Chapter 36
Imade my way to Thomas the glassblower’s shop, clutching a translated letter in my hand so it wouldn’t flutter away.
It had been one of the more maddening projects I’d tackled recently, and if the wind caught it and blew it away, I knew I would cry.
Thomas had written to an Avivian craftsman about some new technique he’d heard rumors of, and his letter had been littered with technical jargon I’d had to hunt down in dictionaries.
I’d spent hours poring over obscure terms for heat, pressure, and flame, and had learned more about glassblowing than I ever cared to know.
The bell above the door chimed softly as I entered. Two women stood at the counter, gossiping so loudly it was impossible not to overhear. I lingered behind them, distracting myself with the glittering display around the shop.
Thomas’s work was exquisite. Perched on shelves stood vases as delicate as spun sugar, animals that looked like they could leap off the shelf, and innumerable other glass trinkets that seemed to catch the sunlight and turn it into magic.
The only complaint anyone ever had about his products was that they would break, but what would they expect when an object is made of glass?
The technique he had asked about in his letter was to help him resolve that issue.
Supposedly, this Avivian craftsman had developed a way of making glass almost impossible to break.
I leaned closer to examine a pair of glass birds, wings frozen mid-flight, when a sharp phrase from the women’s conversation sliced into my thoughts.
“Word is, that older prince broke off his betrothal to that foreign princess. Nasty business, I heard. The king’s pushed the younger one to step in.”
My heart stuttered. Hubert and Curtis. They had to be talking about Hubert and Curtis. I angled my head slightly, straining to catch more.
“Oh really?” the second woman gasped. “What will the older one do now? Isn’t he due to take the throne soon?”
“Well, I heard he’s choosing a commoner for his bride!” The first woman lowered her voice to a conspiratorial hiss. “Wouldn’t that be something to see?”
“No, really? That’s unheard of!”
“I swear it’s true. You know my Hilda works in the castle kitchens, and she heard that the Council is planning a grand ball so the prince can choose a bride from among the people. Just imagine if a prince married one of our daughters!”
The world tilted under my feet. I stepped forward before I could stop myself. “Excuse me, did you just say the older prince is no longer betrothed?”
The nearest woman turned, blinking at me like I’d startled her. “That’s what I heard, dear. And now he may choose a bride, maybe from this very village! We aren’t far.”
“But did his younger brother take over the betrothal?” There had been talk of it before; Aria had even suggested it herself. Was it official now? My heart forgot to beat.
“That’s what I heard,” she said dismissively. “But the crown prince is looking for a bride. Isn’t it thrilling?”
“My daughter has the look of a queen,” the other woman said to her friend. “Why, just the other day…”
I didn’t hear the rest. At that moment, Thomas’s apprentice appeared and asked if he could help me, and I nearly shoved the letter at him. “For Thomas. Please see he gets it.” My voice came out too sharp, too fast. If I stayed any longer, I might fall over.
The second the letter was out of my hands, I fled.
The walk home seemed to be a blur, and cobblestones felt unsteady beneath my feet.
For that one, shining year when I was sixteen, I had deluded myself into thinking that Curtis and I would be together forever.
Then once the attack had happened, I shut myself away and had told myself repeatedly that Curtis would move on.
I had even practiced being glad for him in my mind.
But hearing it said aloud—that he was betrothed to someone else—hit like a blade between my ribs. He was gone.
Back at the manor, I collapsed into the nearest chair, the air gone from my lungs.
Why did I feel so betrayed? Curtis owed me nothing.
I had no claim on his heart. I was the one who had written that letter telling him goodbye and to move on.
He had been a prince long before he had been mine.
Of course he moved on. Of course he chose duty to his kingdom over some girl who had rejected him.
Knowing all that didn’t matter or lessen any of the pain. It still felt like losing him all over again.
Selfishly, pathetically, a part of me still wished he’d never let go. That even now, after everything, he might come riding up our drive one day, declaring he had waited, that his love had outlasted time and distance and scars.
But those were childish fantasies. My own mother had remarried within a year of losing Father after two decades together. Why had I ever believed that my brief, shining year with Curtis could withstand time, tragedy, and kingdoms?
Rousing myself from the chair, I moved to the attic to try to work, but the words blurred on the page. Every time I blinked, I saw Aria in a bridal gown, walking toward Curtis, and Curtis smiling at her with the same warmth he had once reserved for me.
“Truly?”
I tore my thoughts away from royal engagements and weddings. Cynthia stood in the doorway.
“What?”
“I wondered if you could make dinner tonight. I wanted to go out.”
I rubbed my temples. I had accomplished none of the work that desperately needed done so we could pay for the next week’s food, and the day was nearly gone.
I would already have to stay up all night as it was so I could finish translating the mountain of documents waiting for me.
“I don’t think I can today, Cynthia. I’m sorry, but I’m behind already. ”
Her face pinched. “I figured as much,” she sniffed, then shut the door harder than necessary.
Great. One more person I had failed. One more reminder of all the ways I fell short in my life. Was I doomed to never do anything right?
I bent back over the parchment. I had to focus, I had to!
I couldn’t keep dwelling on past relationships and hypothesizing about what ifs and where we would be now if the attack had never happened.
Father would still be here. Curtis and I might have had a future together.
My chest ached with the knowledge of what I had missed out on.
What good would it do to dwell on hypotheticals?
The reality was that I didn’t belong with Curtis anymore.
I told him to move on and I needed to do the same.
I bullied my brain into meticulously copying out a business proposition, forcing my hand to copy each line, but every stroke of the pen carved Curtis’s face deeper into my memory. The ache in my chest spread until it felt like I couldn’t breathe.
For so long I had taught myself to forget my old life. If only I could bury those memories so deep they couldn’t hurt me anymore. But now? Now I couldn’t think of anything else.
And the cruelest part of all was how impossible it seemed to let go of something that had never actually been mine to keep.