Daeron wanted to be better for her so badly. He wanted to be a good husband, to fulfill her every wish but this one thing he could not do. Auriel was too good to be burdened with his weakness. This wasn't a love marriage and wasn't she supposed to be free with him? Not burdened with his troubles.

His eyes followed her as she crossed the room. She didn't even look at him...

When she had settled under the covers on her side of the bed, he wanted nothing more than to crawl under the blankets with her to hold her and be held in return. What a silly thought.

This is wasn't a love marriage he told himself over and over again in his head. Why was he feeling these things for her then?

Daeron lay back on the covers staring at the canopy in the dim light of the candle on his nightstand. Maybe it was just a silly little crush because of their wedding night. Part of him knew very well though that wasn't true. He had known her for so long, knew her better than most people and if he liked her it was because she was strong and smart and incredibly beautiful.

But when she called him cousin just then it was like a kick in the stomach. Was that all they were? Cousins in a marriage of convenience?

All these thoughts ran riot in his mind while he waited. Waited until her breath came deep and regularly in the heavy silence of the room. Waited until he thought she was finally asleep.

Daeron couldn't take it anymore. He got out of bed, careful not to make a noise and snuck out of the room. When the door closed behind him, he released a heavy sigh. Seven help him, he needed a drink to stay awake. And drink he did. More than usual. He had cut down on the wine since the marriage ceremony but tonight? No. He needed this he told himself. DReaming wasn't an option.

That night he drank his troubles away. Hoping to numb the dreams. To numb the pain in his chest that were her words. Cousin. He was her husband. She was his wife. And he was helplessly falling for her.

Pretending she was happy when she was not. Pretending to care about conversations that bored her senseless. Pretending to be dutiful, pleasant, composed, whatever was required of her in a given moment. She had worn so many masks for so many years that, on her worst nights, she found herself staring into the darkness and wondering whether there was anything real beneath them at all. Was she cruel? Was she kind? Was she truly a wife now or merely another silent figure haunting the corridors of Summerhall?

Perhaps it was that same talent for deception that allowed her to feign sleep so convincingly. Her breathing remained slow and even despite the anxiety twisting in her chest, her body perfectly still beneath the blankets while her mind refused to quiet. It was in the middle of these racing thoughts when she felt Daeron rise from their bed. Feeling the mattress shift beneath his weight, she listened as he crossed the chamber and eased the door shut behind him with painstaking care, only moving once she heard that telltale click.

Rolling onto her back, she stared up at the canopy overhead, her eyes wide open as candlelight flickered against the carved wood. Time seemed to lose all meaning. Perhaps he had waited minutes before slipping away. Perhaps an hour. She did not know, nor did she know how long she remained there, trapped in her thoughts.

It was a heavy, insistent pounding upon the chamber door that finally shattered the silence.

With a weary sigh, Auriel pushed herself upright and slipped a dark red robe over her nightdress before crossing the room. Yet what greeted her on the other side was entirely unexpected. A servant girl—one whose name escaped her at the moment—and a guard stood in the corridor, holding the limp weight of her husband in his arms. Daeron was thoroughly insensible with a wineskin still dangling from his hand, deep purple staining his lips, his chin, and the front of his tunic as his head lolled forward, completely unconscious.

"Your Highness—" the servant began and Auriel simply shook her head. The explanation was unnecessary.

So that was why he had left. Not for fresh air. Not for a walk through the gardens. Not because sleep had eluded him. He had left because he needed to drink himself unconscious rather than remain in the same bed as her. The realization settled heavily in her chest and well, it hurt….but only a little. At least, that was what she told herself.

"Just...bring him to bed, please."

The exhaustion in her voice surprised even her. Stepping aside, she allowed them into the chamber before retreating to the mattress. She climbed beneath the covers once more and sat quietly while the guard maneuvered Daeron into bed. Once he was settled, she thanked them both and dismissed them with a small wave of her hand. The door clicked shut behind them and finally silence returned.

Not the uncle he had expected her to learn from, but his surprise was quickly forgotten as she launched into the song, a look of horror dawning on his face. 

Oh, that fucking bastard, he was going to throttle him.

“Um...”

Her father's question tugged her focus back, and she scrunched up her face in concentration. For a whole moment, she tried very hard to think about the answer instead of the much more exciting images already forming in her head. Of pirates, tall ships, sea monsters, and Barnacle Bill sailing off on grand adventures.

“A sailor visiting his sister?” she guessed at last. The thought lasted all of three seconds before her eyes lit up with a fresh spark of excitement.

“I want to play pirates!” she declared, bouncing so enthusiastically she nearly launched herself right out of his arms. “Will you play pirates with me? We can get Uncle Jorah and Val to play too! Please, please, please?”

Her hands clasped together beneath her chin as she looked up at him with wide, hopeful eyes.

“I can be the captain! Or the sea monster! Or a dragon! Dragons can live in the sea too, I think.” Her words tumbled out faster and faster as each new idea appeared. “And Uncle Jorah can have a ship, and Val can have a sword, and we can find treasure and fight pirates and—”

She stopped abruptly, gasping with the most fantastical thought.

but what scares me the most is, what if when he sees me, what if he doesn’t like it? what if he runs the other way and I can’t hide from it?  what happens then, if when he knows me, he’s only disappointed? what if i give myself away, to only get it given back? i couldn’t live with that… 

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“You still have to find one to marry, princess,”

Her words are sympathetic but Shaenora would admit if pressed that she doesn’t truly know how the other girl feels. Her own prospects are far more complicated than that of a sought after princess. Shaenora could be a high lord’s mistress but never his wife, not with a delicate station such as hers. It doesn’t stop men from offering, old and young who know her mother is far out of their grasp but would settle for her quieter but no less beautiful daughter of an even lower station.

Still, she offers a hand, giving Aure’s a soft squeeze, in some ways she’s more free than the other girl. In spite of her royal blood Shaenora doesn’t live under the specter of making herself a fine marriage. Shiera made certain of that, refusing to name a father or marry any of those who might have some claim to stake for it, peeling even the veneer of respectability from her daughter’s parentage.

The bastard’s bastard might be upset, if she wished to wed but Shaenora is content as she lives now, handmaiden to a princess and occasionally pulled into her mother’s more dramatic moments at court. It’s a mostly peaceful life, despite everything and there’s little she would give it up for but—

but perhaps Aure is one of those things,

Auriel returned the squeeze of her cousin's hand, a deep sigh escaping her as her gaze drifted toward the floor. Shaenora had always been steadfast; a loyal friend long before she became her handmaiden. Yet even in her most selfish moments, Auriel could not bring herself to ask her to abandon everything she had ever known. She could not ask her to leave behind the life her mother had worked so tirelessly to secure at court. She could not ask her to part from her family, her comforts, her future, all for the sake of easing the fears of a spoiled princess destined to be packed off and married to some wealthy lordling.

Still, she could not stop how the thought made her stomach twist beneath the confines of her bodice, the familiar sting of tears starting to gather at the corners of her violet eyes. She blinked them away before they could fall, drawing a slow breath through her nose.