I stared, with lugubrious eyes, at the snow-covered wasteland that lay outside the bay-window, my cheeks drenched with misery. When would the reserve of tears finally dry up? I bemoaned this fact with an incongruous laugh, my humor verily ill-placed, but I would lief ponder frivolity as not because the alternative was to deliberate over the pertinent matters that should belabor my mind — like my harsh, new reality.

When would I, once and for all, be easy? There was still too much grief afflicting my eyes and sundering my heart. I brought my hand up to my flattened belly and rested it there tentatively. I did not doubt Godwin's revelations, although he had, for years, been omitting a very significant truth — hiding an abominable secret — that I should have been appraised of afore being bound in eternity to his heir. Try as I might, and I had tried most passionately, I could not heap recriminations on him on the grounds that I unfortunately understood his motives; moreover, he had never lied to me. Not really.

Gradually I had come to realize, with inexorable and stunning clarity, that there was now a babe thriving within me, and perhaps most arresting of all was the fact that I had yet to decide whether or not I despised it or...

No! The thought came to me vehemently, with instant resolve.

I did not hate the child. I could not. I despised not its sire either, despite numerous endeavors to the contrary. To own the truth of it, I no longer knew how I felt about any of Nørrdragor's inmates. I knew only that my dearth of intuition and insight made me all the more lachrymose the longer I considered the conundrum. I longed to liberate myself from these poisonous feelings of disaffection and resentment, but I could not yet find it within my heart to rid myself of the sepsis festering there.

I sat down on a cushioned bench in the oriel window, my vantage point immense, and continued surveying the blizzard raging without. I had cloistered myself within my connubial chamber for the better part of the day; twas already full dark, and supper time besides, but I would not descend to the hall below for my repast. If they wished me to eat, then I would do so here in the solitude I now craved. Howbeit, no one had as yet disturbed me here, not even Anne, and I welcomed it as good fortune. I was not ready yet to face Lucian and perchance he understood this for he stayed away.

I had rushed from Godwin's solar earlier this morning and thence directly to my chamber, neither Lucian nor his father stopping me as I fled. As soon as he had uttered those immutable words, my legs had carried me away without conscious thought from their master — I had been numb and mindless with shock.

"You are already with child." His voice still echoed through my memory, a foreboding and resolute impression.

A noise at the casement drew me from my dour reverie and I sat up and blinked as a large, dark raven tapped impertinently at the window. Two thoughts struck me at once as I reached for the handle to shoo the nervy pest away: the first being that the poor creature was most absurd to be out in this snowy tempest, at this late hour to boot. Secondly, I tried to imagine why it now demanded entrance all the way up here at my window — where the worst of the wind battered the castle walls.

Like as not it had been swept up by a violent gust and carried hither where it spied the effulgence of my fire's glow in the bleak wintery night, and swooped down to seek refuge. No sooner had I opened the window a crack than the little badgerer swiftly hopped onto my lap and cocked its head to aim a glittering, dark eye at me. I was so stunned by it's effrontery that I allowed it to stay where it now perched while the window, which still lay open, admitted the chorus of the night's foul temper, the howling of the gale now resonant and deep without the barrier to muffle it's turbulence.

"How now, master Crow!" I rested my hands in my lap beside it, but it seemed unfazed by my movement. "Whence have you come this night and to what purpose, you mad thing!" It said naught and continued studying my face.

We sat thus, each contemplating the other, until finally the raven hopped toward my left hand and pecked at my garnet arm-ring; my family heirloom.

"Do you like it? Well, you may not have it you little thief!" I laughed, my skin cracking under the saltiness of my nearly-dry cheeks.

The raven cocked its head again. My visitor, cheerful despite the miserable weather, had diverted me entirely and I giggled as it nibbled again at the red gem with gentle affection. What an odd creature.

The fire's efforts were becoming rapidly effete as the cold poured in sharply through the window. I shivered and reluctantly coaxed the bird onto my finger so that I might help it to the casement and urge it home, but a strange idea occurred to me suddenly.

"Are you perhaps the same raven that tried to warn me away from the maze all those months ago?"

The raven squawked it's coarse response, but I flattered myself that I could indeed understand the bird and that it was, in sooth, a sensible conversationalist.

"Yes?"

The raven answered again and in such a way that I could not mistake its meaning.

"Would that I had listened to you then, master crow." It cawed pitifully and I nodded my understanding. "I thank you for your efforts, vain though they were. I am myself unfortunately a curious bird," I sighed sadly, "to my own detriment, t'would seem."

The bird nudged again at my armband, perched conveniently as it was on the hand that bore the jewelry in question.

"Yes. It was my mother's," I explained.

The raven squawked excitedly and I frowned.

"Why do you bellow at me thus? I am hardly deaf and can hear you all the better if you will just lower your voice!" I searched the room behind me, lest anyone see me talking to a bird! 'Twas only lunatics and witches that communed as I was doing now. "What are you trying to say?"

The raven hopped directly onto my wrist and curled a claw over my mother's arm-ring.

"You have an unhealthy obsession with this piece, master crow."

It stared mutely at me, almost beseechingly, with its steady look. What a strange little fellow, I thought again.

When the door opened behind me, I froze, but my gaze remained fixed on the raven. I did not need to see who had entered. I knew. Were I in the hall and surrounded by people, the weight of his glance would have wielded the same power as it did in this quiet moment. I knew Lucian was in the chamber with me the same way that the ocean felt the pull of the moon; a sanguine hue quickly infused my skin and I became instantly warmed, notwithstanding the frigid air still sluicing in through the window. With a final lusty squawk, the raven shot off my hand and disappeared into the night.

"Coward," I muttered quietly under my breath, watching the darkness swallow the bird.

The next instant, a sinewy arm materialized in front of me and gently closed the window as I stared myopically into the night whence my visitor had gone. I watched Lucian's long, golden fingers as they turned the latch, but still I did not look around at him even when his hand moved out of view. I could feel his warmth yet radiating at my back, the hairs at my nape reaching desperately toward him. Neither of us moved or spoke for an interminable age. After some time, he did finally break the silence.

"You have not eaten," he murmured into the hush. I shook my head, still unwilling and not yet ready to speak to him. After a sigh, he said, "You have more than just yourself to care for now-"

"I know, Lucian!" I growled at the window.

"As to that, I cannot excuse the way my father chose to disclose your condition. It was poorly done, Aria, and for that I apologize." He lay a hand atop my shoulder and I stiffened further till finally he removed it. "I know I have much to atone for. Tell me what I might do to set things right?"

"Can you bring Thomas back from the dead?" I replied scathingly. I was not yet willing to retire the devil from my tongue. In the meantime, my angel of logic shook her head sadly from the depths where I had buried her.

"I am sorry you feel Thomas' loss so keenly, Aria." He came around to seat himself next to me by the window so that I was forced to look into his earnest visage. "But I am not sorry that he can no longer plague you with his dubious friendship." My mouth compressed into a moue of disgust. "No, listen to me, Aria," he grabbed my cold fingers, taking it into his warmth. He seemed wholly unperturbed by my cold response as I allowed my hand to lie frigid and lax within his. "A man does not care for a woman if he is of a mind to take by force that which she is unwilling to offer! Moreover, he is less of a man for subjecting her to violence-"

"And what of you!" I pulled my hand from him, curling my fists defensively. "Have you not also subjected me to violence?" I asked cruelly.

I knew I was being arbitrary and yet that shameful devil still rode me; I seemed powerless to stop it. I could also feel that damnable lump rising up to still my accusations. Though I loathed the words that were spilling unchecked from my lips — I wanted, in fact, to retract each thorny utterance — the desire to bring him pain was the greater driving force of the two opposing needs, and so I did naught to check myself because I too felt its keen intensity — that corrosive, deleterious pain. My misery craved his; and I hated myself for it.

"Was not that your curiosity that lead you thence? Into danger," he reasoned.

I expected to see a mask of fury envelope his calm features. But there was no fell emotion contorting his countenance. On the contrary, he seemed ready to bear the worst of my ire with infuriating forbearance; and I, inimically, undertook only to educe the sight of his monstrous twin with my asperity. I longed to watch it burst from the confines of his self-restraint and devour me — such were my morbid desires. Instead he snatched my unyielding hand from me and refused to release it back into my custody.

"Did I not warn you away, Aria?" His gaze was intense and I ceased my struggle as if, by staring into his golden depths, he were somehow hypnotizing me to quietude.

Had a man ever stared at a woman thus? With such burning intensity. His fire blazed keenly beneath his thick brows and I felt again that all-consuming emotion, that I had been fighting since awakening in the maze, welling and unfolding within the cavity of my desolate chest:

I love him still! I thought with dread.

The realization slammed into me as powerfully as the gale that had swept the raven hither. The resounding force cracked my hardened facade and my lip trembled as Lucian watched and waited patiently for my response to his question.

"Yes," I acquiesced softly.

"I told you, when I found you outside Niflheim, that I would rather die than hurt you, Aria. Do you believe me?" I gave a curt nod of my head. "Have I destroyed your trust in me completely? Am I now beyond redemption?" he asked in a fearful whisper.

Lucian, who seemed always so inscrutable or fierce, now beheld me with something akin to dread. Anne had told me that I held his heart in my hands, but I had scoffed at her this morning. I saw now that she was in earnest; it was quite clear to me that it was indeed in my power to destroy him. I returned his piercing gaze and studied what he willingly unveiled to me.

He was exposing himself in a sense and allowing me to see, as he never had before, what was within his heart. There was such a look of devotion that it staggered me quite. Through all the secrets and half truths, he had never really lied — it was beneath him, I think. He had cautioned me all this time to have patience. He had never tried to hurt me, though it was in his power to do so, and he rarely revealed what he was feeling, although he stared at me now with such vulnerability that I could not possibly cut him without drawing my own blood. I had irrevocably tied myself to him without realizing it.

My Lucian, I mused sadly.

I reached the uncertain fingers of my left hand, the right still in his custody, slowly towards him and paused a hairbreadth from touching his cheek. Even so, I could still feel the powerful heat he shed, though I made no contact. I could not yet touch him for something had precluded my compulsion: a loathsome voice that whispered to me from the dark.

But he is no longer your Lucian, is he? said the voice smugly. No, he is not. I doubted now whether I ever truly knew him at all. So it was, after an eternity of frozen indecision, that I withdrew my hand. I could not bring myself to forgive him yet; if ever.

"I do not know, Lucian. I am not even sure I know who you are," I replied finally, my voice drained of passion.

Then I stood abruptly and moved away from him to stand by the fire, albeit not before seeing the impenetrable mask slip once more over his features. I was certain now that there would not be any more overtures from Lucian and that thought struck more horror in my breast than any Valdyr could ever awaken.

What am I doing?! But 'twas too late — the wounds had been dealt.

If I was truly being honest with myself, I felt no satisfaction for having just made Lucian feel what I had been forced to endure as a child — as nothing more than a grotesque aberration. How Ironic that I should become no better than my childhood oppressors. Yet I could not go after him. I was still afeared of Lucian; and of myself. What was to become of me!





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