The women from the last offering sit around the room, they look up at us as we walk in. We were told we would be meeting them so we could learn what to expect, to have a glimpse of our futures. To see how happy and fulfilled they all are.
"Now chosen, please take a seat at one of the tables and get to know our guests." The Mistress instructs.
I look around, deciding to choose one of the tables further away.
"Hello." The woman smiles at me as I take my seat.
"Hello."
"I'm Nadia." She smiles.
"Daella."
I didn't know how to begin, there were so many questions I wanted to ask, things I wanted to know.
"Is it strange? You aging and your husband not?" I blurt out. She looks at me surprised by my question but then just smiles.
"I used to worry about it, wondering what he would think, but I don't see him very often now so it doesn't bother me as much." She answers lifting her tea cup to take a sip.
"You don't see your husband?" I ask.
"Only every now and then," She shrugs. "Time moves differently for fae and he is very busy with all his duties. Still I have the servants and the children still live at the estate." She smiles.
I try to process that information, that she rarely sees her husband because he was busy. Surely someone couldn't be so busy as to not say good morning or share a meal.
"How many children do you have?" I ask wanting to know if what Alvaryn had told me was true.
"Just the two, one boy and one girl, my daughter, Faewynn is so very beautiful, and she loves playing piano, she plays it so well. And Emrys, my son, he is always busy with lessons and training but he's a good boy." She answers smiling, this smile was different, more genuine. "They were here for the presentation with their father, I stayed home that night, I prefer to stay at the estate, court life gets a little much." She shakes her head looking down at her tea cup.
"Yes, the court events can be a little overwhelming." I agree and she looks up at me with another one of her small smiles.
"So your husband treats you well then? Loves you?" I ask not sure why I wanted to know, maybe just to see if it was possible.
She smiles at her cup, her aging face seems so stark compared to all the youthful faces I had been staring at since I came here. Wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She is still beautiful, just aging, like humans are meant to, but why did it feel so different, almost like there was something wrong with it.
"He has always treated me kindly, he used to bring me little gifts and jewellery, so sweet."
"So you're happy then, living here in the fae kingdom, you don't miss your home?" I ask, wanting to know.
"Yes, yes, quite happy. This is my home now." She smiles, not looking me in the eyes as she sips her cup.
I look around the room at the other women talking to the newest chosen. All would be around the same age, around 45, it's almost my mother's age and I had never considered her to be old, but here, here it felt like these women were ancient, so different from the fae that surrounded them.
"I'm sure whichever High Lord chooses you will be a good husband, you have youth and beauty on your side, there really isn't much else you need to be well treated and taken care of." She says like she expects it will give me some comfort. It doesn't.
I already knew that fae valued youth and beauty in women the most important, other skills or talents were welcome but not really essential.
I think the idea of letting us meet with these women was meant to assure all of us of our places here and what our futures could look like. It didn't assure me of anything, it only raised more fears, more questions, more anger.
Was this what I could expect my future to be? Wanting to spend all my time hiding away in my estate with my servants, never seeing my husband. Would twenty years go by with the blink of any eye before I am being hidden away from everyone because I was aging? What did her children think of it? They were half fae and would inherit the long lives, did they look at their aging mother and treat her differently? Did they wish she was fae as well?
I smile and hold my tongue, keeping all the swirling thoughts to myself.
Alone in my room later that night I sit in my bed with my book in hand twisting the leaf between my fingers, I had spoken to two more of the previous chosen women, both claiming to be happy and well treated, speaking of their children and their husbands and their estates. They had sounded somewhat removed from life, like they were merely watching it while everything happened around them.
I had wanted to believe them, believe that they were happy, that being chosen and selected had meant they still had good lives, but no matter how hard I tried, their eyes told a different story. They had all seemed lonely. Their children in lessons, their husbands busy with their duties, preferring to stay at the estate rather than join in any court events. Every answer to my questions was almost the same from each of them, like they had rehearsed. It left an ugly feeling in my stomach, one I had tried to push down and ignore because I knew it would make no difference in the end. I know I should just accept what is and let go of this notion that learning more would somehow change my own circumstance. I know it wouldn't.
I let out a heavy sigh, leaning back into my mountain of pillows staring at the dark green leaf in my fingers. Alvaryn had sounded like he truly cared about my situation, that he gave honest thought to the chosen and the offering and everything it stood for, but we were on opposite sides. Voicing my opinions had helped, helped released some of this pent up anger and frustration, having someone acknowledge my thoughts and feelings and actually care about them had helped even more. But having someone who could help me escape, help me forget about the world around me and imagine a different world where we were both free to do as we please helped the most, he understood that need for escape, the need for vivid imaginations and impossible dreams. We had managed to create our own little world where reality didn't exist and we lived in fiction with adventures to experience and having those moments made the reality easier to accept.
But coming back to reality was always difficult. Even now, my heart longed to escape, to sink into the pages of the story we had started, to imagine all the wonders I would read, but my mind was hesitant, clinging onto reality more tightly as if it was trying to prepare me for the inevitable, trying to convince me that no matter how many books I read or how many worlds I discover in their pages, the world I lived in would always be there when I came back to reality and soon, this world, this life would be changed forever.