A Dove's Tale

Chapter 143

"Spring."

I shifted my cheek on Chevalier's shoulder to look up at him. "Spring?" I repeated.

He brushed my hair back behind my ear and nodded. "Our wedding."

"Spring?" I said again in disbelief, pulling back from him to sit on my knees. His arm remained looped comfortably around my waist. "Isn't that a long time?"

"You're terrified of becoming queen, Ivetta," he said gently.

I stared at his steady blue eyes for a moment, wanting to refute that, but the sinking feeling in my stomach said he was right. He pulled me closer as I dropped my eyes to my fingers, clenching in my skirt.

"I thought I was just scared of the honeymoon," I muttered.

He sighed and wrapped me in a warm embrace, resting his cheek on top of my head. "I pushed for the coronation ceremony and the engagement ceremony to happen as soon as possible because I wanted no barriers to keeping you here with me, and I knew you could and would do whatever was required of you without complaint. And you handled everything the same way you've always handled any job, meaning you pushed down your wants and needs to do what I wanted. So now, I'm doing what you need. Sariel has orders to reduce your workload and plan our wedding for eight months from now at the earliest, and I can extend that if necessary."

The butterflies stirred in my stomach and swirled up and around my heart. I looked up at him and smiled. "Well, I kind of wanted to stay, too, so don't talk like you did something wrong."

He smiled, too, and leaned in for a short, sweet kiss. I hugged him back and nuzzled into his chest, happy to just sit here on the sofa, cuddling. And not crying. I wouldn't cry anymore. I'd done enough of that today.

"Why spring?" I asked after a while.

He didn't answer immediately. His fingers threaded through my hair, trailing down my back, and then he said, "It's more likely to rain in the spring."

So much for not crying anymore.

I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face in his chest, trying—and failing—to hold the tears back. I'd cried too many times today. When I woke up and saw the portrait first thing in the morning; when I thanked Gilbert for the portrait; and, as I'd predicted, when Chevalier and I returned to my room and I saw it again. And now, he had to say something sweet like that. Spring. Just because I'd told him a fond memory about Mother saying rain on a wedding day was a blessing. And after I'd just finished crying about the book. The random book I'd pulled from a shelf in his library, which happened to be a book I'd picked out for him at the Rhodolite Foundation Day festival when I was just his maid. He'd simply opened the front cover, and the moment I saw the inscription written in a neat, elegant script I knew so well from my father's journal, I'd broken down all over again, and then he translated it for me.

To Evelyn, my love and my queen.
May these few verses keep you warm during the nights when we cannot be together.
From your devoted husband and king, Arvon.

It was a book of poetry from Garnet, a gift from my father to my mother, lost in Obsidian's invasion and somehow ending up in the hands of a rare book dealer who happened to bring it to his annual stall at the Foundation Day festival the one year I attended with Chevalier, as if the book wanted me to find it. Chevalier would have bought it if he'd seen it a previous year. I wouldn't have even glanced at it if I hadn't been with Chevalier. And with Chevalier's memory, seeing that inscription once was all he needed to immediately recognize my father's handwriting when he saw the journal, further confirming what he'd already guessed about my background.

My heart was raw. I was so emotionally exhausted from the day that I thought I'd have no trouble sleeping that night. But I lay there in bed long after Chevalier left, long after the sunlight faded and the candles had burned out, and sleep wouldn't come. It came for Theresa. I listened to her slow, steady breathing from the other side of the bed, and I stared at the dark ceiling, wondering why I was still awake. I had a splitting headache from all the crying.