Chapter Seventeen: Letters Unsent

Leonah found herself at her writing desk again. She had been at her desk more often than not in the last few weeks. There was something about sitting with a pile of fresh parchment, an ink quill and a letter she could write, but not yet send, that quelled her anxiety. The one in front of her currently read, 

Dear Rylla, 

You would hate it here.

That’s all, just those seven words. She had stared at it for minutes now, wondering what else to write, but the fact was that she didn’t know where the “here” was. She picked up the letter in her hand and made sure the ink was dry before she folded it and put it in an envelope. She then stood and walked over to her shelves where a small trunk was placed. She opened it to reveal more letters, all half written, all having a name on them. Some for Rylla, some for other siblings, some for others she knew from about the castle. She pressed two envelopes apart and put the new one for Rylla in between them before she carefully closed the lid and locked it. 

She looked up at the clock and counted the minutes she had left before she was expected at her lessons with Master Azahr and Severine. It was getting colder in the year and so along with her hand made gown, she put on a dark colored shawl made out of the castle’s own prized wool before she left her chambers. 

As much as she was eager to learn more about the new highlighted country, Sah’ir, deep down she was also nervous the farther into the lessons she and her tutors got. If Leonah was only one thing it would be observant, and she had been observing a change all around the castle. Sah’ir was spoken about more often than it had been. There were more closed door meetings with her father and her brother Walric. 

The biggest observation was the fact that most of her lessons had now revolved around Sah’ir. More of her language classes had started revolving around the Sah’ir or language and dialects. She had been tested on court etiquette and the histories and religions concerning Sah’ir and Valedour.  

Honestly, it wasn’t that hard to notice, if you knew where to look. It was obvious that the adults were concerned about Valedour and the country in between it and them, Sah’ir. There was no declaration of war, but it didn’t seem too much of a hypothetical any longer. 

Before she made her way to the tutors rooms, she walked into the study, which was oddly empty. She had been in there earlier that day, and it looked as though no one had been in since, or they had left her table alone that had been spread out with multiple maps, the center one focused on Sah’ir. It was a long, narrow coastal kingdom that ran north to south along the western sea. The shape was interesting, its northern section was more broad with pinches inward until it widened more to the south. Almost all of this western border was a natural coastline with several pronounced bays and peninsulas. It had a deep inlet about midway down the coast where the capital city was located. 

The eastern border was much more politically complicated. It touched several neighboring countries, including Valedour, the big conversation country floating around the castle. Leonah could almost feel the conflict of Sah’ir, the arguments of most of the country fearing war for a board probably little of the population actually inhabited. With how long the country was, it was probably a different climate in the north than it was to the south, it probably had a lot of conflict within it already without any outside armies invading. 

Leonah rested both hands against the edge of the table and studied the kingdom. Walric would look at Sah’ir and see roads. She knew that without having to ask him. He would see the distance between the Korvethian border and Valedour. He would see ports where ships might land and roads where soldiers might march. He would count how many days it would take to move men through the country and how much grain would be needed to feed them while they did it. .

Leonah didn’t know how to do any of that, but she knew who lived there. Her finger moved to the center of Sah’ir, settling over the peninsula that pushed stubbornly into the western sea. The capital. King Samir. 

She could picture him, though she had never met him. She had seen his likeness once, years ago, painted beside Queen Nadira at some celebration she could no longer remember. He had ruled Sah’ir longer than Leonah had been alive, and he had stayed out of Korvethis’s wars. That mattered. 

Her finger remained over the capital. Samir and Nadira had three children. Amara was married. Leonah moved her finger east. Rafiq, the heir, was also married. Her finger stopped. Zahir. 

She stared at the map. Prince Zahir was unmarried and that made Leonah straighten. “No.” The word slipped from her before she had decided to speak. She turned away from the table. 

It was ridiculous. Nobody had said anything about marriage. Nobody had said anything about Sah’ir. Walric hadn’t summoned her here and presented her with some carefully arranged contract. There wasn’t even a plan. She looked back at the map. Not yet…

Leonah slowly returned to the table. Sah’ir had no reason to fight Valedour. That was the problem. They traded with Korvethis, certainly, but they traded with Valedour too. Samir had spent years keeping his kingdom out of other people’s wars. Why would he change that now simply because Walric asked?

He wouldn’t, not without something in return. Leonah’s eyes moved over the borders. Walric needed passage. He would need their roads, their ports, their ships, perhaps. At the very least, he needed Sah’ir not to stand between him and Valedour, and Sah’ir would need a reason to let him through. 

Her eyes returned to the peninsula. King Samir, Queen Nadira, Amara, married, Rafiq, married, Zahir… “No,” she said again, but this time the word was quieter, because she could see it. A marriage would give Samir something no trade agreement could. Korvethis…not friendship with Korvethis, but family. 

A Korvethian princess married to a prince of Sah’ir would bind the two kingdoms in a way parchment never could. Sah’ir would have reason to open its roads, its ports, perhaps even its armies; and Walric would have his path to Valedour. 

Leonah stared down at the map. There were probably other ways, there had to be. Treaties, money, land, trade…Walric could promise protection. He could offer favorable tariffs, he could…she stopped. She didn’t know what Sah’ir wanted. That was the part she was missing. 

She pulled another sheet of parchment toward herself and searched the notes she’d made earlier. Nothing, at least nothing useful. Her frustration should have relieved her. Instead, it frightened her. She didn’t need to know what Sah’ir wanted to understand what Korvethis possessed. Her. 

Leonah sank slowly into the chair. For the first time, she understood why Walric looked at maps for so long. Once you began moving the pieces, it was difficult to stop. Korvethis needed Sah’ir. Sah’ir had an unmarried prince. Korvethis had an unmarried princess, who had been trained in foreign affairs. Her hand tightened around the edge of the parchment. 

Her thoughts moved towards Elora, not the Elora who sat silently for hours now, staring at nothing. A younger Elora, a laughing Elora. A girl leaning over a map beside her, arguing about which distant kingdom they would visit first when they were finally old enough to go without anyone telling them no. Leonah could almost hear her. 

There A finger landing somewhere impossibly far away. We’ll go there. They had once believed maps showed them all the places they might choose to go. Leonah looked at Sah’ir. She wondered when they had become maps of where they might be sent. 

Then, another thought came, colder than the first. Walric hadn’t said anything, perhaps he hadn’t seen it. Perhaps no one had. Leonah wished desperately that she hadn’t either, because now that she had, she knew exactly what would happen if her brother ever looked at Sah’ir and stopped seeing roads long enough to see people. Eventually, his eyes would land on Zahir, and then they would land on her. 

She put a finger on Korvethis and dragged it along the ocean counting in her head and stopped on Sah’ir. Six weeks. Leonah thought. Longer in winter. She and Elora had worked it out once, years ago, when the distance had seemed exciting instead of terrifying. Six weeks from Korvethis to the Sah’iri capital, if the roads were kind and the weather kinder. She stared at the tiny mark beneath her fingertip. Six weeks from home. An unruly thought came across her mind, one that sounded bizarre, but the longer she kept it, the more it terrified her. Six weeks to be sent to Sah’ir, but how much longer would it take to get back home to Korvethis? She didn’t have an answer. Logistically it should’ve been roughly the same, but she couldn’t say that, couldn’t think that.  

Leonah should have put the maps away, instead, she reached for another. This one showed Sah’ir in greater detail. Its cities and rivers. The mountain ranges that divided the eastern provinces from the coast. Roads wound between them in thin lines of faded ink, converging on the capital at the center peninsula. 

She found the capital first, then the palace, then the road that would take her there. Leonah swallowed. Six weeks, perhaps more depending upon the weather and which route they took. Longer in winter, perhaps she could choose when to leave. 

Back when she and Elora had calculated it, it sounded fun, when they were children. Back then, six weeks sounded like an adventure. Now Leonah wondered how often a person could travel six weeks back to their home country. 

She pulled another book towards her. If Sah’ir was a possibility, she needed to know it, that was all. There was nothing strange about preparing. She found the royal family first. King Samir had ruled for thirty-four years. Queen Nadira had been born in…Leonah flipped the page….one of the eastern provinces. Three children. Amara, Rafiq, Zahir. Her eyes lingered on the last name. 

She turned the page. Sah’ir had seven major ports. Another page. The northern provinces exported timber. The southern lands were drier, known for horses and salt. Most of the population lived near the western coast. 

Another book. The Sah’iri court observed different mourning customs than Korvethis. Their formal greetings changed according to rank. Meals were served later. Guests did not enter a royal household empty-handed. 

Leonah found parchment and began writing. She should learn the language until she was fluent. The thought came so naturally that she had already written it before she realized what she’d done. She stared at the words. 

Learn Sah’iri

Her stomach tightened. She could cross it out. Instead, beneath it, she wrote: 

Court customs

Religious observances

Appropriate dress

Royal family

And then, after a moment, 

Zahir.

Leonah put the pen down. It was absurd. There had been no proposal. Walric had said nothing. King Samir had said nothing. For all she knew, Zahir was already halfway toward marrying some noblewoman whose name hadn’t made its way into Korvethian records yet. She was preparing for something that might never happen. But, that didn’t make her stop. Because, she had learned what happened when something came for you and you weren’t prepared.  

Veeque hadn’t been on any of their maps. There had been no book Leonah could pull from a shelf and open to the correct page. No genealogy to memorize, no customs to learn, no language that would make what happened there understandable. Elora hadn’t known where she was going. She hadn’t known what waited for her, and she didn’t know how to get home. 

Her fingers curled against the parchment. Sah’ir was different. Sah’ir had roads. It had cities. It had laws and histories and traditions written down by people who had gone there and returned. It had a language she could learn. It had a prince whose name she knew. Leonah looked down at the map again. The fear hadn’t gone away, but something else had settled beside it, relief. 

That frightened her almost as much. Because if Walric sent her to Sah’ir, she could prepare. She could learn every road between Korvethis and the capital. She could memorize every member of Samir’s court. She could learn which fork to use and which holy days to observe and exactly how a Sah’iri princess was expected to behave. She knew what was waiting for her. 

Her fingertip came to rest upon the little peninsula. Sah’ir, at least, stayed where it was on the map. Leonah drew the next book toward her. 

After lessons Leonah didn’t try to entertain the idea of being social, she held onto one of the books she had taken from the study earlier that day so she could lay in her comfortable bed and read more about where she might be destined to go, but her younger sister hadn't known of those plans. Rylla jumped in front of her, eyes wide and smiled wider. “Leonah!” she shouted. “Orther says he caught a fairy!” 

Leonah took a second to snap herself out of her own worries to look at the child. “A….fairy?” 

“Yeah! A real, true fairy! He said if I give him my dessert at dinner that he’ll let me see!” Rylla held such belief in her eyes. 

Leonah could feel the pity enter her face. “That’s…quite a story our brother has told you.” 

Rylla looked at her skeptically. “But what I was thinking is…I rather like my desserts. So perhaps, I could find a way to see this fairy before dinner. I was thinking, that would be a lot easier if you came with me as a distraction.” 

“Uhh…” Leonah looked towards the hall down to her room. 

“I promise that I’ll let you see the fairy too! You could tell Orther about one of your silly facts about far off places and by the time you’re finished I’ll have the fairy and we can go hide and I can show you. Please Leonah, please.” Rylla begged. 

Leonah sighed and shook her head. “Rylla, you have plenty of servants who can do this with you. I have a lot on my plate today, I’m sorry I cannot help.” She watched the excitement dwindle from her sister’s eyes and her heart hurt. 

Rylla turned and walked the other way, Leonah found herself stuck, staring as her sister got further away, but not able to continue with her own task to prepare. She thought about the letter she began to write this morning to her sister and realized something. Sneaking make believe fairies away from their brother would probably be one of the memories she would hold dear when she was far away from home, wherever she went. 

“Wait.” Leonah said, not very loudly, but Rylla turned. “You’ll need to be quick, if I help. Orther really doesn’t fancy any facts I have about the world outside of Korvethis.” 

The light returned to Rylla’s face as Leonah grabbed the front of her dress, lifted it up, and began to walk faster than usual down the hall. 

That night she found herself at her writing desk again. She stared at the parchment in front of her with only two words written on it. Dear Husband,” 

She tried to find any other words to write, but her mind was blank. She couldn’t remember when she knew her life would lead to marrying someone, but she felt like her whole life had been more about being able to adapt to the world surrounding a potential husband than a life with one. With a big sigh she folded up the parchments and placed it in an envelope before she pulled out another one. 

Before she knew it, she wrote the words, “Dear Elora,”. She stared at it, somewhat shocked, but her hand began to write more. “Do you remember when we wanted to go as far away as possible?” She let out a breath and looked out of her stained glass window to the darkness beyond it. “I don’t think I want to win anymore.”