My Unchosen Ex Chases Reborn Me (Soren and Fiona) novel Chapter 265

Chapter 265 Midnight Farewell

Those were the rare days when their bond felt effortless.

Fiona had adored him then; any chance to stay near him was a gift. If he spoke, she listened. No matter how drowsy, she rose.

“I have one request,” Soren murmured, fastening the hood of her cloak before the waiting entourage. “Whenever I depart for Broadmoor, you must come see me off.”

“Why?” she whispered, breath clouding in the cold.

“The battlefield is unforgiving,” he said, eyes steady. “Today’s goodbye might be our last. To leave without farewell is to carry lifelong regret.”

Remembering that time, Fiona realized she had rarely gone to see him off after that. He never asked it of her; he would simply rise at dawn, mount, and vanish beyond the gate before she could tie her cloak.

His final journey to Broadmoor had felt like an idle prophecy spoken into winter air.

He left without a word of farewell, and she died during that absence.

Was there regret?

Xavier later swore that, after Fiona’s passing, Soren drowned in remorse. If so, then yes–there was regret.

Fiona first heard the date of Soren’s departure from Lilith, whose news traveled faster than any courier.

“Fiona, are you going to see him off?” Lilith asked. The request, she admitted, came straight from Naomi–no one wanted Soren to ride out without a proper send–off from the Niven family.

Fiona’s smile was light, almost airy. “That is the Zonfrillo family’s affair, not mine.”

Lilith’s brow puckered. “Naomi looked rather worried, though. Is Lord Soren’s condition truly that grave this time?”

Fiona offered no answer, silence settling between them like unmelted frost.

Later, when Xavier called at the Niven Estate, he, too, mentioned the impending journey, his tone measured but watchful.

“Do you want me to see him off?” Fiona asked, chiseling straight into the matter the way one might score wood before the cut.

Xavier folded his hands behind his back. “That choice rests with you,” he said after a pause.

“He will not die on this campaign. In the previous life, he rode to Broadmoor without a farewell, and I was the one who died. I wonder if he regretted leaving before waking me, before sharing a few more ordinary words.”

Xavier’s answer came softly. “Of course, Lord Soren regretted it deeply.”

“Perhaps he never imagined I could perish while living safely inside the Zonfrillo Estate,” Fiona said, half–laughing at her own morbid jest. “He chose coldness; let him taste the ash of remorse. After all, I was the one who died–until life rewound for me.”

She knew secrets bound Xavier’s tongue; she expected no fuller reply and asked for none.

Truthfully, the previous life had not hurt enough to make death a mercy. Had she survived, a humble divorce and quiet years with

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her mother would have been bearable–almost sweet.

Something complicated flickered in Xavier’s eyes, as though her words tugged at hidden threads he dared not touch.

Fiona turned back to her block of red sandalwood, knife whispering across the grain, while Xavier lingered behind her longer than courtesy required.

Yet when Soren finally departed Jexburgh, Fiona went too–standing in a shadowed corner of the thronged avenue, counting which officials joined his convoy.

Only when the wheels creaked forward did Soren’s gaze sweep the crowd and catch her slender figure half–hidden by an archway.

For a heartbeat, he stared, startled. Then his mouth curved, and the frost that usually sheathed him thawed into sudden spring.

He had never expected Fiona to come.

And the realization filled him–quietly, entirely–with joy.

He kept his eyes on Fiona for a long, quiet stretch.

Time would pass, and in the brutal months ahead, when his body lay broken, barely able to twitch a finger, the memory of that moment would return to him again and again.

Each time it did, he whispered to himself that he had to survive, had to heal, had to find his way home. Clinging to that promise dulled the pain until it was no longer pain at all, only purpose.

He meant to go back and stand before her, to ask whether her presence at his send–off carried even the smallest spark of affection.

Meanwhile, Fiona’s gaze drifted not toward Soren but to the officers flanking him.

Most of the faces were familiar, though the names escaped her. In her former life, she had seen every one of them before.

Then, in the shadow of a supply wagon, she noticed a man in his early thirties sporting a neat beard. The sight snagged her breath. She had met him somewhere meaningful–she was sure of it.

The pull of recognition stirred a thin blade of dread beneath her ribs. She tried to chase the memory down a winding corridor of thought, but the door at the end refused to open.

Lost in that fog, she lifted her eyes and found Soren looking straight at her. The discovery stilled her like a pin through silk.

She wore only a plain Serene Moon Gown, her hair fastened with a single wooden pin. Standing among the elegantly dressed ladies, she should have been invisible–yet somehow he had still found her.

Across the surging crowd, their gazes locked, and for one suspended heartbeat, all noise fell away, the city, the sky, the world narrowing until only the two of them existed.

“Who is Lord Soren staring at?” someone in the throng whispered.

“Look at the embroidered pouch hanging from his belt–how unusual,” another murmured.

Fiona’s attention flicked to the pouch. It was unmistakably the small silk piece Naomi had taken from her days ago–traditionally, a soldier wore a token from his wife.

For a moment, disorientation swept her. In the previous life, he had never done such a thing. If anything, this time, he seemed

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determined to treat her as the woman he would one day call wife.

By the time she surfaced from the thought, Soren had already broken the connection, his shoulders merging into the column of armor that marched through the city gate and out into the burgeoning dawn.

Fiona’s mind circled back to the bearded man, but when she searched the square, she only found Xavier standing at a distance, his gaze fixed on something far away and unreachable.