4. A Bad End #3
“The question is: how did you not know?” Lind said, and in a voice that sounded terribly sincere, “Aren’t you supposed to be smarter than the rest of us? You served him as his adame long before you ever came to the guild. What exactly did you think was happening all these years?”
“Come now,” said Ellor, stepping up to Aria’s side. “There’s no need for cruelty. Please. He’s right. I’ve done him terribly wrong. And now I’ve committed an even worse crime. I’ve ruined Romy’s party with this. I do deeply apologize for that, Romy.”
“Suck an egg, prick,” Romy called out from behind the bar, holding a handle of rum in one hand.
Ellor scoffed a laugh, and his handsome, impish grin made him look younger—innocent—even to Aria’s newly-opened eyes.
“I mean it either way.” Ellor reached out, and slid a hand along Aria’s shoulders, and pulled him into a side-by-side embrace.
“Aria, let’s go talk privately. I owe you the most sincere apology of all. Please.”
Aria hadn’t had a drop of rum, like Romy, and had everything to lose, unlike Romy.
But his mind was lost to the hurt, the fear, the rage.
He summoned all his strength into his throat, and the magic that flowed within his soul channeled into every word he spoke.
His voice sounded like a song as he said, “Stop touching me.”
Ellor shoved himself away from Aria as if burned, and fell down the two steps of The Bardic Post entrance, into the guild hall. Several patrons rushed forward to break his fall, catch him, and help him back on his two right feet. But when he turned his wide-eyed gaze at Aria, he wasn’t shocked.
He was furious.
Lind whispered, in tearful awe, “Did you just use a Suggestion spell on an unwitting mortal man?”
Suggestion. The power to make someone, or some thing, act in a certain manner, against their will. A rare type of magic that Aria was permitted to use exclusively with animals while in the city limits of New Hieroph.
It was the type of magic used in war, and he’d just cast it upon a nobleman at a party.
“A flagrant misuse of power,” said another partygoer, less awed.
“How dare you,” said another. “Someone call a copper. This must be reported.” The crowd picked up, then. Some standing to their feet, some making their way towards Aria at the door. He heard the words magic muzzle. Police. Arrested. Forbidden.
Aria took a step back as his world narrowed to a point around his broken heart. He met Romy’s eyes behind the bar. She mouthed the word, “Go.”
He didn’t remember making the decision to sprint away, down the cobblestone street, dodging carriages and pedestrians. He couldn’t outrun his fate, but still, he tried.
NOBLE
Across the city, Earl Noble Yves sat with his fingers steepled, elbows upon his knees, staring with incredible focus at his wife.
His…ex-wife.
Virginia paced back and forth, her short black heels clip-clip-clipping upon the thick plank hardwoods of their luxurious townhome in Harbinger Bay, positioned only steps away from the expansive West River that ran through New Hieroph City.
“It’s for the best, Noble. You know that it is.
” Her hands tightened upon her many thick layered skirts, maroon red to match her lips.
Noble took a breath before he said, “You’re right. I do know what’s best, and I’m sorry, Virginia, this isn’t it. We can work through this. We haven’t even tried anything different yet, anything that may satisfy whatever desires have you running from me.”
She threw her hands to the latticed ceiling above, as if speaking to the choir of Elysium. “Stop. Noble. Stop. This doesn’t need to be hard. It’ll serve us both to walk away peacefully. As friends.”
Noble wanted to drop to his knees—nearly did—but his chest ached so deeply that he had to brace a hand against his sternum, and couldn’t move for fear of making it worse. “How could we ever possibly be friends? You’re talking about divorce. You’re my wife, and you no longer want to be.”
“I don’t want to leave.” For the briefest of moments, Noble’s frozen heart pulsed with hope.
But then she clarified. “I am leaving.” She then clip-clip-clipped her way across the room and crouched in front of Noble.
She hesitated before placing her hands upon his arms, pulling his hands into hers.
“It’s over, Noble. I have to do this. I’ll go mad if I don’t. ”
A bell rang from the front door. Noble couldn’t even muster a reaction at the unexpected sound, staring deeply into the powdered face of his soon-to-be ex-wife.
She pursed her lips and said, “I’m going to give you the night to cool off.”
Noble raised his brows, more confused by that statement than anything else she’d said the whole evening.
He was cool—unreasonably calm, given the circumstances.
He was confused, yes, but not once had he raised his voice.
He couldn’t. His voice barely worked at all.
He had managed to choke out one question after the next—did I do something?
Can I do something? Will you please give me another chance?
—and had gotten no answers. “Just tell me why.”
“Tomorrow, at Cafe DuLonde. Ten in the morning. We’ll talk about the finer details then. Okay?” The bell from the front door rang again. Virginia stood up and said, “That’s my carriage. I’ll be staying at our estate just out of town.”
Our estate? How could she use the word our for anything? She was leaving him. But Noble couldn’t manage any reply except, “Fine then, Virginia. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She gave him a watery smile and took off, snatching a carpet bag off a settee. She opened and closed the front door with record speed, and he heard her heeled shoes clip-clip-clip down their front steps. His front steps. His alone.
Noble sat in quiet awe, perhaps quiet horror, for an hour. And then Morgan arrived.
“Noble? Why are you sitting in the dark?” Morgan turned the dial on the wall-mounted gas lamp, which turned on all the connected lights in the sitting room. When the shadows peeled from Noble’s face, Morgan jolted in alarm. “Noble. What happened?”
“Virginia,” he said, voice hoarse. He swallowed a frog, took a breath, and said, “Virginia has left. She’s divorcing me.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“She told me tonight. Packed up a bag and… She’s gone to stay at the estate out of town for the night. But we’re having breakfast tomorrow. Cafe DuLonde. Ten.”
Morgan grabbed hold of Noble’s shoulder and shook him. “What else? What did she say?”
The touch did the trick, pulling Noble out of his daze.
He blinked a few times, and looked into Morgan’s face.
An anger that had been hiding behind a blanket of awe roared within his chest. “Nothing. She told me nothing. I asked. I even—gods, humiliating as it is, I begged. But she left without a word. I don’t know why she’s doing this.
” He stood up, marched to the foyer, and grabbed the coat hanging there. “But I’m going to find out.”
“Whoa, whoa. Where are you going?” Morgan already pulled on his coat. “Sorry. I meant: where are we going?”
“The estate.”
“Is that a good idea?”
It was a terrible idea, Noble knew. But his anger and frustration overrode every other sensibility. He had to know what Virginia was doing out there, by herself, at the estate. “I’m not going to barge in. I won’t even talk with her, if she doesn’t want to.”
“Then…"
Noble chewed his lip for a minute before rounding to Morgan and facing him directly. “Do you think Virginia has someone else?”
Morgan narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, the red in his pupils winking in the lamplight.
“She’s always refused a guard when going out alone.
And she does spend a great deal of time alone.
Supposedly alone. I thought perhaps her background—” She was from a wealthy family, but they bore no titles, aside from her younger brother who earned knighthood last spring.
“I thought perhaps she was uncomfortable with someone following her around because she wasn’t used to that sort of thing.
But it’s possible…” Morgan trailed off, raising an eyebrow that Noble interpreted with ease.
“It’s possible because she leaves New Hieroph as often as she does.
She may meet with someone else.” Noble tugged a scarf around his neck and opened the door.
He and Morgan passed through, and down the street.
Their horses were down the block, at the stable he kept.
They could be at his estate in a half hour, assuming the bridges weren’t raised for passing boats.
Morgan said, voice fogging around his face, “Not out of the realm of possibility. What do you think, though, Noble? You know her better than anyone. Could she have someone besides you?”
“That’s the thing with love. It left me blind. And if we go there tonight—perhaps, for the first time since we were married—I’ll be able to see.”
Morgan muttered, keeping up with Noble’s brisk pace despite shorter legs, “Let us pray to Sumas that it is not rage that blinds you next.”
And the oddest part was that Noble actually hoped that there would be another man, because an affair would explain everything. He reasoned, as he rode in silence atop his black mare named Banzo, that having that answer would help.
He hoped for this outcome. Virginia had a lover.
He watched, from the well-manicured front lawn, through the enormous bay window at the front of his red brick estate home, as Virginia fell into the arms of another man.
He watched as they kissed. He watched her laugh.
He watched the man brush away that curl that always fell into her face.
The curtains he and Virginia picked out—deep red, with gold tassels—framed the apparent lovers like they were on a stage.
The sound of crickets chirped around him, drowning out all his thoughts.
Hopeless. It was hopeless. Virginia said it herself: she didn’t want to leave him. She already had.