- CYRUS -
Three years ago
It’s been a year since I gave MarcellaThe Mirror in Millton. Every other week I’ve called her to my office to slip her a new letter from her family. The book itself provides a way to transport the letters without suspicion from anyone else. I haven’t been able to offer her a chance to write back, only informing her family that due to privacy and safety reasons, she couldn’t.
When, in fact, it was only a doubt I had. That I could be providing an opportunity for her to spill secrets that could jeopardize the castle and the kingdom. But with each passing week, each gentle smile she only has for me when I hand her the letters, I can’t help but soften my doubt
I can trust her.
“I don’t have a letter for you this time,” I tell her when she walks into my office and closes the door.
Surprise and disappointment wash over her features before it’s gone. Another thing she’s only shown to me. Rather than the constant mask of cold contempt, I can sometimes gauge what she’s truly feeling. It’s been an act of trust in itself. One that urges me to do the same for her.
I motion to my desk, a pen and paper already waiting for her. I spent a ridiculous amount of time angling the paper, positioning the pen for her. Painfully overthinking and hoping I got it right for her.
She drags her attention back to me. “What is this?”
I smile. “I want you to write a letter back to them.”
Her mouth drops open, eyes flicking to the paper. Covering her mouth with her hand, she walks over to it. Eyes wide and misty. She stops at the chair, swinging her attention back to me. “But I thought?—”
“Write it, Marcella.” I dip my head to the table.
Her smile shakes, and she takes a seat. I turn my back, mindlesslyskimming the bookshelf to give her some privacy. Once I’ve chosen a book and taken a seat, perched my boots up on the ottoman, and read through a few pages, the scribbling of her pen stops. Then it drops to the table. I look up at her as she folds it, her hands shaking as she does. When she lifts it up in the air for me, I rise, placing the book on the ottoman.
I take the letter from her. “I’ll have it sent tomorrow.”
She rises out of the chair, bottom lip quivering before she bites it. When she walks around the desk toward me, I set the letter underneath a stack of my papers to hide it for the time being.
“Why?” she asks simply.
I meet her gaze. Honestly, I say, “I don’t know.”
Right before she hugs me, I notice her eyes are glossy with tears refusing to spill. I wrap my arms around her, setting my chin to the top of her head before I lean my face down and pull in her scent.
As if that will be enough. As if it will ever be enough. Because truthfully, it wouldn’t. I would need an entire lifetime—more—to be with her. To touch her, kiss her, love her. Maybe even a lifetime would never be enough to immerse myself in her.
An eternity would do.
How have I become so wholeheartedly hers over this last year, and yet she cannot see it? That I’m so desperate for her to call this place her home?
I had thought that, after Johanna, I’d never feel like this again. Or at least, couldn’t allow myself.
Now look at me.
She lifts her cheek off my chest and turns her head toward me, backing up slightly to look me in the eyes.
Those brown eyes. Soft and gentle, far from what I first observed when she came to the castle and worked her way up the ranks.
She’s fierce—that much is true. Intelligent. Ambitious. She never backs down from a challenge, nor shows any signs of fear.
I’mthe fearful one. And foolish. I couldn’t possibly give all of myself to her. If she so much as suspects that I’m not fully man, that there’s another part of me I can’t control…
She’d be gone.
I shouldn’t be committing myself to these grand gestures. It’ll only confuse the both of us, and yet I can’t help it. It’s not fair of me to want her.
It’sselfish.
