Eries was disappointed when she heard Dryden left, as Millerna knew she would be. She had always pushed for that marriage, no matter how much her younger sister had insisted she was in love with someone else. After Millerna discovered that Chid was Allen and Marlene's child, she grew less angry over the vehemence with which Eries had striven to keep Allen away. Eries was no fool. She had probably known of the secret for years. It explained much of her attitude towards the knight.
Allen.... She'd summoned him to tell him about Dryden leaving, a conversation that turned out differently than she had expected. It wasn't until he was actually standing there that she had realized how much she had relied on others to make her happy. She wondered who she was alone, and she wanted to find out. So instead of telling him she was free, as she had planned, she told him she didn't want to rely on him, that she needed to find who she was on her own. When he walked out of the room, it was the last she'd see of him for longer than she would have imagined. On several occasions she nearly sent for him, but she overcame the impulse and waited. Surely if he cared for her he would still at least come around from time to time. At first she thought he didn't come because the fighting was still raging in some places. Then she heard the news that Celena had mysteriously returned. (She didn't hear it from Allen. He was probably too busy caring for his sister.)
Dryden didn't come back. Not that she expected it. Not after Hitomi told them the marriage was wrong. Not after she herself told him she might not be waiting.
Now, Millerna spends her days with her sister. Their relationship has strengthened over the past few months. It hadn't taken long after Dryden moved out for Millerna to ask Eries if she would mind moving to the room next door, and there are many nights when the sisters sit up late into the night, sharing what is on their minds and hearts. Millerna never knew the burdens Eries bore as the middle child—how shrewdly she worked to convince her father that he needed her help in running the kingdom more than he needed to make a political alliance by marrying her off, how subtly she has influenced governing decisions, how carefully she investigated Duke Freid and Dryden after they were chosen for her sisters.
"But I don't love Dryden," protested Millerna.
"Marlene didn't love Duke Freid," said Eries. "Not at first."
Millerna doesn't offer that protest again.
There is much to do in these days after the Great War. The kingdom of Asturia has not suffered as many losses as the kingdoms of Fanelia and Freid, but the suffering is real nonetheless. Millerna brings blankets and hot soup down to the shelters where those who have lost their homes live while they rebuild. She packages lunches for the men who are laying new foundations, helps the women with laundry, tells stories to the children.
She hears stories, too. Of merchants raising their prices and families who are paying five times as much for a loaf of bread as they were before the war. Of loans called in and of families giving up what little they have to repay what they can, promising the rest at higher and higher interest rates. Of people sleeping on top of their luggage so that nothing will be stolen.
She hears of Allen, helping Van to gather the scattered people of Fanelia. She hears of Celena, growing more aware and more confident by the day, but destined never to be quite the person she would have been if it weren't for her unexplained disappearance.
And she sees Dryden. Not in person—he has always just left, just turned a corner, just gone into another home—but everywhere. In the faces of those who are paying honest prices for well-made goods. In the new buildings his low interest loans financed. In the smiles of children who receive candy free every Wednesday morning when it is given away in the square...and every other morning that they are lucky enough to run across their benefactor.
One afternoon, up to her elbows in wet clothes, daydreaming of Allen, she tosses her hair out of her eyes and catches a fleeting glimpse of a face in the window opposite her. Dryden, nodding in approval. She remembers Allen's reaction at finding Hitomi doing "dangerous" work like this.
Why hasn't Allen come, she wonders, for the millionth time, and for the first time she realizes that Allen has never come. Not for her. Always she has come for him. He accepted her love, her caresses, but never offered his own in return, never took the initiative. Never would have changed his whole life for her. But why is she thinking of this now?
The door across the way opens, and a familiar form slips out and moves quickly down the street without a glance in her direction.
"Dryden!" she calls, leaping from the washtub and sprinting towards him. When she reaches him her hair is falling out of its plain ribbon, she is covered in suds, she is panting like a racehorse...and she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.