Chapter Thirteen: The Breaking of Trust
The letter arrived on a grey morning, carried by a messenger who would not meet her eyes.
Ariyana knew something was wrong before she broke the seal. The parchment was different—cheaper, rougher than Theodore's usual stock. The handwriting, when she unfolded it, was rushed. Almost careless.
Dear Ariyana,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am happy here, truly. The north has been good to me—clearer skies, simpler people, a life unburdened by the games of court.
I have come to realize, in my time away, that some things cannot be forced. What I felt for you—what I thought I felt—was real, in its way. But feelings change. People change.
I hope you would be happy too. After spending time here, my mind has cleared. You are meant to be with Edwin. It is your fate, the promise your father made, the path the gods have set before you.
I cannot fight for you anymore.
I have found someone here. Her name is Lysa. She is kind, and simple, and she makes me laugh in ways I had forgotten I could. She knows nothing of crowns or thrones or the weight of oaths. She is just… good. And I think that is what I need. What I have always needed.
Marry Edwin. Be happy. Or if not happy, then content. It is more than most people get.
Forgive me.
Theodore
---
Ariyana read the letter once.
Then again.
Then a third time, her eyes tracing each word as if the meaning might change if she looked at it differently.
It did not.
She sat on the edge of her bed, the parchment trembling in her hands. The room was cold—it was always cold, no matter how many coals the servants brought—but she felt nothing. The chill had seeped into her bones years ago, and this new frost was just more of the same.
He changed his mind.
He found someone else.
He left me.
The words circled in her head like carrion birds, pecking at the edges of her sanity. She had trusted him. She had let herself believe—for the first time since her mother's death—that someone in this world was good. That someone would stay.
He made me believe in love.
And now this.
The parchment crumpled in her fist. She threw it across the room, where it bounced off the stone wall and landed in the cold hearth. The fire had been out for hours. No one had come to relight it.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to cry.
She wanted to find Theodore—ride north, track him to this academy, and demand to see this Lysa with her own eyes. She wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled and ask him how he could promise forever and then take it back with a few careless sentences on cheap parchment.
But she did none of those things.
She sat on her bed, in her cold room, and stared at the wall.
And for the first time in two years, she let the darkness in.
---
The Descent
The days that followed blurred together—grey and shapeless, like the winter sky outside her window.
Ariyana stopped eating. The food appeared on her tray each morning and evening, and she let it grow cold, then hard, then moldy, before the servants took it away. She stopped brushing her hair, stopped changing her dress, stopped leaving her room except when commanded.
The servants whispered. The courtiers speculated. Queen Clara sent a healer to check on her—a perfunctory gesture, performed for appearance's sake—but Ariyana refused to see him.
Let them talk, she thought. Let them whisper. What does it matter? Nothing matters.
Theodore's betrayal had cracked something inside her—something she had not known was fragile. She had survived her father's death. Her mother's death. Nine years of Clara's subtle cruelties, Cassian's mockery, Lily's sharp tongue. She had endured because she believed—believed—that someone in this world loved her.
Now that belief was gone.
And without it, she was hollow.
I hate this kingdom, she thought, lying in her narrow bed, staring at the ceiling. I hate this palace. I hate every stone, every tapestry, every painted face in every portrait.
I hate Edwin for never wanting me.
I hate Theodore for pretending that he did.
I hate Clara for her smiling cruelty, and Cassian for his lazy malice, and Lily for her perfect, unearned confidence.
I hate the King for making a promise he could not keep.
I hate my father for dying.
I hate my mother for leaving me alone.
I hate myself for believing.
The tears came then—hot and silent, soaking her pillow, streaming down her cheeks until there was nothing left but dry, heaving sobs that shook her whole body.
She cried until she fell asleep.
And when she woke, nothing had changed.
---
The Confrontation
On the seventh day, Ariyana rose.
She bathed in cold water, scrubbing her skin until it was red and raw. She brushed the tangles from her hair, braided it neatly down her back. She put on her best dress—the green velvet Theodore had given her, years ago—because she would not let them see her broken.
She had one card left to play.
And she would play it now.
---
The King's solar was warm, the fire crackling merrily in the hearth. King Alden sat in his high-backed chair, a stack of documents on the table beside him, a cup of mulled wine steaming at his elbow.
He looked up when Ariyana entered, his tired eyes widening slightly. "Lady Ariyana. This is unexpected."
"I need to speak with you, Your Highness."
He gestured to the chair across from him. "Sit. Please."
She did not sit.
She stood in the center of the room, her hands clasped before her, her spine straight, her chin lifted. She had rehearsed this speech a hundred times in the darkness of her room, and she would not falter now.
"Your Highness," she began, her voice steady despite the trembling in her chest. "I want to say something. And I ask that you hear me out before you respond."
The King frowned, but nodded.
"I do not want to marry any of your sons." The words came out clear and sharp, like glass breaking. "I do not want your promises, your protection, or your charity. I want nothing from this family except one thing."
She drew a breath.
"I want you to release me from the oath my father made you swear."
The King's face went pale. "Ariyana—"
"Please." Her voice cracked, just once. "Let me go. I will go to a village—any village, I do not care which. I will find work. I will marry a farmer, a blacksmith, a shepherd. I will live a simple life, far from palaces and politics and the weight of oaths I never made."
She took a step closer, her olive-green eyes bright with unshed tears.
"But I cannot bear this humiliation any longer, Your Highness. I cannot spend another day in this palace, surrounded by people who see me as a burden, a joke, a charity case. I cannot watch your sons look at me with pity or disdain or—" Her voice broke. "Or pretend to love me and then take it back."
The King rose from his chair, his hands reaching toward her. "Ariyana, I did not know—"
"You did not want to know." She stepped back, out of his reach. "You have spent nine years not knowing, Your Highness. Not seeing. Not asking. You made a promise to a dying man, and you have kept it in the smallest, most technical way possible. I have a roof over my head. I have food on my table. I am not beaten or starved or thrown into the streets."
She swallowed hard.
"But I am broken. And I cannot stay here any longer. Please. Let me go."
---
The Queen's Intervention
The door opened before the King could respond.
Queen Clara glided into the solar, her silk gown whispering against the stone floor, her face a mask of concern. Behind her, unnoticed by either the King or Ariyana, a servant slipped away—sent to deliver news of Ariyana's audience to Clara before it had even begun.
"My love," Clara said, crossing to the King's side. "I heard raised voices. Is everything all right?"
"Ariyana wishes to be released from the oath," the King said heavily.
Clara's eyes widened—the perfect picture of shocked sympathy. "Released? Oh, my dear child." She turned to Ariyana, her hand pressed to her heart. "I understand your pain. Truly, I do. The years have been hard for you. Harder than they should have been."
Ariyana said nothing. She simply watched the Queen's performance, her eyes dry, her face expressionless.
"But you must understand," Clara continued, gliding closer, "that the oath your father extracted from the King cannot be broken. It was sworn on a battlefield, in blood, before the gods. To release you would be to break faith with a dead hero. It would be to dishonor Sir Aric's memory."
"My father would not want this," Ariyana said quietly.
"Your father wanted you protected. He wanted you safe. And you are safe here—"
"I am not safe." Ariyana's voice rose, a crack in her composure. "I have never been safe here. I have been tolerated. Endured. Pushed into corners and forgotten. That is not protection. That is not what he asked for."
Clara's expression hardened, just for a moment—a flicker of cold anger that vanished almost before it appeared.
"You will marry Edwin," the Queen said, her voice soft but unyielding. "As the King promised. As your father requested. It is your destiny, child. Your duty to the man who gave his life for this kingdom."
"Clara—" the King began.
"Do not worry, my love." Clara turned to him, her smile bright and reassuring. "The child is overwrought. Grief does strange things to the mind. She does not know what she is asking."
She crossed to Ariyana, taking the girl's cold hands in her own warm ones. Her touch was gentle, maternal—the touch of a woman comforting a troubled child.
"Do not trouble yourself with these fears," Clara said softly. "We will announce your betrothal to Edwin soon. Properly, publicly. Once it is done, the whispers will stop. The cruelty will end. You will be the Crown Prince's intended, and no one will dare touch you."
Ariyana stared at her.
She is lying, the voice in her head whispered. She does not want you to leave because if you leave, Edwin is free. Free to marry a princess. Free to build alliances. Free to become too powerful for her to control.
She needs you here. Weak. Bound to a man who does not want you. A constant reminder of his father's guilt and his own stalled ambitions.
You are not a person to her. You are a tool.
The King nodded, his expression settling into something almost relieved. "Clara is right. The oath must be honored. But we will do better by you, Ariyana. I swear it. We will announce the betrothal. We will ensure you are treated with the respect you deserve."
Ariyana looked from the King's earnest face to the Queen's smiling mask.
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to tell them both that she would rather die than marry Edwin, that she would rather throw herself from the highest tower than spend her life bound to a man who saw her as an obligation, that she would rather—
But she did none of those things.
Because she had learned, in nine years of survival, when a battle was lost.
"Thank you, Your Majesties," she said, her voice flat. "I am grateful for your… care."
She curtsied—low, formal, empty—and left the solar before either of them could say another word.
---
The Corridor
She made it to the end of the corridor before her legs gave out.
She slumped against the cold stone wall, her forehead pressed against the rough surface, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The tears she had held back in the King's solar flooded her eyes, hot and unstoppable.
Trapped.
Still trapped.
Always trapped.
She had tried. She had asked. She had begged. And still, they would not let her go.
Not because they cared about her. Not because they wanted to honor her father's memory. But because she was useful. A convenient cage for the Crown Prince. A leash to keep him from making powerful alliances.
They will announce the betrothal, she thought bitterly. They will bind me to Edwin in the eyes of gods and men. And then I will spend the rest of my life as a decoration—a wife in name only, ignored and pitied and forgotten.
She pressed her hand against her chest, feeling the sunburst pendant beneath her dress.
I am a princess, she reminded herself. Royal blood. My mother was a queen's daughter. My father was a knight who died for his king.
I am not nothing.
I am not nothing.
I am not nothing.
But the words felt hollow, meaningless, against the weight of her despair.
---
The Announcement
Three days later, the court gathered in the great hall for the announcement.
King Alden stood before the throne, his hand on Edwin's shoulder, his voice booming across the assembled nobles.
"It is my great pleasure," the King declared, "to announce the betrothal of my son, Crown Prince Edwin, to Lady Ariyana, daughter of the late Sir Aric, hero of the Battle of the Shattered Plains."
The applause was polite, measured—the courtiers had expected this for years.
Ariyana stood at Edwin's side, her face composed, her hands clasped before her. She wore a dress of deep blue silk—a gift from the Queen, made specially for this occasion—and her hair had been braided with silver ribbons. She looked every inch a future princess.
She felt nothing.
Edwin stood beside her, his expression unreadable. He did not look at her. Did not touch her. Did not acknowledge her presence at all.
He does not want this any more than I do, she thought.
But he will not fight it.
None of them will fight it.
Except me.
And somewhere deep in her chest, beneath the despair and the grief and the crushing weight of her fate, a tiny flame flickered.
I will find a way out, she promised herself. Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday.
I will be free of this place.
Or I will die trying.
---