I didn’t speak. I was too afraid if I did the words would fall away. Too afraid in the darkness I would confess my sins, and I couldn’t speak a word. I couldn’t stand the blood.
“You haven’t spoken a word to me since it happened.” I could hear his pain. It hurt me worse. “When Eve and Caine… when my father died…” He swallowed. “It was never like this. Derrick was your brother, and you loved him. He was the youngest, the one you were sworn to protect…” Darren shifted on the bed. “I know you, Ryiah. You are blaming yourself. It’s what I would have done.”
Silence was my only response.
“You think you could have stopped it, but you can’t stop a person from their mistakes. When you returned to Demsh’aa, they blamed you, didn’t they?” Silence. “Alex always hated me. I’m sure he made me the villain… But we did nothing wrong.”
Yes. I did. I made myself blink away the tears.
“We never talked after…” Darren’s voice fell to a whisper. “I would have let him go, Ryiah. I know it would have been a mistake. Gods, after all the rebels have done…” He was quiet for a minute, and then he made himself continue. “I swear to you, Ryiah, if I had known Mira was there, I would have stopped her. For you.” His voice broke. “No one should ever have to watch their brother die.”
My whole face was wet, and my hands were trembling in my lap. I shoved them under the cover and held my breath, waiting for him to leave.
“I wish I could take it all away.” Darren’s hand pressed against my wrist as he stood to go.
There was the shift of shadows, and then he was walking toward the door.
“Stay,” I whispered.
The outline of his shoulders froze, and I heard the soft pad of his boots. They grew louder until he was at the edge of my bed.
I was curled up to my knees, sitting against the frame. The tears were drowning me. I didn’t want to be alone.
Not tonight.
Darren’s arms wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me against him, my back pressing against his front.
He held me.
The rise and fall of his chest carried me to sleep. His chin resting on my shoulder. Pine and cloves enveloping me whole.
Darren’s whisper was the last thing I heard.
“I love you, Ryiah.”
****
Over the next two weeks it got easier to breathe. In. And out. With Darren’s arms around me as I slept. He came to my room each night, each morning a pressed flower next to my head. Without fail.
The prince was going to cure me of everything Derrick had taken that night. Everything Alex had stolen the day he joined the rebel cause.
All Darren ever did was hold me. But that act alone was...everything.
It was a drop of sunlight in a prison of ice. It warmed the part of me I was afraid I’d lost. It took the fear, the doubt, the terror, and it pushed it all away.
And that morning I awoke. My ladies-in-waiting came to the door, and I smiled. It was small, barely a tug of the lips. But it was real.
I could be happy.
And today I am marrying my best friend. Because that’s what Darren was. After all these years. Ella was one—she had held my hand and carried me through the trial year and our apprenticeship—But this last year had been Darren. The two of us had held each other through the darkest part of our lives, and never once let go.
Madame Pollina and Celine and Gemma helped me bathe. Soft-scented rose water and oils that made my skin glisten. They brushed my hair, pinning just a couple strands behind my head with sparkly pins. The rest remained down, loose waves framing my face.
The powders they applied were bare and set to highlight my narrow cheeks, the softest gloss to my mouth, the lightest shadows to darken the corners of my eyes.
Then they brought out my gown. A cream yellow, light ruffles running diagonally down its silken skirts, a fitted bodice of gold and orange beads. Nothing like I had ever imagined, and everything that I had never known I wanted. With its matching satin slippers it was fit for a princess.
The loveliest thing I would ever wear.
I stood on a small raised stand as they helped me into the dress in front of a gilded mirror studded with pearls.
They laced the bodice, and I held my breath, my arms free from the weight of traditional sleeves.
It was then I read his letter: “This dress reminds me of the midwinter solstice, our second year in the apprenticeship. Your arms were bare and Priscilla told you it made you look common…I remember your friend asked me what I thought, and I remember your face when I didn’t reply. Ryiah, I want you to know that you looked beautiful. So beautiful, that I couldn’t stop staring even if I tried. And then I asked you to dance—and even though I knew it would only bring the both of us heartache—it was the best night of my life. And now I want you to wear a dress just like it, today, as you become my wife.”
“Don’t cry!” Celine snatched the card out of my hand before I could read it again. “We just finished with your face.”
“I-I’m sorry,” I stammered. But I wasn’t. Not after reading Darren’s letter.