Chapter Seven: The Years Between
The years bled together like watercolors in rain—soft around the edges, blurred with grief and quiet endurance.
Ariyana did not break.
There were moments, in the dark hours before dawn, when the weight of her losses pressed so heavily on her chest that she could not breathe. She would lie in her narrow bed, the sunburst pendant cold against her skin, and listen to the distant sounds of the palace waking—servants' footsteps, the clatter of pots, the muffled commands of guards changing shifts. In those moments, she would press her palm against her heart and whisper her parents' names like a prayer.
I am still here. I am still standing. I am still yours.
And then she would rise, wash her face in the basin of cold water, and face another day.
---
Fifteen Years Old
The girl who looked back at Ariyana from the mirror was not the same child who had arrived at Highgrove seven years ago, clutching her mother's hand and trying not to cry.
She was taller now, her limbs lengthened into the awkward grace of adolescence. Her face had lost its childish softness, revealing high cheekbones and a strong jaw—her father's jaw, her mother's eyes. Her hair, black as a raven's wing, fell past her shoulders in waves she usually twisted into a simple knot at the nape of her neck. She wore no jewels except the pendant hidden beneath her bodice, and her dresses, while serviceable, were never the fine silks and velvets that adorned Princess Lily.
But it was her eyes that set her apart.
Olive-green, sharp, watchful. They had seen too much, understood too much, and forgave too little. They were the eyes of someone who had learned to survive in a world that wanted her to disappear.
Ariyana smoothed the front of her grey wool dress—a hand-me-down from a lady-in-waiting, altered to fit—and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Another year, she thought. Another year closer to freedom. Another year stronger.
She did not believe in fairy tales. She believed in patience, in observation, in the slow, steady accumulation of power. She had no army, no fortune, no title. But she had her mind—sharpened by years of secret study, of stolen books, of whispered conversations with servants who owed her small favors.
And she had Theodore.
---
Theodore
Theodore at nineteen was no longer the shy, earnest boy who had left chestnuts on her desk and honey-cakes in her palm.
He had grown into a young man of quiet strength—broad-shouldered from years of sword practice, with unruly brown hair that fell across his forehead and kind eyes the color of autumn leaves. He was not as handsome as Edwin, whose cold beauty could stop conversations. Theodore's appeal was gentler, warmer, the face of someone you trusted before you knew why.
He found her in the library, as he always did.
She was curled in the window seat, a heavy tome open on her lap, her finger tracing lines of ancient text. The afternoon light caught the gold in her skin, the blue-black shine of her hair, and Theodore stopped in the doorway, his breath catching in his throat.
Stop, he told himself. She is your brother's betrothed. She is forbidden. She is—
She looked up, and her face broke into a smile—a real smile, the kind she gave only to him.
"Theodore. You're late."
He crossed the room, settling onto the window seat across from her, their knees almost touching. "I was waylaid by Cassian. He wanted help composing a poem for some merchant's daughter."
"Cassian? Poetry?" Ariyana's eyebrow arched. "That should be interesting. Does he know what rhymes with 'inflation'?"
Theodore laughed—a warm, unguarded sound that made something flutter in Ariyana's chest. She had learned to recognize that flutter over the years, to name it, to push it down into the place where impossible things lived.
He is a prince. You are a ward. His brother's promised bride. Nothing can ever come of this.
But the flutter remained.
"What are you reading?" he asked, nodding at the book.
"A history of the Eastern kingdoms," she said. "There's a section on Aurelia. I thought…" She hesitated, then shrugged. "I thought I might find something useful."
Theodore knew about the pendant. She had told him two years ago, on a moonlit night in the gardens, when the weight of the secret had become too heavy to carry alone. He had listened without judgment, without disbelief, and he had never repeated a word to anyone.
"Find anything?"
"Not yet. But the mountains are mentioned. And the silver rivers. It's a start."
They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, the only sounds the crackle of the fire and the distant murmur of the palace. Theodore watched her—the way her brow furrowed when she read, the way she bit her lower lip in concentration, the way the fading light caught the curve of her cheek.
He loved her.
He had tried not to. He had told himself it was wrong, that she was bound to Edwin, that his feelings would only bring them both pain. He had thrown himself into his duties, his training, his studies—anything to distract himself from the image of her face.
But love, he had learned, was not a reasonable thing. It did not respond to logic or duty or good intentions. It simply was.
And Theodore loved Ariyana. Completely. Irrevocably. Against every law of gods and men.
"Are you all right?" she asked, looking up. "You're staring."
"Just thinking," he said softly. "You've changed, Ari. Since you first came here. You're not afraid anymore."
"I'm always afraid," she said, and her honesty was a gift she gave only to him. "I've just learned not to show it."
"Show me," he said. "When you're afraid. When you're sad. When you need someone to lean on. Show me, Ari. I won't ever turn away."
Her eyes glistened, just for a moment, before she blinked the tears away. "You're too good to me, Theodore."
"Impossible," he said. "You deserve everything good. And I intend to see that you get it. Somehow."
He did not say even if it's not from me. He did not have to. The words hung between them, unspoken and undeniable.
---
Edwin
Edwin Magnus, now twenty-Seven, had become everything a crown prince should be: tall, commanding, politically astute, and utterly remote.
He avoided Ariyana with the precision of a general conducting a strategic withdrawal.
It was not difficult. The palace was vast, and their paths crossed only when court functions demanded it—a state dinner, a winter ball, a formal reception for foreign dignitaries. On those occasions, Edwin would nod curtly in her direction, offer a terse "Lady Ariyana," and move on before she could respond.
He had no intention of marrying her.
The promise his father had made on that bloody battlefield was a relic, a dead man's demand that had no place in the reality of Valerian politics. Edwin needed a wife who brought something to the throne—an alliance with a powerful duchy, a treaty with a neighboring kingdom, an infusion of gold or soldiers or ships.
Ariyana brought nothing. No dowry. No army. No political advantage.
Only her father's ghost, and a king's guilt, and a promise that grew more inconvenient with every passing year.
His father, of course, never spoke of it. King Alden had aged poorly in the seven years since the Battle of the Shattered Plains—his hair gone silver, his shoulders stooped, his attention consumed by rebellions in the northern provinces and trade disputes with the southern city-states. He saw Ariyana perhaps twice a year, at the great festivals, and each time his face would crinkle with a distant, guilty affection.
"How is the child?" he would ask Edwin, as if Ariyana were a potted plant someone had left in his care.
"She is well, Father," Edwin would reply, because it was easier than the truth.
The truth was that Edwin did not think of her at all. Or rather, he tried not to.
But sometimes—in the quiet moments, when the court had retired and the halls were empty—he would remember. The small figure in the frozen garden, screaming her grief into the snow. The way she had looked at him that first day in the Sunroom, her olive-green eyes wide and unafraid. The sound of her voice, clear and steady, reciting passages in languages he did not recognize.
She was not nothing.
But she was not his problem.
He had told himself this so many times that he almost believed it.
---
Cassian and Lily
If Edwin's cruelty was avoidance, his younger siblings' cruelty was active, inventive, and relentless.
Cassian, now twenty-three, had grown into a handsome, lazy man with a sharp tongue and a mean streak he did not bother to hide. He spent his days drinking, gambling, and pursuing married women, and his favorite entertainment was tormenting the girl his brother was supposed to marry.
"Foundling!" he called one afternoon, spotting her crossing the courtyard. "Come here. I have a task for you."
Ariyana stopped. She had learned long ago that running only made it worse.
Cassian sauntered toward her, his boots splashing through a puddle of melted snow. "The Queen needs fresh rushes for the throne room. The supply master is ill. You'll fetch them from the eastern storehouses."
"The eastern storehouses are three miles from here," Ariyana said calmly.
"Then you'd best start walking." Cassian smiled, showing teeth. "Unless you'd prefer to explain to Her Majesty why you refused her command?"
Ariyana inclined her head, turned, and began the long walk. She did not run. She did not cry. She simply walked, her grey wool dress gathering mud at the hem, her hands tucked into her sleeves against the cold.
She had made this walk before. Twice last winter. Once the winter before.
It was always the same: a fabricated errand, a long journey, a cold reception when she returned with the requested item, and no acknowledgment that she had done anything at all.
Lily's torments were more personal.
The princess, now twenty-one, had bloomed into a woman of striking beauty—golden hair, porcelain skin, a figure that poets had written odes to. But her beauty was a weapon, and she wielded it with surgical precision.
"Is that the dress you wore last week?" Lily asked one morning, finding Ariyana in the breakfast room. "How charmingly… economical. Tell me, do you have more than one?"
"I have three," Ariyana said, spreading honey on a piece of bread. "This is my favorite."
Lily's smile sharpened. "It must be so difficult, being you. No family. No prospects. No hope of anything except my brother's reluctant charity." She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. "He doesn't want you, you know. Edwin. He's made that very clear. You're an embarrassment to him. A joke. The foundling the crown prince is supposed to marry, like some peasant in a fairy tale."
Ariyana took a bite of her bread. Chewed. Swallowed.
"Thank you for your concern, Your Highness," she said. "I'll treasure your insights."
Lily's eyes flashed with frustration. No matter what she said, no matter how sharp the barb, Ariyana never broke. She never cried, never begged, never gave Lily the satisfaction of seeing her bleed.
It was infuriating.
And secretly, privately, Lily respected her for it. Not that she would ever admit it.
---
The Breaking Point
It happened on a rainy afternoon in autumn, three months after Ariyana's fifteenth birthday.
The torments had been worse than usual. Cassian had sent her on three pointless errands in a single day, each one longer and more humiliating than the last. Lily had "accidentally" spilled a goblet of wine down the front of Ariyana's only decent gown during a formal dinner, forcing her to retreat to her room while the court tittered behind their hands.
And Edwin—Edwin had watched it all from his place at the high table, his face expressionless, and done nothing.
That night, alone in her small room, Ariyana sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the wall.
I cannot do this anymore.
The thought came unbidden, unwanted, but once it had arrived, it would not leave.
She thought of her mother, dying in that whitewashed villa, her last words a warning and a plea. Be strong, my star. Be clever. Be patient.
But patience had its limits. Strength had its costs. And she was so tired. So very, very tired.
She pulled the sunburst pendant from beneath her nightgown, holding it in her palm. The sapphire glinted in the candlelight, a tiny piece of sky.
What would you have me do, Mama? How much longer must I endure?
There was no answer. There never was.
A soft knock at the door made her look up.
"Ari?" Theodore's voice, low and worried. "Are you awake?"
She wiped her eyes—when had she started crying?—and crossed the room to open the door.
He stood in the corridor, his hair damp from the rain, his cloak dripping onto the stone floor. In his hands was a small bundle, wrapped in cloth.
"I heard about dinner," he said. "Lily's little accident. I thought you might be…" He trailed off, his eyes searching her face. "Ari. You've been crying."
"I'm fine."
"You're not." He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. The room was small, barely large enough for the bed and the wardrobe and the single chair by the window. With Theodore inside, it felt even smaller. More intimate.
He set the bundle on her bed and unwrapped it. Inside was a dress—deep green velvet, simple but elegant, clearly made for her.
"I had the seamstress in the village make it," he said, almost shyly. "I know you can't wear the Queen's colors, and I know Lily's castoffs are an insult. This is yours. No one else's."
Ariyana stared at the dress, then at Theodore, then back at the dress.
"Why?" she whispered.
"Because you deserve beautiful things," he said simply. "Because no one else will give them to you. Because I—" He stopped, his jaw tightening.
"Because you what?"
He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that you know you're not alone. Not while I'm here."
The tears she had been holding back finally spilled over. She did not try to stop them. She crossed the small space between them and pressed her face against his chest, her fists clutching his cloak.
Theodore wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, one hand cradling the back of her head.
"I can't stay here," she whispered against his shirt. "I can't do this anymore, Theodore. Every day, they find new ways to hurt me. And Edwin—he doesn't care. He's made it so clear that he doesn't care. I'm nothing to him. Less than nothing."
Theodore's arms tightened around her. "You are not nothing. You are the strongest person I have ever known. And if you want to leave—"
"I can't leave," she said bitterly. "The promise. The oath. It binds me here as surely as chains. If I run, they'll bring me back. And it will be worse."
He pulled back slightly, cupping her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away her tears. "Then we find another way. We wait. We plan. And when the time is right, we—"
"What?" she asked. "What can we possibly do, Theodore? You're a prince, but you're not the crown prince. You have no power. I have less than none. We're trapped."
He looked at her—really looked at her—and something shifted in his expression. Something that made her breath catch and her heart stutter.
"Ari," he said softly. "There is something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you a long time ago."
"What is it?"
He took a breath, his thumbs still resting against her cheeks. "I—"
A sharp knock made them both jump apart.
The door swung open before either could react. Queen Clara stood in the threshold, her eyes moving from Theodore's flushed face to Ariyana's tear-streaked cheeks to the green velvet dress spread across the bed.
Her smile was thin and cold.
"Prince Theodore," she said silkily. "How touching. Visiting the foundling in her chambers. At this hour. Alone."
"Theodore was just leaving," Ariyana said, her voice steady despite her racing heart.
"Yes," Clara agreed. "He was." Her gaze fixed on Theodore with icy command. "You would not want to give anyone the wrong impression, would you? About the nature of your… friendship."
Theodore's hands curled into fists at his sides. For a moment, Ariyana thought he might defy her—might say something that could not be unsaid.
But he was not crown prince. He had no authority here. And Clara knew it.
"I was just leaving," he said through gritted teeth. He looked at Ariyana, his eyes blazing with things he could not say. "Goodnight, Ari. We'll talk tomorrow."
He walked past Clara without another word, his shoulders rigid, his footsteps echoing down the corridor.
Clara remained in the doorway, studying Ariyana with an expression that was part amusement, part warning.
"You would do well to remember your place, child," the Queen said softly. "You are promised to Edwin. Not Theodore. Whatever… feelings… may be developing, they can lead nowhere. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly," Ariyana said.
Clara's smile widened, and for just a moment, Ariyana saw something in her eyes that chilled her to the bone.
She knows, Ariyana thought. She knows about Theodore's feelings. And she will use it against us.
"Good," Clara said. "Then we understand each other."
She closed the door, and the lock clicked into place.
Ariyana stood alone in her small room, the green velvet dress glowing like a promise in the dim light.
We're trapped, she had said.
But perhaps—just perhaps—there was a way out after all.
She just had to be patient. She just had to be clever. She just had to survive long enough to find it.
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