“When we argue, I never want to leave. I always want to stay and resolve the problem. She is my other half, my reason for being, my very best friend. When we are on the outs, I feel an emptiness in the pit of my stomach that I cannot erase. No amount of alcohol, or shouting, or pining will fix the situation, I need to be beside her. I don’t exactly know how to explain it. I love her. I...I simply do.”
Hevva pulled her lips into a sad, quivering smile before gazing again upon the dreary afternoon thunderstorm. She had a dull ache in the pit of her stomach that wouldn’t go away. It had been over amonth.
It started after the symposium, had faded for a while, for those few blissful hours at Kirce...before he’d proposed and said he wasn’t looking for love. Then, it came back in full force. The first debacle with Lady Tahereh only made it worse. The news of Kashoorcih’s meddling...that was a crushing blow. Learning of the betrothal from Ehmet turned the initial muted throb into a raging, raw, painful wound. And when confirmation had come to the inn, she’d crumpled and upturned the contents of her stomach.
Hevva said no to his proposal, and she meant it. She had no intention of marrying without love, it was critical to her. The problem was, she’d never been in love...right?
She’d never been in love, so she wasn’t sure what to look out for. Hevva didn’t know the signs. And it wasn’t exactly something she could ask her brother Kas to read about in a book and report back on.That’swhy she’d asked Aylin for her story.
That aching gnaw in Hevva’s gut robbed her of breath when confirmation struck. She feltjustas Aylin had described.
Ehmet was kind and caring. She found him charming and interesting. She respected his quiet empathy, and his booming laugh. His fresh perspective on ruling Selwas, the clear love he held for his people. Hevva could, andhad,happily listened to him speak for hours. She loved hissilly side, the way he’d carried her about in Rohilavol and, well,everythingthey got up to as Saka and Berim. He’d made her choose, but deep down she knew he was Ehmet the whole time. He fulfilled her in a way she had not expected to find. Now that they were “on the outs,” now that they wereimpossible, she had a pit in her stomach that refused to go away.
“Oh, no.”Shit.It was exactly as she feared.
“What is it, my lady?”
“I think I love him.”
twenty-three
Hevva nods a lot.
Hevva moved through herdays like a ghost. Outwardly, she focused all her attention on her responsibilities as Lady Hevva of Stormhill and her duties as Countess of Kabuvirib which she tended to from afar. It was during those brief working hours each day that her eyes held any semblance of a spark. Otherwise, she glided from place to place, like one of those training dummies in Serkath...numb, unthinking, impenetrable.
Day after day, she existed in this state until, one night, her mother took her aside after supper.
“Hevva, come, sit with me in the breakfast room.” The duchess caught up with her as she was skulking from the dining chamber.
Hevva turned slowly, drawing back her shoulders and forcing up her chin so she could float appropriately beside her mother, toward the circular chamber with windowed walls. There, a decanter of wine and two glasses awaited them.
She planned this.
A weary sigh escaped Hevva’s lungs as she dropped into one of the chairs at the dining table.
Her mother snapped twice, and a staff member dashed in on silent feet to fill their glasses before slipping out of the room. The door clicked closed behind the young woman.
“I don’t knowpreciselywhat has gotten under your skin of late,” the duchess began before pausing to sip her wine. “But I have a feeling it may be your first real heartbreak.”
Hevva sputtered—into her glass, luckily, or her mother’s scolding would already have commenced. This was not her first heartbreak, absolutely not. That had been with Sir Gamil Meshah, a cousin of the Baron of Napivol.
Gamil spent several months with the regiment out of Stormhill. He’d asked to be stationed there because he had family on his mother’s side in the town. Their courtship was fun, lighthearted, full of mushy platitudes. And then, one fall afternoon, she’d walked into town to call on Sir Gamil, and found him passionately snogging his fucking cousin. That was the moment she’d sworn off anyone from the aristocracy.A whole bunch of amoral arseholes.
Hevva had cried her eyes dry that night, nearly five years before, and she hadn’t felt like herself for several weeks.
Eventually, she’d returned to her old self and gone searching for a “nice common boy.” She found nice but not common, once or twice. She found plenty of common, but not nice. She found some thatpartiallyfit the bill. And then she met Berim.
“Perhaps,” she offered, though her mother was decidedly wrong. This was definitely not Hevva’s first heartbreak. She hadn’t loved Gamil, but hehadbroken her heart, and so had King Ehmet, as much as she loathed to admit it.
Lady Tilevir tutted, her eyes narrowing as she studied Hevva. “When I was a young woman of twenty, back in Kashuvol, I found myself involved with the most charming young man.” She paused her tale to refill their glasses, for once not bothering to call in a member of the staff. “We were young, and dumb. Magtin’s family had a shipping empire, and our fathers worked closely together. I thought we were a match predestined by the fates, sneaking away every night to share kisses by the river—”
“Ew, Mum.”
Her mother shrugged. “Months and months went by, just the two of us secretly courting, until his father told him he needed to marry.” Theduchess sighed heavily, the memory, however distant, still able to dredge up feelings of sorrow, all those decades later.
Hevva’s mother took a sip before she continued, her voice soft and distant, “For many weeks we hoped to be wed, orIdid at least. We determined the perfect plan for him to speak with my father. We even went so far as to discuss the night of our handfasting, and how we might...manage, while connected ’til dawn.”
Hevva made a gagging face.
