With a bow, he offered to escort her from the room. Aria felt the sting of his words long after leaving, the correction inherent within them. His words said she’d made a mistake. Again.
And soon after leaving, she received news from her father of another lord stepping up to take the Crown’s challenge. Another man to see banished on her behalf. Lord Kendall had flown his chicken elbows back to the palace, squawking about how Aria’s abandonment of him at last made sense, since it was performed under influence of magic. He proclaimed his intention to save her, and just like her father, he would not hear a word she said to the contrary.
Over the next three days, Aria watched him realize his mistake, watched her curse swallow another person in the wide swath of chaos as it crept ever closer to consuming Aria. Yet after two banishments, after clear futility in the challenge, her father was not satisfied.
The third challenger had already been arranged.
Baron hadn’t heard from Aria after Corvin’s transformation, but when a letter finally arrived, he left the poor falcon sitting on his window ledge far too long while he stood paralyzed, imagining every possibility contained in the parchment. Perhaps she would try to persuade him of Corvin’s dangerousness, perhaps she would express her regrets at what had to be done according to the law, perhaps she would keep the boy’s secret but no longer associate with such a family.
Or perhaps the dream would continue. He felt a fool to even hope it, but it gripped him in every limb, moving him forward to claim the letter at last. The falcon glided smoothly away.
Corvin looked at him from the desk with a nervous excitement.
“Another acceptance to your party, no doubt,” Huxley grumbled.
“Actually, this is from Her Highness, and she’s already made her acceptance.” Baron enjoyed the moment of stiff panic on Huxley’s face. But as soon as he exited the room, his heart clenched in his chest just as his hand clenched around the letter.
Closing himself in his bedroom, he sat in a chair and unrolled the parchment with more fear than hope.
My Dear Baron,it started, and his spirit managed to both leap and shrink in the same instant.
A hundred thoughts I wish I could pen. I would tell you all you’vedone for me, all you mean to me. But I could write a dozen letters and never say the half of it, so know at least these three things:
I will never do anything to put your brothers in danger.
I will repeal the laws against magic or perish in the attempt.
I love you.
Baron’s breath caught. For several moments, his eyes couldn’t make it past that one line, written with all of Aria’s charming loops, written without pause or the faintest smudge of ink, written with confidence. The words echoed in his soul. The longer he stared, the more they carved themselves into memory, they more they replaced the fear.
Of all the things he’d expected, it hadn’t been that.
Finally, he forced himself to read the end:
I wanted you to have no doubt, to have it from my hand. I admit that my first interest in you was of a selfish nature, yet before our first meeting ended, you had impressed me with your own selflessness. You impress me still. With you, I can be myself. No, it is more than that—with you, I see the self I want to be. I have written too many “selfs” now. Forgive me.
A smile grew on his face. He felt the ridiculous urge to curl around the letter, to protect it—and the girl behind it—from the world.
My hope in telling you is not for a matched response or to inspire a sense of obligation. I only feel that you have always been truthful with me, and you deserve truth in return. Here is the whole of it:
If I could have my choice, that future day when I rule would be one with you at my side.
If I could have my choice, you would be at my side forever.
But it’s not my choice; it’s yours, too. If your answer is no, I respect and understand completely. Regardless of answer, please don’t give it until my ... situation is resolved. Much as I wish otherwise, my promises are empty until then.
With all my heart,
Aria
For a long while, Baron stared at the parchment, tracing and retracing the words in his mind. She’d spared him the need for an immediate response, and he urged himself to consider the situation in its entirety.
Regardless of his feelings, he couldn’t break her curse. Even she admitted there was no point to any of it without that.
Baron passed the next few days in a haze, his mind tangled in a curse, his heart tangled in a letter. At times, he made progress with his Casting, the magic coming as easily as it had in the days before his father’s death. At times, it eluded him, leaving him staring at a useless cup of water until he left the kitchen.
And every day, he reread Aria’s letter, trying to understand how to navigate something that was both dream and nightmare combined.
