Arya

Lady Estelle

✿ Reign

I'm 37 weeks in the pregnancy and I am resting in my own bed in Avallon. I got out of bed knowing I had to finish writing back to people so I did. Oliver came inside our room and stood at a distance.

"I never wanted it to happen this way. Fearing my own father, hating him at the end. I saw the bodies of the men, women, and children that were killed in the fire. Innocent slaughtered. I saw the way that he touched your face."

I looked up at him. "You were at the tournament?"

He looked away, down at the floor to avoid eye contact. "Arya, I know that you said that my Father's death was Gods will."

"Oliver, it was." I stood up from the chair, slowly. "Although some people would question a God who grants us such power, based on nothing but the fortune of our birth. It didn't fair, the privileges we are given." He shook his head. "And the price we must pay for them. I can feel myself changing. And I'm not talking about our baby. Every choice I have made to protect Avallon, Cumbeachaux, Auara, now Port Bay and even you, for all of them there is a reckoning. And it's always the woman who must now to the Queen. I feel like I'm killing a part of myself. But I am ignoring my heart until it becomes blind and deaf. I can feel myself growing harder, and I worry that I...that I'm becoming someone you will not love."

He looked me in the eyes. "Then don't. Don't grow harder, share your burdens," he walked towards me. "Tell me your darkest truths, and I...will tell you mine. So we dont end up married but alone, two people going down separate paths, justifying our sins as acts of survival. If we can forgive each other, perhaps we can forgive ourselves." He held my hand.

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"Arya, there's someone in need of your help. She is with Daisy." Miriam whispered, "they are waiting for you in the wine cellars."

"Gather our men. Post guards on the castle gate. I want her found!" My Uncle, Christian was speaking to his guard. He looked directly at me, "her defiance will be the end of her." He spoke in anger.

"Miriam, is the she you speak of my uncle's wife?" I whispered very low as we began to walk away together.

"Daisy is with her. She has the Lady Estelle in servant clothes. She also has a plan for her to leave."

We rushed into the wine cellar and as I entered the cellar I looked directly at Daisy.

"How could you do this? When I expressly warned you not to? Do you have any idea what kind of danger you put yourself in?"

"I had plans to have Estelle taken out of the castle to some friends in the country. She would've disappeared and no one the wiser."

I groaned. "Well, that's not going to work now, is it? Now that my Uncles guards are crawling all over the castle. You must abandon this course and give her up for both of your sakes."

"No." Daisy shook her head.

"No? Daisy, if my uncle learns that you had a hand in helping his wife run away, your life will be in danger. He has no qualms about murdering innocents for vengeance. And you are no innocent."

"Christians cruelty is precisely the reason I can't hand Estelle back to him. She a person. Not a thing to be taken or given. And besides, it's too late. She killed one of her guards and it is his right to have her hanged for it. You've done your duty by warning me. If we're discovered, so be it. But I will not abandon her."

I looked at Daisy and then at Lady Estelle. "Then neither will I. Come with me."

We made it to a carriage and just as Lady Estelle got in the carriage one of my uncle's guards approached us. "Stop! Open up. Everyone out."

I stood in front of Daisy and the door to the carriage. "Is there a problem, soldier?"

"Your majesty. Forgive us. We're under orders by Duke Christian to search all carriages leaving the castle."

"The only people in this carriage are my servants, transporting the heart of our late king to the Basilica at Saint-Denis. If King Oliver learns that the sacred relic of his most beloved father was manhandled by common guards," the tone in my voice became threatening, "I promise he will have you put in the stocks and whipped until you are dead. So I repeat. Is there s problem, soldier?"

"No, Your Majesty. Forgive us." He walked away and Daisy sighed.

"Whipped until they're dead? You wouldn't allow it." Daisy spoke softly and so I turned to her with a relaxed expression, "I wouldn't but Oliver would."