Chapter 3

He left me sitting by the fire.

My parents stayed long enough to tell me not to make a decision in anger. Then my father said he would speak to Adrian when things were calmer, and my mother kissed my cheek as if I were ill.

I didn't ask them to stay.

In the morning, I went to the library Adrian had built for me.

The shelves reached higher than I could climb without a ladder. There were travel accounts from the northern kingdoms, books on gardening, and a whole shelf of household law. He'd said that if I couldn't go everywhere I wanted, he'd bring the world to me.

I had thought it was a loving thing to say.

That morning, I found a book with a specimen marriage release in the back.

I carried it to the reading table and sat beside the window where we'd spent our first married winter making plans.

We'd been so certain those plans belonged to both of us.

Before the war, Adrian had asked the king for permission to marry me. The physicians' reports were discussed in council as if I were a damaged horse somebody had unwisely offered to buy.

Adrian stood in front of the ministers and said he'd have no children of his own if that was what marriage to me required. There were other branches of the royal family. A cousin could follow him. He wanted me.

The king had him punished for that defiance. It was weeks before he could stand straight without pain.

At the time, I thought no one could doubt a love that had cost him so much.

When the border war worsened, he asked for a command. He was twenty. I was nineteen.

He came to my parents' house the night before he left and climbed through the side window because my mother thought a proper farewell would be easier if we had an audience.

He brought the two greenstone swallows.

“Three years, if it takes three years,” he told me. “Will you wait?”

I took the piece he offered.

“If you come home.”

“I'll come home.”

He did. He brought back a signed peace and the king's permission to marry.

I was twenty-two when I stood beside him in the royal chapel. Afterward, in our rooms, I asked him again about children.

“I made a promise,” he said. “Don't make yourself sick worrying that I'll change my mind.”

The queen welcomed me warmly after that. She never asked about a grandchild. I thought he'd persuaded her.

Now I knew she'd been expecting one from someone else soon enough.

I looked down at the book. The ink had blurred where my sleeve rested against the page. I hadn't realized I was crying.

Our marriage had been made under Aveland's civil charter as well as blessed in the chapel. It could be dissolved. A mutual release had to be entered at Chancery; a royal marriage also needed the sovereign's seal. Without agreement, there was a longer petition and a hearing before the crown's justices.

It wasn't a promise that leaving would be easy. It was proof that wanting to leave wasn't madness.

I called Nora, my maid, and asked her to bring fresh paper.

“What shall I tell His Highness?” she asked.

“Nothing yet.”

I copied the form, slowly enough to keep my handwriting steady. When it asked for the names of the parties, I wrote mine first.