Chapter 5 Few days left in Ashenvale

The days after the ball moved in a strange way. They felt too fast and too slow at the same time, almost as if time itself could not decide how to treat someone who was already considered dead.

My mother barely left my side during that first week. She would come into my bedroom in the mornings before I was even fully awake and just sit with me. Sometimes she would talk, and other times we would just sit in silence while she brushed my hair the way she did when I was small enough to sit on her lap. I caught her crying more than once when she thought I was not looking. Her tears were always quick and quiet, wiped away before I could say a single word about it.

On the third night, she sat on the edge of my bed while I pretended to be asleep. I was failing badly at it, and she knew it. She told me that she kept trying to think of a way out of the situation. She kept going over it in her head, hoping there had to be something they missed.

I told her gently that there was no way out.

Her voice cracked when she replied that she knew it. She said she hated that she knew it, and she hated that I was the one who had to carry the burden instead of her.

I did not know how to answer that. I simply reached over and took her hand. We sat together like that for a while, neither of us saying anything else, because there was nothing left to say that would not just repeat the same grief back and forth between us.

My father handled things differently. He became much quieter and kept himself incredibly busy. He threw all his energy into the preparations, almost as if organizing the details of my departure was something he could actually control when nothing else about this was. He ordered new dresses that I probably would not live long enough to wear. He packed a large trunk full of Ashenvale herbs and medicines for my journey.

He even spent an entire evening writing and rewriting a letter to send ahead to Ravencrest, though he eventually decided not to send it at all.

On the night before I was supposed to leave, we sat across from each other in his study. It felt like the old days when I was young enough to believe he could fix any problem in the world. He admitted to me that he had no idea what he was doing. He said he had spent my entire life trying to protect me from harm, and now, the one time it truly mattered, he was completely powerless.

I told him that he had protected me so much. I said he had kept me safe my whole life, and that this was not a failure on his part because it was never something he could have stopped.

He did not look like he believed me, but he nodded anyway. He reached across the desk to hold my hand the exact same way he had in the great hall on the night everything changed.

Isolde came by to see me every single day. Sometimes we just sat together without speaking, and other times she talked about anything except where I was going. She would talk about the book she was reading or some ridiculous rumor going around the palace. She brought up anything that allowed us both to pretend, for an hour at a time, that this was just an ordinary week instead of the last one we might ever spend together.

On the fifth day, she curled up at the end of my bed with red, swollen eyes. She told me that she kept thinking she should have insisted on going instead. She felt she should have said something before I had the chance to speak, and she kept replaying the moment over and over.

I spoke to her firmly, telling her that she did not even get the chance to say anything. It all happened too fast for either of us to do anything but react. I told her that if the light had landed on her, I would have done the exact same thing she was describing, and I would have stepped in front of it to save her. I begged her not to do that to herself.

She cried even harder at that, so I just held her close. Neither of us said much else for a long time.

Tristan was unusually quiet most days, which was not like him at all. However, he showed up constantly. He spent the evenings teaching me one defensive move after another, acting as if he could pack an entire lifetime of protection into just seven days. He taught me new holds to break free from an enemy, and new ways to read a room, a person, or a threat. On the last night, we sat together out by the stables, completely quiet as we watched the horses settle down for the evening.

He finally spoke, telling me that if I ever needed help, I had to send him a letter. He told me to get it out however I could, no matter what it took or what it cost, because he would come for me.

I started to say his name, but he cut me off.

He told me he meant it. His voice was rougher than I had ever heard it before. He said I was not going to disappear into that place without a way back home, and he made me promise that I would write to him.

I looked at him and gave him my promise.

I did not see much of Caron during that whole week.

She stayed in her own wing of the palace, and I let her remain there because I did not have the strength left to face whatever cruel things she might say to me again. I only caught a brief glimpse of her once in a hallway. She did not say a word that time. She just looked at me for a long moment with an expression I could not quite read, and then she turned around and walked the other way.

On the seventh day, a carriage arrived at the palace gates. It was as black as the kingdom it came from. My entire family gathered on the front steps to see me off. My mother gripped my hand until the very last possible second, and my father was completely unable to speak. Isolde was crying openly, while Tristan stood with his jaw set tight, looking furious and helpless all at once.

I climbed into the carriage without looking back. I knew that if I stared at them, I would not be able to force myself to go at all, and this choice was already decided.

The horses started moving forward, pulling the carriage away. Somewhere behind me, I heard my mother finally break down completely, and the sound of her crying followed me long after the palace gates had disappeared from view.