“I truly can’t read him anymore.” Gavril turned to face her. “But if it helps, heseemedfine—embarrassed a little, but not out for revenge when I did see him. Not at all like he was last time. Why he’s doing this, I don’t know. Especially if he’s moving on to find another woman to marry.”
Aimilia scoffed. “I know exactly why. It’s because he is a petty little man. You must not remember how much time he spent last year harassing me and hounding me even after he suspended me from my duties for ratting him out to you.”
Marcella stepped forward, pulling her hand away from Gavril and reaching for Aimilia’s shoulder. “More importantly, how are you?”
Aimilia gave her a weak smile. “My mother and uncle are certainly furious with me.”
“I did try to see you first before Nikias, but I could hear your mother’s voice down the hallway,” Gavril said.
Aimilia waved her hand. “You would have been waiting hours. I’m not even sure how long she spent berating me. They tried to make me go apologize and beg Nikias for another chance and that if he still wanted me, I’d marry him.” She laughed. “Like that would ever happen. I’d sooner die. Of course, not that Nikias really wantedmein the first place. He just wants a wife to give him heirs and be decent enough to act as a passable queen.”
Marcella’s hand fell away from Aimilia’s shoulder as she gave Gavril a pointed look that he ignored.
“Did he tell you that?” Gavril straightened up. “After the two of you disappeared last night?”
“Essentially, yes. And I most certainly donotwant to rehash that argument. Suffice to say, Nikias cannot argue his way intoan acceptance by talking about the practical merits of a match. He should have known better than to believe for a second he could bend me to his will.”
“How are you?” Marcella asked again, gaze intensifying on Aimilia.
“Tired of talking about Nikias with everyone. But honestly, I’m fine. Completely caught off guard, but the only embarrassment I have is that I was apparently the only one who didn’t know he was going to propose to me. As for the rest, it’s his own fault he was made a laughingstock by doing it in public. At least if he’d done it privately, he would have been spared the gossip.”
Aimilia then sank into the chair on the other side of the desk from Gavril, waving her hands. “Now no more talk of Nikias, please. All of this will go away soon enough when he makes his next selection and he gets tired of bothering me, or too busy planning a wedding to be petty, and finally sends me to a post, or I compete to be the next head of House Mitis, whichever happens first.”
“Then I’ll end with this: Good for you,” Gavril said, with a decisive, approving nod, completely ignoring Marcella’s pointed look at him. “You deserve far better than Nikias as a husband.”
A tiny, bitter seed tried to sprout up again. To Gavril, she deserved better than Nikias, but she didn’t deserve him.
But that wasn’t fair to Gavril either.
While she didn’t begrudge Gavril and Marcella their happiness and knew she was better off now that she was finally free from loving a man who would never see her as a wife, there were still little things that reawakened those deep wounds.
“Thank you.” Aimilia forced a smile. “Now, please distract me until I have to return and deal with him all over again.” Aimilia glanced at the window. “What were you doing before I stormed in?”
Gavril looked at Marcella, who looked at the window, then back at Gavril and nodded.
Aimilia rolled her eyes to cover the slight sting in her chest.
It had used to be her and Gavril against the world. They had been the ones silently communicating in little gestures and looks.
Now it was him and Marcella. And Aimilia was still his friend and now Marcella’s, but it simply wasn’t the same way as it had been before. She wasn’t the most important person in his life. The one who understood him better than anyone else, who knew him more intimately than anyone else.
She’d loved him with all of her being.
He had loved her as his only ally and confidant.
She’d miss them, certainly, but it was time she started living her life and stopped lingering in theirs. Maybe then she’d finally shake the remains of the hurt that was still clinging deep in her heart.
Marcella rose and went back to the window, pulling back the curtain and opening it and with a caw, a silver-backed raven flew inside and landed on the desk.
A chill went down Aimilia’s spine as the bird spread its feathers. A silver-backed raven meant?—
“Hypatia has sent word,” Marcella whispered as the bird spread its wings and runes lit up so they could read the message written in vitae.
Gavril pulled out the paper he originally had shoved back into the desk as Aimilia leaned in and read it. She skimmed over Gavril’s translated version.
Hypatia wanted to know if any Elemens mages had gotten across the clan lands and to Imperia, causing trouble, like the Stonai. Or if they were dealing with any issues from the Embrai on their western border. That was… concerning.
It was rather short and to the point. Hypatia didn’t include any pleasantries, any questions about Marcella and her husband or about anything else.
