25 #3
Elrion stopped, several paces ahead. He turned back to her, but he did not close the distance between them.
“As I say, Aerhril, I can be a forgiving man. If I can understand it, I can… well, perhaps you need some sort of gentle correction from a husband, perhaps if you have certain flaws, I can help you to redress them. Tell me. There is one chance the marriage goes forward, and it is that you tell me.”
She started to shake. But what choice did she have now? Everything was ruined no matter what. Could he forgive her this? Oh, but even if he did, what then became of Dathor? Maybe she could conceal the full extent of it. “I was jealous.”
He took a step towards her. “Jealous?”
“I… Dathor is an orc, obviously, so it is all just a strange and idiotic fantasy on my part, for he does not return any of my admirations. I only did not like him having been with Nathre.”
“A fantasy?” He stepped even closer. “A fantasy of what?”
She looked at him in horror. “Well, you know what I mean.”
His lips parted. “Your desire is for… that.”
“He was kind to me when I was a girl. He has always been kind to me. There was a long period of time when he was the only person who was kind to me. I suppose I felt like Nathre had taken him from me.”
“You sentenced a pregnant woman to a long march across Rathog Pass because you had a fantasy?” he said, his voice hard.
“Yes,” she said.
He turned away, rubbing his forehead. “He came, did he not? With Celedin, the day that Celedin was rude. I thought it was strange, a servant coming after an elf lady, but I brushed it aside, I suppose. It was the first thing you said, after I asked you to marry him, the very first thing. That we must bring him to Thelandel Chapel. That’s not a fantasy, Aerhril.
And he…” He turned back around. “Igbar says he entirely abandoned Nathre, and she would not reveal why, but she said there was another woman.” He gestured at her.
She swallowed.
He stepped closer. “How far has it gone?”
She shook her head. “It is only in my mind, I assure you.”
“Have you lain with that orc?”
“No,” she said. “No, I swear to you, I am intact. I am still a maiden.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“He is insistent that he will never sire another half-breed like himself, so you can be assured—”
“So, everything except that, then, is what I might imagine.” He looked her up and down.
“Because that sort of jealousy, between the two of you, his taking Nathre in response to your agreeing to marry me, and then your sending her off like that? That jealous behavior is borne of having possessive feelings over the other’s body. ”
She did not say anything.
“It’s grotesque,” he said with a shrug. “That Dathor exists at all is grotesque. We are different species. We are not meant for… that.”
She had not expected that from him. She had expected him to be open minded, the revolutionary who had marched with orcs. Grotesque? Truly?
“You’re entirely tainted,” he said with a sigh. “The marriage clearly can’t go forward.”
She sucked in a sharp breath at that but otherwise said nothing. What else could she have expected?
Elrion simply stood there, looking devastated. “Was it all a ruse, then, with us? Did you wish only to get your orc lover out from under the thumb of his uncle, who mistreats him?”
“No,” she said. “No, it was not.”
“Did you think I would be an easy cuckold?”
“No, I fell in love with you.” Her voice quavered.
“Please, don’t,” he said, swallowing so hard she could see the knob in his throat bob.
“As you say, Dathor went to Nathre out of jealousy. He was jealous because I had true feelings for you. He was devastated.”
Elrion turned back to her. “Well. Then it is all just tragic, I think.”
She bowed her head.
He walked past her, heading back towards the Peak.
She stood there a moment, looking off into the distance at the sky and the flowers and thinking that she did not know what became of her now, that her entire future had suddenly turned black, and then, because there was nothing else to do, she trailed after him.
When he got back to the Peak, he brought her with him into the sitting room and told the steward and Celedin that they’d had a discussion and had mutually come to a decision that their marriage arrangement would be dissolved.
He would want most of the bride price back, but would agree to allowing them to keep a portion of it for their trouble.
She stood there numbly, unable to do anything but to stare straight ahead.
If she had any thought, it was only that she could not understand what had driven her to be so vindictive towards Nathre.
It wasn’t even the orc woman’s fault, and Aerhril knew that.
How could she have done it? How could she not have thought through what would happen?
How could she have been so thoroughly cruel?
And how could she have destroyed everything?
The steward asked why and Elrion would not elaborate, saying only that it was a mutual decision.
When Elrion left, she tried to leave the room as well, but the steward prevented her.
He sat her down on the couch and asked what she had done.
She could never explain this to the steward.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Celedin. “It’s my decision if I want to keep her.”
The steward turned to look at him. “Keep her?”
Celedin smiled faintly. “We both know I’ll not find another wife. You have invested so much in her education and her dresses, Father.”
The steward looked her over. “What did you do?”
She said nothing.
“Father, if I wish to marry her—”
“Quiet, Celedin,” said the steward. He sat down in front of Aerhril and gazed into her eyes.
“That man was so intent on having you that he was willing to pay ridiculous sums of money for you. You did something to sour him on you, and I want to know what it was. Did you do it on purpose?” He eyed her.
“No, I don’t think you did. You worked hard to ensnare that man and to escape us.
Because, all this time, while we have treated you with the utmost kindness and have cared for you and clothed you and fed you and treated you like a member of our own family, for years, you have never been grateful. ”
“I am grateful,” she forced herself to say, because she wanted to stay.
“No,” said the steward. “No, you are not. You have never been grateful, and you have shown yourself to be a schemer, a manipulator. I can only think that Elrion nae Nilriane saw you for what you were and he wanted nothing to do with you. If you think I am going to allow my son to marry something like you, you’re sadly mistaken. ”
“Father,” said Celedin.
“However,” said the steward, “we can’t simply turn you out, can we? So, what can be done with you, that is the question.”
“Father, if you—”
“Celedin, I will speak with you in a moment!” said the steward. To her, he said, “To your chambers. I must think on what happens next.”
DATHOR BURST INTO her room not long afterwards. It was broad daylight, and anyone could have seen him, and this startled her badly.
“What are you doing? You cannot simply be here—”
“I’m leaving,” he said. “So, they have nothing to punish me with.”
“Leaving?”
“I’m going across the pass,” he said. “I’m told that I cannot get her out, but if I wish to go along with her, they will allow it.”
“What?” She was horrified.
“Did you think I would stay here, with you, after you sentenced the mother of my child to exile?” He sneered at her.
“You know,” she said.
“Igbar told me, yes,” he said.
“You’re going after her?” She went to him. “I do not know what my future is now. Elrion has ended our engagement, and the steward is planning something to ‘do’ with me, but he will not say what. He says I am a schemer—”
“Are you not?” Dathor glared at her.
“You would leave me to this?”
“You did this, Aerhril,” he said in disbelief. “This is your fault. You have ruined everything. You…” He shook his head. “Why could you not wait? If I had a few more years to work off my debt here, then maybe I could have—”
“It’s not my fault.”
He stepped back, letting out a high-pitched noise.
“Not all of it,” she said. “It is not all my fault.”
He shook his head at her, seemingly at a loss for words.
She reached for him. “Dathor, I am so very sorry about Nathre.”
He evaded her. “It doesn’t matter if you are sorry, Aerhril.”
“But I know what you mean now,” she said. “When you said that immediately after you did it with her that you regretted it? That you did not understand why you did it? That you wished you could undo it? I understand, and I wish I had forgiven you then, for if I knew what it felt like to regret—”
“What I did and what you did are not even close to the same thing.”
“But we did it for the same reason,” she said. “We both wished to hurt the other.”
“I did not do it because I wished to hurt you. It wasn’t actually about you. I was in pain and I wanted something to feel good. You, on the other hand, it was just sheer vindictiveness, punishing poor Nathre—”
“Well, you used her.”
“I did,” he said. “Yes, I did. And I feel responsible for angering you, since you did this to her. I have to go after her. I cannot leave her to raise my child alone in Arzakh. And that is your fault, too. You have done all of this.”
Her face crumpled. Tears spilled out of her eyes.
He closed the distance between them. He took her by the throat, one thick gray-green hand closing around her neck. “You do not get to cry.”
She choked, but she could not stop the tears. She was frightened. His hand was huge. He was so very, very strong.
He squeezed, tighter…
And then let go of her.
“Dathor, please,” she said through her tears. “Please, I love you.”
“I hate you,” he said and turned away and stalked out of the room.