BALE
Days are long and dull without Idallia. Nights are torture. It takes months for her unique scent to fade from my bedroom, and even then, I still think she’s around every corner. It was especially hard that first spring after a cold winter. Sunshine hit the cracking ice on the lake and threw off a brilliant glare along with the essence of Idallia about to burst into action.
She sent my first letter back impaled by Embersol’s broken feathers. My chest caved in, my limbs turned heavy, and for weeks, I could barely drag myself through the daily routine of ruling.
Then ruling got easier. It didn’t happen overnight, but Idallia is so effective that blood trafficking went from my biggest problem to nonexistent. The separatist faction of werebeasts is still an issue, but I have more than enough soldiers to deter them, and if prevention doesn’t work, to fight them.
Fae have started trundling across my land to get to Bloodwold so frequently that they’ve created a flatter, wider road across northern Torridaig just from wagon wheels, footprints, and hooves. The southern roads were already in better shape, but are requiring more upkeep now that they’re being so widely used. I don’t care if fae pass through my land as long as they’re not trying to glamour anyone. Towns along their frequented routes are profiting. Inns filled, food and products purchased. I’ve stopped referring to them as parasites and am trying to guide my people to do the same.
It was a gut-wrenching decision, but I dissolved the Elite Wing. I made the team—and in some ways the warbirds—for Idallia, and she’s not here anymore. But except for Kellan, no one left. Hearing them laugh in the dining hall or fly out to Drayke at night as a group sometimes makes it feel like nothing has changed.
I don’t join them anymore. Being with them, or even with Stuart, is a too-painful reminder of what I lost, and how I destroyed it.
I sit in my study, staring blindly and wordlessly into my fire for days after the woman I love gives a kingdom to Rexton Hale. For all those years, I refused to hear him out because I wouldn’t give him Idallia’s birthright, no matter how much he’d earned it. But she took Bloodwold and gave him Fanghaven when I didn’t give her anything, not even the truth she asked for so many times.
What if I’d told her years ago when I’d meant to? When she could keep herself safe, and the necessary secrecy could’ve given way to the partnership I’d always intended. Would everything have been different?
I hear she and Hale are close. If they’re sleeping together, I might throw myself from my mountain and not open my wings.
Not too long ago, Sybil and Stuart packed up and left. They went to her. Good. Seeing them makes me sad, but it will make Idallia happy.
That night in the war room, Idallia told everyone, including me, that I’m not welcome to visit. I won’t darken her doorstep without an invitation, but I can’t help eventually writing to her again.
I’m sorry. I love you. There’s so much to say. Please hear me out.
She doesn’t answer, and life seems endless and gray. I’m not anywhere near done with mine, so how long until this pain ends?
Probably never.
I write to her again, sending the note with Cinderblaze and Glimmerwing because Maia and Arran are off somewhere, doing something. Strange that they went without their phoenixes.
I miss you so much that I face each day with dread. Please talk to me.
Her reply comes back with the birds eight days later.
I’d rather jump into the mouth of an erupting volcano than be anywhere near you.
I hold the note to my chest. At least she answered this time.
I did this to myself. I know that. Nothing is Idallia’s fault, and I’m just thankful that my lies and selfishness didn’t get her killed, or her birds killed, or her stuck with Rannigan Bloodthief. Reliving the memory of her killing him with his own arm actually makes me smile sometimes, which I never do otherwise. I knew she’d be something incredible with her true power coursing through her veins. She was already so much stronger than Rannigan in so many ways.
I wish she could understand why I held back from handing her over to everyone else so I could keep her with me. I desperately fought one change because I desperately wanted another, even before I knew it enough to put it into words.
I wish I could tell her how sorry I am that I kept her from her rightful place for so long. I try writing again. I don’t know what else to do.
I didn’t do it to hold you back. I did it because I couldn’t let you go.
She doesn’t answer this time.
I send my next letter with a dragon scale pulled straight from my chest. I don’t shift afterward, making sure it scars and grows back crooked and lighter than the rest.
My heart beats for you. I’m sorry.
I don’t hear anything back for so long that I figure she must’ve thrown the scale into one of the tunnels along the border she’s having filled in and buried it along with her love.
But then, one late summer day, almost two years since she left, Rimblaze shows up at my window. At first, I think he’s a mirage. My imagination. My frantic hope.
I walk toward him and touch his warm, radiant feathers. When I’m sure he’s real, I bend my head to his and shudder. I can barely breathe.
