I glanced at my sister, who didn't seem to be heartbroken about Arlen. If anything, she looked lighter. She looked relieved.Her sentence had been postponed. She didn't have to marry anyone yet.
Her gaze slid to me, and her eyes softened. She reached over the gap between our chairs and pressed her hand against mine.
It wasn't much as comfort went, but it was something.
"Well?" Our mother was still glowing, waiting, certain she was about to be thanked. "Say something, Idrilia. A few days ago, we thought that you had no prospects, that I would never find you a good match. And now look. Look what I've done. My weed-collecting, odd daughter might one day become the queen of Catonia, the wife of the Head of the Council."
53
KAILIN
I used to think love meant never letting go. Now I wonder if, sometimes, the opposite might be true.
—From the journal of Kailin Strom
We were halfway through lunch when the knock came.
Shovia looked at me. "That's probably the mail."
I hadn't gotten a letter from Alar since the one about his brother suffering a big setback, and then his private message to me that had left me in tears. I had been waiting for the next blow to fall, dreading the knock on the door that would announce the mail, but there hadn't been any for days.
I'd been studying with Saphir in the mornings, flying with Veynathei after lunch, and lying awake at night because myheart was heavy, and Alar's words kept repeating in my mind. The despair in his letter was affecting me, making it difficult to fight what was becoming glaringly more obvious with each passing day.
Ravel wanted me, and as much as he kept himself in check, and I kept denying it to myself, the loneliness and desperation were eroding my resolve.
It was no excuse. I loved Alar. I hadn't stopped loving him just because fate had torn us apart. I wanted to do the noble thing and stay true to him even if he could never return to me, but the pragmatic voice in my head, which sounded a lot like my grandmother, was telling me that was an unrealistic plan.
"I'll get it." Morek rose to his feet. I watched him walk toward the door as if in slow motion.
The letters I'd been sending Alar after his last one hadn't reached him yet, and between Codric and me, we'd done our best to keep his spirits up, letting him know that we were praying for Arlen. The words I had given Codric to translate into their cipher represented the most sunlit version of myself I could get away with while still sounding like me, and every cheerful line had been a small betrayal, because the truth was that I was coming apart at the seams.
Morek opened the door and then returned with several envelopes.
"Anything for me?" Shovia asked.
"Yes." He threw her an envelope, and she snatched it from the air.
The one under it was made from the luxurious ivory stationery that I was familiar with, and my stomach dropped and rose at once, the way it did each time a letter arrived from Alar. Worse now, because I was teetering between hope and dread.
So close to the ball, this letter would hold the answer to whether he'd pulled off a miracle and was coming home, or he hadn't and was letting us know that he would be named heir.
Shovia put down her envelope. "The letter from my mother can wait," she said, though no one had asked. Morek set aside the letter addressed to him without so much as glancing at the front of it to see who it was from. They were both watching me, or rather the ivory envelope.
Codric pushed back his chair without a word and went to his and Shovia's room to fetch his notepad and a pen.
While he was gone, I picked up the envelope, turned it over in my hands, and opened it. I removed the two folded pages of what looked like gibberish and ran my fingers over the script. I knew it wasn't Alar's writing. He'd dictated these to a clerk in Tarina, who had written them down in his own hand and sent them racing across the border, so they reached me in days instead of weeks. There was nothing of Alar's actual hand anywhere in it.
Codric came back, drew up a chair, and held out his hand. I gave him the letter, and he put the pages on the table.
I watched his expression as he started untangling the words from the cipher, writing them on his notepad. Nothing but a slight widening of his eyes and a relaxation of his shoulders sparked renewed hope in my chest, but then his eyes narrowed, his jaw set, his mouth narrowed, and his pen strokes slowed, as though he were reluctant to write them down. The sparks of hope sputtered and died.
I knew what was coming. The first part, the one that had his eyes widening, was for everyone, but the second part was for me. He was going to take me to my room again and give me the bad news.
"Okay." He let out a long breath through his mouth. "Here it goes."
He lifted his notepad. "'We prayed for a miracle,'" he started reading, "'and Elurion answered. Arlen recovered beyond anything I dared hope. He passed a test I would never have thought him capable of passing just a week ago. He is now restored as the crown prince. My work is done.'"
"He did it." Shovia clapped her hands. "Seven hells, he actually did it."
