“Simply dreadful, darling. You may as well play a funeral march.”
“It would be appropriate,” Aria muttered.
Her mother’s fingers took over the keys, light and nimble, chirping a melody like birds in spring.
“Mother ... even if this succeeds, I can’t marry Henry.”
The queen kept her eyes on the instrument. The notes increased in volume.
“You heard Eliza’s interest in him—it was the very reason for the joust! How can Father ... How could he?”
At that, the queen faltered. She heaved a sigh, and the melody quieted into something gentler, like a half-remembered lullaby. Aria blinked hard, forcing herself to sit stiff and upright, defying a widow who couldn’t be seen.
“You are a royal, Aria,” the queen said.
“A royalin love with someone else.” Aria’s voice caught, snagging on the hook of tawny waves. She flushed at her own brazenness. Were a handful of interactions and a series of letters really enough to determine love? Such a thing seemed too bold.
Then again, if she had less than a month to live, shouldn’t she live boldly?
“I was too.”
For a moment, Aria thought she’d misheard.
“I was your age.” The queen smiled at something distant. “Wild. Carefree. He was the son of a duke, with a voice to movemountains. It doesn’t matter now. Someday, yours will be a forgotten memory just the same.”
It didn’t sound forgotten. It sounded discordant and sharp against the melody.
“You’ve never told me that.”
“You and I hardly talk, darling. Certainly not about matters of the heart. You’ve always tried so hard to be your father’s child that you don’t allow yourself to speak.”
Aria sputtered. She struggled to rise, finally untangling herself from the bench. “I don’t know what—”
“You know exactly what I mean.” Her mother halted the music, gaze intense. “You’re no longer a child, and if you’re going to be any sort of ruler at all, you’ll have to accept that your father will disapprove of the things you do. That does not make them wrong.”
“Just because he disapproves of you,” Aria said heatedly.
Cruel speech. Mark.
She looked at her shoes. After a few moments, the queen resumed her lullaby.
Is it because you loved someone else?Aria wanted to ask.Is that why he loved someone else?
But her voice lodged in her throat.
Finally, she swallowed. “What do I do, Mother?”
“Whatever is right.”
But Aria didn’t know what was right.
She knew only one thing—the happiest she’d ever been was on a winding path of letters, bleeding honesty through parchment.
25 days left
After three days, Aria, Eliza, and Henry had attempted everything they could think of.
Nothing worked.
