She squeezed her eyes shut as they reached their quarters, where the sharp-eyed guard stood sentinel, along with another. Veron greeted them, and even those brief words were like balm to her wounds.
Inside, he closed the door and released her, then took off his jacket as he headed to the starlit window, where earlier today she’d seen the beauty of him, terrifying and enchanting. In his favor, he could be gentle, shimmering in the sunshine of quiet moments. In his malice, he could be terrible, drenched in the blood of their enemies. And she wanted him. All of him.
He’d brought her into a new world, his world, full of beauty and magic, and had shared it with her. She wanted to live in that world of beauty and magic with him. As his wife, his partner.
She had to try to fix this. She had to. “Veron—”
“I only had one expectation.” His voice was low, cold, lifeless.
She took a step forward. “Please, I—”
“Do you remember, Alessandra?”
Trust is the one expectation I have, he had told her, on their wedding night.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Trust.”
“And all this time, you had this… plan.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “All this… nearness. Affection. Was it all just so I wouldn’t suspect?”
“Of course not,” she replied quickly, rushing up to him. She reached out to touch his arm, but he didn’t budge an inch.
Swallowing, she stared out the window at the darkness, letting the silence settle.
A sprawling courtyard of tangled rose vines lay below, bathed in starlight, shimmering—
Ripped away.
She shook her head.
No, a dream.
Below lay the knot of hedges in the night, rows of lavender, the rectangular pool. She took a deep breath. “I didn’t expect we’d like each other this much, Veron. I thought we’d always have an aversion to each other, but that we could become friends. Inspire peace through friendship. That you could be free to do as you wished, and I could see to the library, teach our people, keep fostering this peace—”
“This peace is built on the concept that a human and a dark-elf could bind themselves to one another even in marriage,” he replied. “Even if only in semblance.”
“I know that.”
He turned on her. “And you thought separating would be conducive to that? I expected better from you, Alessandra.”
“No, it would only mean that we still want to be friends but are on different paths—”
“That the symbol the peace is built on, our marriage, can’t work. We’d be setting an example that would take root in every heart across the nation. We’d be doing the Brotherhood’s work for them.”
She reached out for him, but he avoided her grasp. “But our parents forced—”
“The two of us were sacrificed for an entire realm of peace,” he said, his voice low. With a hand to his forehead, he sighed. “The worst part of it all is that I would have understood. If you’d just told me in Bellanzole that you wanted to be released, I would have understood.”
“I don’t want to be released.”
He stared at her coldly. “I have orders. Even if you wanted me to, I couldn’t. Even if I do understand.”
He’s the one who wishes he could release me. She exhaled sharply. “So that’s it? One misstep, and you hate me forever?”
“I don’t hate you, Alessandra, but I can’t trust someone who has a hidden agenda.”
“I made that decision before I ever knew you, Veron. You didn’t deserve to be betrayed, but did I deserve to be married off against my will? Traded like some pawn? Was that to be the sum of my worth?”
He squeezed his eyes shut, then ran a hand up over his face and back over his hair. “I can’t blame you for that. But the lying? Trust means everything to me. We could have come to an arrangement. But if this had come out some other way, had…” With a shake of his head, he strode to the bedchamber, and she followed. “You don’t even see it, do you?”
What was he talking about? “See what?”
He plucked a pillow off the bed and a folded blanket off the chest at the foot of the bed. “Alessandra, tell me where Gabriella comes from.”
What was he getting at? “She’s my lady-in-waiting. She’s from… the royal court.”
He marched right back to the parlor, tossed the pillow and blanket on the sofa, then began removing his boots with a grimace. “Her home.” The sofa cushion dipped under his weight. “Where is she from?”
She shook her head.
“Gabriella takes care of your entire life. Where is she from? Does she have any siblings? What’s important to her?”
“I—I don’t know.”
He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his cold gaze boring into her. “You’ve never asked, have you?”
No… she hadn’t. She should’ve, but… but…
She lowered her chin, scrutinizing the crimson and sable rug, its fringe, broken in places.
“You don’t even really know her. And she lives for you, Alessandra. But this—your plan to refuse the second ceremony—would have rippled and caused destruction for so many, those who live outside the tunnel of what you choose to see. Your father might have seen this as reneging, might have pulled the aid he’d given us, and do you have any idea what a baby’s starving cry sounds like?”
A chill wove through her. She… She hadn’t considered that.
Without the marriage, would Papà have trusted the dark-elves enough and keep sending them aid? Or would he have looked for an ally elsewhere?
And while Veron had mentioned how much people were looking forward to the aid from Bellanzole, she hadn’t realized that people were… really starving. That babies were…
Those golden eyes speared her own a moment longer. “I don’t blame you for fearing what this marriage would be. Nor even for not wanting it. But did it ever occur to you that, for the good of both our peoples, we might discuss alternate arrangements? That maybe I didn’t feel too differently than you did? Was planning to betray me, to run away without a care for the treaty, really the best course of action? Or just the easiest?”
He looked away with a sigh and stretched out on the sofa, his arm tucked behind his head.
Wringing her tulle skirts, she waited, but he wouldn’t look at her. He’d said he didn’t blame her, but that wasn’t what this felt like. Their people expected so little from one another, and maybe he’d expected little from her, too. And despite a couple brief, glowing moments, she’d fulfilled those low expectations... instead of defying them.
They’d spent every night since Bellanzole together.
Not tonight.
She left for the bedchamber, where she shed all of her clothes, hairpins, and washed her face, donned her nightgown, found her old copy of A Modern History of Silen, and nestled into the bed, cocooned herself in the bedding. Such a wonderful night had been destroyed, and it was all her fault.
Veron was angry about the lie, but even more so about the betrayal.
Cradling the book close, she opened to the first page, traced her finger across Mamma’s script. Be brave, my rose, and fill the remaining pages with your deeds.
As a child, she’d written in minor things. Things most people would deem trivial. Saving a cat from cruel children. Making a statement. Winning an argument.
Over the years, she’d set her sights higher. So high, the view blurred the sight of individual people, the ones she wanted to save, and even the ones around her. She’d focused so intensely on healing her spine, and earning Papà’s love by doing so, and shut out nearly everything else until she’d succeeded—at least in recovering from her curvatura, if not in impressing Papà.
And then she’d worked so hard for peace, for realizing Mamma’s vision, that she’d lost the instinct to see those around her.
She saw Veron now, or was beginning to. She’d see Gabriella. The dark-elf guards with them. And the people she intended to save. She wouldn’t be anyone’s pawn, but in her pursuit of Mamma’s vision, she wouldn’t sacrifice the lives of others by destroying the peace. Not the Sileni, not the dark-elves, not even the Brotherhood if it could be avoided. Enough lives had been lost.
And Veron might have given up on her, but she… she wouldn’t give up on him. He was right about her not thinking through the consequences for his people, and even her own. He was right that she shouldn’t have lied.
But not being able to trust her after this? When it came to that, he was dead wrong. And she would prove it to him.
Tomorrow he’d begin to see just how stubborn she could be.
Chapter 13
Before Veron could properly open his eyes, there were already sounds coming from the bedchamber. Quick footsteps, the slosh of water, rustling fabric, and creaking hinges.
The sun hadn’t even risen yet, and she was already up. He shook his head. The sun had to be mistaken.
He was on his feet and stretching when Aless walked in, wearing a form-fitting but utilitarian purple dress and holding the Offering bow. With a raise of her eyebrows, she met his gaze.
“I’m ready for an archery lesson, if you’re going to the range.” She sat in an armchair while he began his morning routine.