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CHAPTER THREE ; O, Master of Anger
Dear Mother,
I was foolish, I blundered towards the night, and now I am lost.
I fear I may never find the light. I am destined to spend my life fumbling in the darkness ─ I will never belong again. I fear I may never see the sun rise. I am subjected to a life of turning away at the last moment, ignoring the sound of the wavering light on the horizon calling me home.
I am a foolish girl. I am silly and a dreamer and because of that I love my mother in spite of everything. I ache for your arms around me, the warmth of your embrace. It was a war, our life together. But sometimes there were good times. Love was good. I spent our years wishing I only knew how to love you better.
There should be ballads written for lives like ours. There ought to be something to commemorate the pain.
Someday, one of us will forget this.
Until then, Mother, I wish you well.
I wish you happiness and a life without pain. I wish you warm winters and sunrises. I wish you the soothing safety of a dream. I wish you companions who treat you kinder than you have treated me. I loved you once, remember?
Maybe today, on the morning of my wedding, hurt and sentimental, I am willing to admit that some crazed part of me loves you still.
── Your daughter, Carys.
»»————- ★ ————-««
There was no time to make her a real dress. Something she was worthy of. Carys felt spiteful for it, as she stared at the gown and felt disdain for the simplicity of it. She was a Vasseton; she wore moonstones and pearls and diamonds carved into the four-pointed star of her house. This was an insult. But she was not to complain, and she knew by now that at times it was better to not say anything at all.
Elys came to wake her before dawn, but Carys was already awake beside the crackling fireplace, staring at the mural on the wall and cradling her sleeping puppy in her lap. His fine, silvery fur draped across her hands, and he made little whimpering noises and kicked in his sleep. Carys loved him more with every moment, although she'd only had him for a night. He was one little flash of something good, and she struggled to surrender him to one of her bedmaids when she was whisked away to be prepared.
Elys, and additionally more serving girls than Carys had ever seen in one place before, lined her tub with linen and filled it with steaming water and scrubbed her skin and washed her hair and trimmed her nails. Others bustled about, laying out her jewelry and fixing a wrinkle in the sleeve of her dress, with much comment about how fine everything is, and how lucky you are. Seeing Carys's strained expression, Elys shooed them all from the room, and she washed Carys's hair on her own. Carys felt like a lamb being cleaned and brushed before having its throat cut.
