No Reply From The Crown

After Leon tore apart my ninety-ninth plea, no more letters followed.

The winter feast drew near. Each year, I would shape his gift with my own hands.

This year, his gift for me was ready.

Mine never came.

He grew restless.

He believed I had shoved Mira into the freezing river because of a gown. In his anger, he sent me back to Valecrest.

He felt no guilt. If anything, he counted himself merciful—sending his finest guard to escort me home.

Now the servants claimed Mira had dismissed that very guard in his name.

He must have thought, 'Absurd. Mira may be bold beneath my favor, but she is gentle. How could she stoop to this?'

In his eyes, I was petty. Jealous. The sort of woman who would forge ninety-nine letters just to win his notice.

Leon flung the gift he had prepared for me onto the table, his face dark. "Aya, Aya... when will you ever grow up?"

My soul hovered above him. My body was long gone, yet the ache remained.

Mira resented me. She liked taking what was mine. Leon would only say she was young—that I should yield.

So I yielded.

Again and again.

I never thought she would reach for my wedding gown.

When I refused her, she snatched it—then flung herself into the icy river.

Leon dragged her from the water. When he looked at me, the disappointment was clear.

"Mira was wrong to covet your gown. But how can you be so narrow-hearted? For such a trifling matter, you pushed her into a river? Had you simply given it to her, none of this would have happened. With so little grace, how can you ever be Queen to a kingdom?"

So the girl who stole from me—and wielded his royal decree as she pleased—was she fit to be Queen of Arnova?

That day, he ordered me to kneel and beg Mira's pardon.

I refused.

Even when he invoked the crown, I did not bow.

He sneered. "The greatest mistake of my life was ever knowing someone as petty as you."

His words pierced clean through my chest.

When he banished me to my own lands, I did not argue. I packed nothing. I walked out of the Royal Capital in silence, soldiers at my back.

My heart had already shattered.

The winter feast arrived.

Leon never received my gift.

He summoned a royal messenger and pressed a decree into his hands. "Tell Aya to return. This need not go so far. In three days, it is her birthday. We will hold the wedding then."

The messenger rode for Valecrest.

My duchy bordered Selovia, yet it lay close to the Royal Capital. By half a day's turn, he returned, unease written plain across his face.

"Your Majesty, Her Grace refuses the decree. She says... unless you come yourself to escort her, she will never forgive you."

My soul drifted above them, cold and numb.

I saw the messenger halted just beyond the capital gates by Mira's valet.

They spoke in low voices for a long while.

Then the messenger turned back—without ever reaching Valecrest.

Had he gone, he would have seen the castle shrouded in mourning, my funeral already underway.

My family's old steward had carried my body home.

All but my head.

Leon knew nothing of it.

The messenger's lie stirred his temper.

"If she will not return, then she may remain in Valecrest."