Chapter 8
AIMILIA
Nikias needed to hire better guards.
If Aimilia could get past them just by enlisting Turpis’ help to sneak through the courtyard gates, they were in bad shape.
Aimilia threw open the door to Marcella and Gavril’s quarters after a brief knock. As soon as she stepped inside, she spotted Marcella spinning around from the window while Gavril sat at the desk, shoving some paper in a drawer.
“Knocking doesn’t do anyone any good if you don’t wait for a response before barging in,” Gavril said, shaking his head as Aimilia closed the door behind her.
“Sorry!” Aimilia cut through the room, waving one hand behind her. “Forgive me, I’m a little rattled from having to sneak out of the palace!”
Marcella closed the window, pulling the curtain back into place as she said, “The—ah—the talk is that bad?”
“The gossip,” Aimilia supplied. “I wouldn’t know, I didn’t stop to find out. I’m sure it is, but I have nothing to be ashamed of or hide from. No, I wasn’t sneaking out because of that.”
Gavril’s brow furrowed. “Then why?”
She glared at him. “Your brother gave the guards orders not to let me leave.”
Gavril groaned and Marcella came up beside him, leaning against the desk. “I shouldn’t be surprised, and yet…”
“I thought you said he was moving on?” Marcella asked.
“Wait, have you spoken to him?” Aimilia came up to the other side of the desk.
Gavril sighed. “I should have known better. He… Maybe he didn’t lie per se, but he led me to believe he was going to be moving on from this whole debacle and searching elsewhere for his next wife.
And, yes, I went to the palace this morning to speak with him.
I was only there a few minutes, mostly because he wouldn’t talk about what had happened with me.
I was more concerned this could cause him to react… poorly.”
Marcella reached over and took Gavril’s hand as his eyes fell on the scars visible on her neck.
“Turning me into a prisoner for rejecting him is not the action of a reasonable, healthy man,” Aimilia said, crossing her arms and hoping her voice didn’t betray the way her stomach was turning.
She wasn’t afraid of him.
But then the memory came surging up to the surface, and she was standing back in that dark hallway once more.
Nikias’ hand slammed into her shield, as he seethed on the other side, a wild, enraged look in his eyes, his voice cutting through the air and each word a weapon perfectly crafted to make cuts so deep she’d never recover.
Fine. Maybe she was afraid of Nikias. But it hadn’t stopped her from defying him before, and she wouldn’t let it stop her now.
“Maybe there is more to it?” Marcella’s voice pulled Aimilia back to the present.
“I’ll find out when I return.” Aimilia shook her head, but she couldn’t shake off the specter of Nikias. She could feel the ghost of his hands grabbing her wrists after the shield came down, ready to clap limiter cuffs on them.
“I truly can’t read him anymore.” Gavril turned to face her. “But if it helps, he seemed fine—embarrassed a little, but not out for revenge when I did see him. Not at all like he was last time. Why he’s doing this, I don’t know. Especially if he’s moving on to find another woman to marry.”
Aimilia scoffed. “I know exactly why. It’s because he is a petty little man. You must not remember how much time he spent last year harassing me and hounding me even after he suspended me from my duties for ratting him out to you.”
Marcella stepped forward, pulling her hand away from Gavril and reaching for Aimilia’s shoulder. “More importantly, how are you?”
Aimilia gave her a weak smile. “My mother and uncle are certainly furious with me.”
“I did try to see you first before Nikias, but I could hear your mother’s voice down the hallway,” Gavril said.
Aimilia waved her hand. “You would have been waiting hours. I’m not even sure how long she spent berating me.
They tried to make me go apologize and beg Nikias for another chance and that if he still wanted me, I’d marry him.
” She laughed. “Like that would ever happen. I’d sooner die.
Of course, not that Nikias really wanted me in the first place.
He just wants a wife to give him heirs and be decent enough to act as a passable queen. ”
Marcella’s hand fell away from Aimilia’s shoulder as she gave Gavril a pointed look that he ignored.
“Did he tell you that?” Gavril straightened up. “After the two of you disappeared last night?”
“Essentially, yes. And I most certainly do not want to rehash that argument. Suffice to say, Nikias cannot argue his way into an acceptance by talking about the practical merits of a match. He should have known better than to believe for a second he could bend me to his will.”
“How are you?” Marcella asked again, gaze intensifying on Aimilia.
“Tired of talking about Nikias with everyone. But honestly, I’m fine.
Completely caught off guard, but the only embarrassment I have is that I was apparently the only one who didn’t know he was going to propose to me.
As for the rest, it’s his own fault he was made a laughingstock by doing it in public.
At least if he’d done it privately, he would have been spared the gossip. ”
Aimilia then sank into the chair on the other side of the desk from Gavril, waving her hands.
“Now no more talk of Nikias, please. All of this will go away soon enough when he makes his next selection and he gets tired of bothering me, or too busy planning a wedding to be petty, and finally sends me to a post, or I compete to be the next head of House Mitis, whichever happens first.”
“Then I’ll end with this: Good for you,” Gavril said, with a decisive, approving nod, completely ignoring Marcella’s pointed look at him. “You deserve far better than Nikias as a husband.”
A tiny, bitter seed tried to sprout up again. To Gavril, she deserved better than Nikias, but she didn’t deserve him.
But that wasn’t fair to Gavril either.
While she didn’t begrudge Gavril and Marcella their happiness and knew she was better off now that she was finally free from loving a man who would never see her as a wife, there were still little things that reawakened those deep wounds.
“Thank you.” Aimilia forced a smile. “Now, please distract me until I have to return and deal with him all over again.” Aimilia glanced at the window. “What were you doing before I stormed in?”
Gavril looked at Marcella, who looked at the window, then back at Gavril and nodded.
Aimilia rolled her eyes to cover the slight sting in her chest.
It had used to be her and Gavril against the world. They had been the ones silently communicating in little gestures and looks.
Now it was him and Marcella. And Aimilia was still his friend and now Marcella’s, but it simply wasn’t the same way as it had been before. She wasn’t the most important person in his life. The one who understood him better than anyone else, who knew him more intimately than anyone else.
She’d loved him with all of her being.
He had loved her as his only ally and confidant.
She’d miss them, certainly, but it was time she started living her life and stopped lingering in theirs. Maybe then she’d finally shake the remains of the hurt that was still clinging deep in her heart.
Marcella rose and went back to the window, pulling back the curtain and opening it and with a caw, a silver-backed raven flew inside and landed on the desk.
A chill went down Aimilia’s spine as the bird spread its feathers. A silver-backed raven meant—
“Hypatia has sent word,” Marcella whispered as the bird spread its wings and runes lit up so they could read the message written in vitae.
Gavril pulled out the paper he originally had shoved back into the desk as Aimilia leaned in and read it. She skimmed over Gavril’s translated version.
Hypatia wanted to know if any Elemens mages had gotten across the clan lands and to Imperia, causing trouble, like the Stonai. Or if they were dealing with any issues from the Embrai on their western border. That was… concerning.
It was rather short and to the point. Hypatia didn’t include any pleasantries, any questions about Marcella and her husband or about anything else.
Aimilia supposed people like Nikias and Hypatia never really changed.
“So… what are you going to do?” Aimilia asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to decide,” Gavril said, tapping the paper he’d been writing on. “The bird won’t leave until we send a response. Hypatia is determined to have one.”
“But if you want that information—”
“The only one who will have it is Nikias. Which means I’d either have to get it from him subtly, or…”
“Tell him about Hypatia’s message,” Aimilia finished.
“And who knows how he would react to finding out Hypatia is asking Marcella for sensitive information?”
“Or how your parents would react if it reached them.” At Aimilia’s words, Gavril brushed his fingertips over his arm.
Marcella put her hand over her husband’s and said, “But should we go with the first. Not telling him now, it will come out. These things always do. How much worse will that be?” Marcella shook her head. “I do not want to repeat the past.”
Aimilia couldn’t blame her.
Gavril turned to his wife. “But if we do tell them, they could see it as you being a spy for Hypatia, which puts our already new, shaky truce on even worse ground. And for what? The answer could simply be no, and that’s the end of it.”
“Hypatia does not ask empty questions,” Marcella said, and the raven shifted its weight, shaking out its feathers.
“So this certainly won’t be the end of it,” Aimilia said, glaring at the raven. “Even if the answer is no.”
Marcella nodded as Gavril ran a hand through his hair and said, “First things first, we reply and tell her we have not heard of anything. Then we decide if we tell Nikias or wait to see if we hear anything else. Considering the circumstances, I’m inclined to wait.”
“I still think we should tell him,” Marcella said.
“I think waiting—” Aimilia raised a hand defensively at Marcella’s harsh glare.
“—just long enough to see if Hypatia says anything else and give Nikias time to forget about this recent debacle is the better option. And if we’re lucky, he’ll send me to a post near the border where maybe I could get to the bottom of this concern about the Elemens.
They haven’t been giving your people trouble, right? ”
“If they have, it has not reached me. Konstantin and Hypatia have not told me of it until now, if this counts,” Marcella said.
Gavril finished writing and passed the note to Marcella. “Can you look this over and send it? I’ve got practicals to oversee for the command track I’m about to be late for.”
Marcella pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Of course, go on.”
As Gavril headed for the door, he looked over his shoulder. “If you want to continue to put off whatever is waiting for you back at the palace, you’re welcome to come with.”
It was a tempting offer, but Aimilia was ready to make another scene.
And make another scene she did as she walked up to the palace gates in broad daylight, commander’s cloak around her shoulders and arms up in the air as the guards gaped at her.
“Good afternoon, I believe His Highness will want to have a few words with me.”
As they grabbed her arms and started hauling her through the gate and the courtyard, the Runai watching broke out into whispers, eyes wide as the girl who refused the crown prince was taken into custody before their eyes.
If Nikias wanted to act like a petty little tyrant, she would make sure everyone in Areator knew about it.