the palace floor was beginning to shake beneath her. She knew it was just in her head, but she placed a hand on the wall to steady herself just the same.
There was no way...
"Aria...we need to act. We need to-," Ben began.
"No," she said.
"But Aria-"
"Don't do anything, and don't tell anyone else for now. Let-let me see if I can find anything out. Let's just keep this between us, for now," she said. Regardless if it was true or not, she knew she had to calm Ben down. She had to make sure he didn't do anything stupid.
"Okay," he said, "I'm going back to the village tomorrow morning. I only came to tell you. But I'll be back soon. We can talk about it then. We can decide on our next move."
"Alright," she said. She felt a little numb by that point.
They had reached her quarters, and she said goodnight to Ben, reminding him to keep the information to himself. She needed to think about what he had said. She needed to find some proof, something to convince her that he was lying. There was no way Lex would have kept something like that from her. Not after everything that had happened between them.
She made her way into their bedroom. She felt like her head was spinning. She sat down on the couch and put her head in her hands.
Could it be possible that Ben was telling the truth? But how could he have learned that information?
She thought about her time here in the palace. She thought about everything that had happened between her and Lex.
Yes, his marriage proposal came as a surprise. Because they weren't warriors, they didn't really have anything to offer Lex or this place.
So why did he do it?
Was it possible that...that their people really had shown up? Aria and her group had been held captive for quite a while, and then they traveled here. So maybe her people had come up and tried to find them. And maybe Lex knew that somehow? Nothing made sense.
Suddenly she remembered one of her first few nights here in Lex's quarters. He'd had a piece of paper, a letter it looked like, and when she asked about it, he put it away on his desk. And when she tried to look for it...his desk drawer had been locked.
She tried to concentrate and think about what Lex had said and done these past few months.
She found it a little tricky, considering the things that were the clearest in her mind were all the times he'd made her smile when he made her happy. When she got a glimpse of the man, he was.
But then....then she recalled his words when they had gone away together. 'Aria, I have to tell you something,' he'd said before she changed the subject and asked him about his mother.
She thought about all the 'meetings' he'd gone to. He acted a little secretive all the time, but she had been too distracted by his presence to notice.
And finally, she thought about the first night she had come here.
She remembered some of the guards going back the way they had come.
Oh my god...
The more she thought about it, the worse she felt.
But what made the whole situation hard to believe was the fact that if it really was true, if her people had tried to make contact, Lex had known about it. He knew, and he didn't tell her.
She thought about how much loyalty and trust meant to him. How hurt and angry he had been when she'd lied to him.
But if it was true...then he'd been lying to her since they got here.
As much as she wanted it to be true, that her people were out there....the little part of her that was selfish, that was basically in love with Lex Mills, hoped that there was some other explanation. That maybe he didn't know.
She knew it was stupid. Hopeless, even. Because the more she thought about it..., the more sense it made. The more real it felt.
By the time she dragged herself to bed, she knew there was some truth to what Ben had said. A part of her was happy. These were her people. She might get to see her mother again.
The other part felt utterly and totally betrayed.
Chapter 31
She searched for answers the next day. But she found none.
Nothing he kept in his rooms gave her any sort of proof. And when she danced around the subject with a few of his guards, they didn't know anything. Either that or they were pretending not to.
She considered bringing it up to Grace. If Lex knew, then she must have known as well.
