**Chapter 54 — I Just Want You to Know the Truth**
*I Ended Up Living Next Door to My Ex-Husband*
---
I stood at the cabin window for a long time, letting the cool mountain breeze move over my face.
It helped — somewhat — with the warmth that had crept into my cheeks.
*Cedric, what on earth possessed you to say something like that?*
Shortly after we'd arrived, a message had come from Chief Devon requesting Cedric's input on some matter of village upkeep. He'd gone without protest, though not before pausing at the door.
*"If you want to help the villagers, go to the hall — that's where everyone gathers to work. But if anyone gives you trouble, come straight back."*
He'd said it with the easy certainty of someone who understood perfectly well that "trouble" was the most likely outcome, and was choosing to send me anyway.
I appreciated it, more than I expected to.
*Everyone here is going to hate me. But I've come this far.*
I left the cabin and followed the quiet path toward the center of the village, breathing in the clean air, listening to birdsong filtering through the trees. For a few minutes, it was genuinely peaceful.
Then I got closer, and the looks started.
"Who does she think she is, waltzing into our village?"
"The nerve. The absolute nerve of that woman."
People stopped what they were doing to stare. Some crossed their arms. A few held farming tools in ways that were perhaps not entirely incidental.
I kept walking.
I wanted, very briefly, to turn around and say something sharp to the memory of Rebecca — the original one, whose choices had created all of this — and who had vacated the premises without leaving so much as an apology behind. Just the consequences, and me to navigate them.
*Who else is there to blame, really? I walked into this body of my own accord. Or close enough.*
So I straightened my spine, ignored the weight of the glares, and kept moving.
---
Mina was waiting outside the hall, and the relief I felt at seeing her was unreasonably large. She spotted me and came jogging over with a bright smile, the other maids trailing behind her.
"Your Highness! What took you so long? Were you alone with His Highness the whole time?" She pressed her hands together. "Just the two of you? In the cabin?"
The other maids crowded in immediately.
"What were you doing all that time?"
"It's been ages since you went in there!"
Their eyes held a very specific kind of expectation that I chose not to acknowledge.
"Stop that." I looked at Mina. "Were you all out here the entire time? Particularly you, Mina — wasn't there something you were supposed to be doing?"
Mina's expression shifted into something dreamy and faintly wicked.
"I just hope you had a much better time without us~"
She swayed slightly, cheeks pink with imagination. I regarded her with profound pity, shook my head, and turned toward the hall.
"Are you here to help with the village work?"
A chorus of enthusiastic nods.
"We can't very well stand around while everyone else is busy," Mina confirmed — and then her smile flickered. Something seemed to occur to her belatedly. She exchanged a quick, uncertain glance with the nearest maid.
Her gaze crept back to me.
"Your Highness... the message I sent you earlier. What exactly did it say you'd be doing?"
---
The sound of a knife meeting a cutting board rang out sharp and rhythmic inside the workshop.
The room smelled of salt and fish and morning cold. Women worked in rows along long wooden tables, preparing the catch to be sold — one of the village's primary livelihoods, perched as it was between mountain and sea.
The moment I stepped inside, the sound didn't stop. But something shifted anyway. Eyes moved. Hands slowed.
Then the work resumed, with deliberate noisiness, as every person in the room collectively decided to ignore me.
"Your Highness," Mina whispered beside me, her voice strained, "are you absolutely certain you want to—"
"I'm certain."
"But you've never—"
"Mina."
The village women, apparently having heard enough, gave up the pretense of ignoring me.
"Oh, just go! You'll be useless and you know it — someone like her has never had dirty hands in her life. What if she faints and we have to explain it to His Highness?"
"If she causes a scene in here, it'll be our problem!"
I smiled at no one in particular, moved past the maids, lifted the hem of my dress, and sat down at an empty workstation.
The fish in front of me was large and freshly caught. I picked it up with both hands.
"Shall I start with this one?"
Dead silence.
Every eye in the room was on me. I ignored them and reached for the knife.
*In my past life, I cooked every meal in our household for years. My husband could barely boil water. Fish I could do in my sleep.*
The knife came down cleanly.
*Took.*
---
It took a while for Foreman Jacqueline to notice. She had been the loudest voice insisting I leave, which meant she was also the one who eventually pushed through the small crowd that had assembled around my workstation.
She looked at my basket.
It was full — nearly overflowing with neatly prepared fish, cleaned and portioned with consistent cuts.
Jacqueline's jaw descended slowly.
She picked up one piece. Examined it closely, turning it over in her thick hands with the practiced eye of someone who had done this work for decades and knew precisely what corners people cut.
"How is this..." She turned another piece over. Then another. "When did you learn to do this?"
I gave her the brightest non-answer I had.
"Oh — I suppose it's just an instinct? Natural ability, maybe?"
*What I actually wanted to say: try spending years cooking every meal for a husband who considered making tea an achievement. You'd learn quickly too.*
But that felt difficult to explain in the present context, so I kept smiling.
Around us, the whispered reactions had already started.
"Did she really do all of that herself?"
"That's at least three days' worth of work..."
"Her technique is better than yours, actually."
"I beg your pardon?"
My maids had abandoned all restraint.
"Is there anything you can't do, Your Highness?"
"The village's profits this trip are going to be so much better—"
Mina nudged Jacqueline with her elbow. "Isn't that right, Jacqueline?"
Jacqueline looked at me. Her expression was still deeply suspicious, but something had shifted underneath it — reluctant, grudging, involuntary.
"I don't know what talent you were born with," she said, in the tone of someone conceding a point that physically pains them. "But for a first time... you did well."
"Thank you, Jacqueline."
She pointed at me. "Don't take that to mean anything."
Then she folded her arms and looked at me squarely, and the reluctance was replaced with something older and more honest.
"We were elites once. The people here. We had positions we were proud of — work that our families respected." A beat. "And then we had nothing. Because of you."
Murmurs of agreement moved through the room. Someone spoke up from the back: "My parents told everyone when I was hired. They were so proud. It wasn't just a job you took from me."
"No," I said.
The room went quiet.
"It wasn't. I know that." I set down my knife and looked at the faces around me — some still hostile, some cautiously watching, some somewhere in between. "I know an apology doesn't come close to undoing it. I'm not standing here expecting forgiveness. What I did — what was done to you — isn't something that can be resolved with a few words."
I looked down at the basket beside me. Then back at them.
"I came today because I wanted to help. Even in a small way. Even just this." I paused. "And the welfare foundation — the reason I started it in the first place—"
The room had gone still enough that I could feel everyone listening.
I turned to face them fully.
"It started because of you. All of you. I wanted to find a way to give back what I took."
The silence stretched.
Then, slowly, I lowered my head.
A sharp intake of breath from Mina. The maids moved toward me immediately.
"Your Highness, please — you don't bow to those who served under you—"
I didn't move.
"I know an apology is not enough." My voice was steady, even from this angle. "But I needed you to know that I understand what I took from you. And that I'm sorry. Truly. Even if it's too late, even if it changes nothing — I needed to say it."
The workshop erupted into noise — not anger this time, but something more bewildered. Shock moving through a crowd that had arrived with its defenses fully assembled and was now uncertain what to do with them.
The sounds gradually settled.
From the edge of my lowered view, I watched a pair of sturdy boots begin moving toward the door.
When I raised my head, Jacqueline was already halfway across the room, not looking at me.
"What is everyone standing around for?" Her voice boomed off the low ceiling. "Work is finished — stop hovering and start setting up for the next task!"
*I knew they wouldn't forgive me easily. I didn't expect them to.*
I watched her broad back and swallowed quietly.
Then Jacqueline's voice rang out again — louder this time, carrying the full authority of a woman who has run workshops for twenty years and considers sentiment a luxury to be dealt with efficiently.
"And another thing!" She turned just far enough to address the room without quite looking at me. "She may have behaved reprehensibly, but she is still the mistress of the Twins household." A pause — weighted, deliberate. "Which means the least we can do is put together a proper welcome banquet!"