Sleep was elusive.
Alori had retired early, shortly after her father dropped her in front of her apartments, but she couldn't relax. Mental exhaustion wore her thin but refused to release its hold. She tossed back and forth on her disheveled sheets for countless hours, thoughts of Taelan harassing her at every tangled turn.
Was he asleep? Had he spoken to Reeve or Yuka after their conversation in the pleasance?
Was he serious about letting her go?
She sat up, leaning into the mountain of pillows at the head of her bed. It was the dead of night. The fire in the hearth smoldered, but her room was still warm from enchantments maintained by the palace's mageservants. It was nothing Alori couldn't do herself, but it was convenient to not have to.
She turned down her blanket, reaching across her bed to the lamp on the nightstand. Using a tongue of mageflame, she lit the oil burner, rolling down the wick until the flame dwindled to a safe height. With tears in her eyes she reached into the top drawer of the nightstand and extracted the silver collar. It was cool in her trembling hands. She traced the curved shape of it with a fingertip, like she used to do while sitting on her mother's lap, pressing her finger against the semi-sharp point where the necklace had once lain flush against the queen's sternum.
When Alori had first discovered the collar was her inheritance, Liahfey had been green with envy. Their mother had promised to pass down heirlooms of equal beauty to her younger daughters, but the ever-stylish second princess had been adamant that nothing could match the significance of the matrimonial collar. And holding it in her hands now, Alori had to agree.
What was she supposed to do? Taelan had returned the necklace, assuming she no longer wanted him to give it to her, but her feelings were more complicated than answers in black and white. Her stomach twisted into knots just thinking about Taelan's disturbing confession, gross images running rampant in her mind with no purpose but to torment her. And yet, the longer the night wore on, minutes lengthening into restless hours, her raw rage and disbelief stagnated into a kind of despairing sympathy.
What Roja did to Taelan, taking advantage of his determination and naivete, was indefensible. Alori had half a mind to march downstairs and find his room, grab him by his sleeve and parade him to the witch's door, simply so she could sneer in the hag's face and gloat that Roja hadn't won. But that awful desire may have been the scariest development of all. A vengeful side within Alori had awakened, a sharp and angry streak of pure hatred. Such powerful negative emotion was dangerous in the Shieldmaker's hands.
Taelan wasn't a prize to be shown off, he was a man with his own thoughts and needs. If she treated him like an object, how was she any better than Roja?
But how could she forgive him...? All this time, for years, his memories of her had been filled with falsehoods. His hands had touched another woman wearing her skin, whether he'd hated himself for it or not.
Could their love overcome such a steep obstacle? Was there enough empathy in Alori's heart to rise above the aching pain?
One could argue it was destiny that had brought them together eleven years ago, a spark of hope burning on the darkest night of their lives. Alori regretted that she'd never remember meeting Taelan that first time; and it agonized her, knowing how fate had corrupted his route back to her all these years later. But she was still luckier than most. She hadn't expected to find love at the Conservatory, she'd even convinced herself she didn't need a love match. But her father was right, there was a reason she'd fallen for her raven-haired bard. Regardless of his past, Taelan was a good man, and she didn't doubt he would make a fine bard prince.
Falling in love had been easy, but would staying in love prove more difficult? Was she strong enough to be with a man who'd been used and broken, or would her anger and jealousy fester into resentment, eventually tearing them apart?
Alori sat forward with an agitated huff, then threw herself backward into her pillows. Several of the shams went flying across the room, not that she cared, she didn't use half of them anyway. It felt good to release steam, but it wasn't enough, and she didn't want to destroy her bedchamber. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and rose to her feet. If she couldn't sleep, she could pace the halls.
Who would stop the Crown Princess of the Ville-Realms if it was her prerogative to lope through the palace in an unmannerly malaise?
Slipping on her white robe, she left her apartments and headed down the corridor with no particular destination in mind. But as she neared the central staircase, she found her feet angling toward them. The grand entrance below the mezzanine was dimly lit by enchanted wall-sconces and the chandelier hanging over the foyer. Warm golden light reflected off the amethyst crystals dangling from the chandelier's center frame, casting purple and gold starbursts onto the floor below.
Alori descended the stairs, her slippered steps light and quick.
The palace was transformed in the quieter hours, its austere daytime brilliance turned sacred and ethereal by night's softer ambience. So many had lived and died here over the centuries, their joys and sorrows played out within these thick stone walls. Alori's relatives, each and every one. Sometimes she wondered if the goddesses had ever visited her ancestors in secret. She could almost imagine them down below in the foyer, their long hair and flowing dresses billowing out behind them. Somehow, the miraculous always seemed more possible at night.
Alori paused at the landing, her bare hand on the end of the banister where it fanned out, the wood curling around itself. The main corridor stretched away into the darkness on either end of the wide foyer, its long halls like elaborate, secret tunnels. A left turn would take her eastward to the Sapphire wing. If she was hungry, she could sneak into the kitchen behind the dining hall and beg for a midnight snack. If she turned right, she would end up in the Amethyst wing, where the guest apartments and infirmary existed somewhere at the end of the interminable path of doorways.
She turned right. Flickering shadows cast by the sconces mounted on either side of the corridor closed in around her, but she preferred it that way. She walked slowly, her thoughts becoming detached, unmoored, as if cohesion itself had drifted out of her reach.
Her father said clarity would come in the morning, but Alori doubted it. How could it, if she didn't sleep? Couldn't sleep. Couldn't do anything except worry and wallow in doubt.
Why did everything with Taelan have to be so complicated? She loved him. Why couldn't that be enough?
Maybe it was.
Poor man, Tomoko had said.
Tomoko was right. Alori felt immense compassion for Taelan, and yet, he wasn't blameless. She couldn't forgive him so easily. Her anger hadn't died, it was only temporarily exhausted.
She flexed her fingers through her indecision and continued on.
A note teased her ear as she walked, there and then gone, like a drop of water hitting the bottom of an empty can. Soon more drops followed– several notes in succession. An arpeggio, played on a piano.
Alori's hand jerked up to her stomach. She stopped to listen.
At this time of night? It couldn't be, but yes....
Someone was playing scales.
Her slipper slid across the floor, taking her a tentative step closer. The music grew louder, bass scales like thunder rolling in the distance. Alori lifted her robe and nightgown above her ankles, tiptoeing along the corridor. The music was coming from behind the door of the Pink Topaz drawing room. By the time she got close, perched like a spy in front of the sliver of moonlight shining through the gap in the doors, the music had changed, transitioning from scales to the first movement of a melancholy sonata she recognized immediately.
It was one of Taelan's pieces, the song he'd played with Reeve and Yuka during their second stage. Reeve had been at the keyboard that afternoon, but Alori knew it wasn't Reeve on the other side of the doors tonight. Taelan was at the piano, recreating the song he'd written like it was a raw thing threatening to slip through his hands. Not perfectly, as Yuka might have played it, but with the kind of passion that told a story.
His pain coursed through his fingers onto the keys, immortalized while he played.
If Alori's soul hadn't been attached to her body it would have flown straight through the doors into his weeping hands.
The truth had never been so clear, laid bare in front of her, as natural and visceral as Taelan's song. There was no choice. Taelan was the one, her one. Bruised and broken as he came, it was the jagged edges surrounding his heart that held the power to fill the cracks within her own.
I know you, Alori. I do love you.
But what if he was wrong?
What if she gave herself to him and he decided in a week, a month, a year, that they were living in a house of cards?
Alori had lost her mother, the one person she'd loved and admired most in the world, when she was just thirteen. She couldn't lose Taelan, too. If she entrusted her heart to him and he crushed it, she would be no good to anyone, not herself or the Ville-Realms. Already he consumed her thoughts, taking up space she'd left in reserve for fear that loving anyone too deeply would weaken her.
Can I trust him?
In the twilight abyss between life and death, Taelan had been the hope that brought her back. But could she count on him, forever?
Alori growled under her breath, frustrated at her lingering indecision.
Was she overthinking this? She wanted to go to him. Did that mean she should?
A cacophony of noises jolted her from her endless deliberation. Taelan was banging the keyboard with his fists. A litany of profane outbursts followed, but the doors were too thick to understand most of the words. She did manage to catch a few. Filthy bastard stood out for its vehemence.
Was he talking about Yuka, or was that how he thought of himself?
Alori turned the doorknob as the swears petered out, Taelan's hands rediscovering music in the keys. The instrument faced the door, putting his back to her as she entered the drawing room. The first thing she noticed was his slumped posture. His back would hurt tomorrow if he stayed in that position for too long.
He was wearing his coat and cap. Was he leaving?
Alori's heart stuttered. He couldn't!
She moved farther into the room, her steps soft and slow on the bare floor, then slightly less guarded once she reached the rug. The new tune wasn't one she'd heard before, but there was something of Taelan's signature to its understated complexity. It sounded like he was making it up as he went.
Alori's magic simmered to life, drawn out by the music. Taelan's style complemented hers so well. It was as if their souls spoke to one another, like she knew exactly what he was feeling when he played. She loosened the barest thread of cool elemental magic, as ephemeral as mist over a frozen lake, extending it toward him.
He stiffened, his back straightening as it reached him.
Did he know she was there? She wasn't accustomed to working with him yet, and threading magic was different for everyone. It was a personal, intimate experience for both mage and bard, which was why she couldn't wait to retire her father from the position.
"Alori?" he whispered, his fingers slipping.
"It's me," she said, stepping up behind the bench. Heat radiated off him. She reached up and pulled the cap off his head. "What's the point of this?"
"I guess I never took it off." His hands dropped into his lap. Did that mean he'd been wearing it since the pleasance? But that was at least eight hours ago. "I figured I'd leave in the morning, so..."
"Why?" Alori stepped around the side of the bench and hung his cap from the empty music rack.
"Did you get my parcel? I explained everything in the note."
"So you're just going to leave? I thought you'd do anything to have me."
He looked up at her, his tired gray eyes turning round. "I thought you wanted me to leave. I'm a nobody who wasted his life riding on the hopes of an over-imaginative little boy." He ran a hand through his sweat-damp hair, glancing past her into the dark bowels of the room. "You shine so brightly, it's hard to look away. But I'm not such a coward that I won't face the truth. I was too obsessed and it cost us a future together."
"Did you rehearse that speech?" Alori wasn't sure how to unpack everything he'd said. It was easier just to reach up and touch his cheek. His stubble was darker than it had been earlier, and prickly under her fingers. "You're not a nobody, and you never have been. I don't want to hear you say that ever again."
"Compared to you, I am."
"No, you're not." She slid her fingers under his chin, forcing him to look at her. "You're one of the most dedicated individuals I've ever met. If you want something, you give it all you've got. If that's obsessive, then I admire it."
"Yeah, and look where it got me." He turned away from her hand, the muscles in his jaw working. "I've lost everything."
"That's not true. I'm right here."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I still choose you, even if I haven't fully forgiven you. Even if I can't." She longed to reach out for him but feared he would shy away again. Maybe if she explained herself properly. "I'm still angry, but I'm mostly angry at the woman who hurt you. She stole something from you that should have been beautiful, and made it into something shameful. I hate her for that." She set her teeth, fighting the rising darkness in her heart. Now wasn't the time. "If you want to kill Yuka, imagine how I feel about Roja."
"I don't want to kill Yuka," Taelan muttered, shifting his weight between his hips. "We've sorted things out for now."
"That's good." The air cooled in her lungs a little more with each new breath, but she wasn't quite there yet.
You can do this. You're the Crown Princess of the Ville-Realms, not a frightened little girl. One day you will be queen. You can do this. You have to.
"Taelan, I need to ask you something." She anchored her hand on the side of the piano. "I need to know– do you love the woman you met five days ago in the Conservatory, as much as you loved the seven year old who sang to guide you out of a fire?" Heat seeped through her pores. Her voice shook, betraying her confidence. "Do you love her as much as the girl in the portrait you spoke to each night before bed?"
He laid his hand over hers, his eyes intent on her face. "I love her more."
A simple yes would have been enough, but this?
Taelan pushed the bench out from behind his knees and stood in front of her. He was so calm and serious. If she didn't know better, she might think he was furious.
"My memory and fantasies did you no justice, they might as well have been sketches made with coal."
"Do you really mean it?" Alori bit her bottom lip to stop it from quivering. "I'm still mad at you, and I'll probably annoy you from time to time. I'm telling you now, so you know what to expect. Because if you change your mind, I can't– I couldn't handle that, Taelan." A cool tear followed the contour of her cheek, wobbling on her chin. "I can't afford to lose anyone else. The Ville-Realms can't afford it either."
He knelt down on his knee, reaching for her hands. "I'll never leave, unless you ask me to. If you let me, I'll stay by your side and spend my days trying to become the sort of man who deserves you." He stared up at her, squeezing her fingers. "You're the only thing I've ever wanted, so if you're giving me a chance, I'm going to give it everything I've got. I swear it."
Fat tears rolled down her cheeks as he kissed her knuckles, one by one, then rose and brushed them away with his thumbs.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Roja sooner. I was ashamed. What she did to me was degrading. I've never told anyone."
"You never got around to telling Reeve and Yuka?"
He shook his head. "Reeve would be sympathetic, but I've always assumed Yuka would laugh at me. Maybe I'm wrong. His near death experience seems to have altered him. When we spoke earlier, he was oddly reasonable."
"For Reeve's sake, I hope he'll change." She lifted her hand to Taelan's chest, laying her palm flat against his shirt in the gap between the untoggled sides of his coat.
The more he talked about his past– and Roja– the more Alori came to realize her own anger over the situation must be nothing compared to his. Taelan was the real victim, not her wounded pride.
"Thank you for telling me what you hadn't even told your best friends." She let her hand drift over the lean muscles under his tunic.
His cheek dimpled with the hint of a smile. "I suppose deep dark secrets could be another thing husbands and wives share in private." He leaned forward, his eyes drifting shut.
"Not here." Alori hadn't meant to sound so stern. She wanted to kiss him, but she'd never cared for the Pink Topaz drawing room, and this was a special moment she didn't want to waste.
He drew back, looking dazed. "No?"
"Follow me," she said, pulling him toward the door.