Chapter 6

When spring came, the Healer said I was well enough to move around outside. My father had a section of the Palace Gardens cleared for me to plant things in.

"Here. You like growing things. Plant whatever you want."

He pointed at the cleared patch of ground, his tone deliberately gruff. "I never liked that corner of the garden anyway. Took long enough to flatten. Now at least it's useful."

I looked at the carefully turned soil and suddenly started laughing.

Then the laughing turned to tears.

My father looked alarmed. "What's wrong? If you don't like it, I'll have it redesigned."

I wiped my eyes. "No. I love it."

And I meant it.

It hit me in that moment that what I had always wanted wasn't prestige or riches. Just something like this. Simple and warm.

The person I had given everything to had given me back nothing but pain. But no matter when I turned around, there was always someone at home holding an umbrella for me.

Cain still hadn't stopped, of course.

Every few days another letter. Jade blocked every single one.

When letters didn't work, he tried writing longer ones, sent in bundles. I didn't read a single one. They went straight into the fire.

A log hit the flames and the fire flared and died back down.

"Jade, look. These letters can't even keep me warm for a second. What good are they to me?"

My body healed fully over the next month. The seedlings in the Palace Gardens had grown tall.

I had just finished watering them when I heard someone call my name.

"Good morning, Your Highness."

I turned. It was Celeste.

She was wearing a thin dress and looked half her former size. The skin under her eyes was dark with exhaustion. Her belly was flat.

"Your Highness, I'm begging you to help me end this bonding."

She wept as she begged.

"Cain won't tolerate me, won't tolerate my pup. He made me crawl the sacred stone path at the Sanctuary while I was pregnant—even through storms—and the pup didn't survive."

I thought back. The bundles of letters Cain had been sending into the Palace did seem to include blessing tokens.

She went on. "He also... to make things right for you, he forced three full cups of the tonic on me. I wanted to die."

She crawled toward me. I stepped back and pushed her away with my foot.

"And whose fault is that?"

"If I didn't have this title, you'd have had me suffering like this, wouldn't you?"

I looked down at her. "You chose this bonding. You're in it. Deal with it. I'm not helping you end it."

I had let go, true. But I wasn't soft. She had struck me first. There was no reason for me to be the one to pull her out.

Celeste collapsed on the ground, tears running down her face.

As I walked away, she shouted after me. "Cain is going to the Borderlands."

My steps slowed. My face didn't change.

"Going to the Borderlands to serve his Pack. At least there's some good in that."

I didn't look back again. Behind me, only the sound of crying.

Three months after Cain left for the Borderlands, my father finally agreed to let me leave the Palace.

He sent two guards with me, on top of Jade.

I found a place not far from the Capital, at the foot of a ridge, near water and hills.

It was like the old place, and also not.

I built a small cottage, put up a fence, and planted the yard full of vegetables and fruit.

My brother sent people to move several fruit trees near my cottage.

Every morning birds woke me up. I opened the window to mountains and running water and the smell of grass.

The days passed slowly. My father sent things every few days—enough to fill an entire room. My brother came once a month to bring me home for a visit, then personally brought me back.

I knew they worried. They were afraid I would run into another bad person and go through all of this again.

One evening, I was sitting in the yard when I looked up and saw someone coming down the mountain path.

Worn-out clothes, washed almost colorless. Dust on his face.

Thinner. Darker. A long scar down the left side of his face.

He stopped at the fence and called my name softly.

"Aria."

"I'm back."

He stopped. Tears ran down his face along the scar.

He tried to come in. Jade stopped him at the gate.

"Aria, I have nothing left. No title. No Pack standing. No wealth. Nothing. Just you."

I looked up at him. "Cain, I was never yours."

He kept going. "Aria, I know you're the one who made your father keep me bonded to Celeste. So I'd have no way to be near you, I went to the Borderlands. I made sure her pup didn't survive. I had her forced to take the same tonic. Every bit of what you suffered, I made her go through it too. I did it for you."

He gripped the fence. "Aria, I know I don't deserve forgiveness. I just want one chance. Let me stay near you. That's all I'm asking."

"Let me carry your water. Chop your wood. Work your land. I'll do anything. Just let me stay."

I looked at his eyes. They had once been gentle. They had also been cruel.

I didn't know what I felt. Something like all the anger had just gone quiet. He was a stranger.

"Go. You're not needed here."

I went inside. He stayed at the fence. My guards watched him from a distance.

Eventually he sat down against the fence. He didn't leave.

I knew that no matter whether he stayed or left, I still had to water my garden, tend my flowers, and live my life.

The sun rose and set without anyone's permission.

The next morning I opened the door. He was still there, curled up in the mist, sleeping against the fence.

I stood in the doorway and had Jade bring him a bowl of broth.

"Eat it. Then go."

I kept my voice flat. Like speaking to a stranger asking for charity.

Cain took the bowl. His lips moved. He got out one word.

"Okay."

He drank fast, like he wasn't afraid of burning himself, tipping the bowl back in big swallows.

"Aria, can I—"

I cut him off before he finished. "No."

I took the bowl and went back inside. I didn't look at him again.

I had expected him to leave. He didn't.

Cain set himself up on the far bank of the river, watching from a distance while I watered my garden and washed vegetables.

Occasionally he would leave chopped firewood by the fence without a word.

I paid none of it any attention. The firewood, the watching—none of it could bring my pup back.

He was fooling himself.

My life went on exactly as it should. He was nothing to me now. He couldn't touch it.