Again, I own nothing-it's all Gail Carson Levine's. Apologies for the ridiculously long delay between updates.

Char reads the letter over again. And again after that.

Dead. Ella is dead.

A few short months ago he didn't just wish her dead, but suffering an eternal anguish akin to the pain and humiliation that her odious, duplicitous treatment of him brought. In his weaker moments, however, part of him, the part that was still in love with a kind, funny, unpretentious girl, wondered if she was happy, if she had discovered some lovely new stair rail to slide down on. Part of him still held onto the girl he thought she had been.

But gradually he managed surpress most memories of Ella. She played him false, broken his heart, and all he could do, he reasoned, was put it behind him and move on. What sort of king would he make if he could not endure a tomato thrown at him, even if it came from someone he thought he loved? She was gone from his life, and that was how it should be.

The letter in his hand declares otherwise now. She is dead. She was not who he resigned himself to accept her as.

A litany of questions fills his head now, each attempting to reconcile the paper in his hand with the feelings he has worked so hard to ignore. How did she die? Why did she forge the letter in Hattie's hand? What made her want him to hate her?

He glances at the thick packet of letters. He has not yet had a chance to examine them. Mandy claims it is appropriate he should have them now that Ella is no longer alive; they were specifically addressed to him, though she never sent them. He picks them up. Some are in his own handwriting; he realizes they're the ones he wrote to her during his first six months in Ayortha. Most are in the spiky, hasty handwriting that once made his heart lurch with joy. He takes the first letter from the packet of Ella's writing and reads:

Dear Char,

I am cursed. A fool of a fairy called Lucinda gave me the "gift" of obedience at birth. She meant it as a blessing, but it is most surely a curse. One simple command, and I would have to stand on one leg for a day, cut off my own head, walk into a frying pan and eaten by ogres. I can't tell anyone this-as a child Mother ordered me to never to do so after I punched the maid's daughter for ordering me about when I shared my fairy curse with her. If I were given the chance to resist a single command, to break just one order given to me, this would be the one. Then I would tell you everything: how much I love you, how precious you are, why marrying you is impossible no matter how much I want to shout "Yes!" loud enough for all of Frell to hear and share my joy.

I would also write the truth of my existence here in Mum Olga's household. She may have nearly suffocated me with joy at the prospect of acquiring a new daughter, but the euphoria promptly wore off with the news that Father was no longer rich. The moment he went off trading again, Mum Olga gave me new quarters in the servants' wing and the position of kitchen scullery maid. Hattie, for all her thickness, worked the curse out for herself and told Olive and Mum Olga. So here I am, trapped, more slave than servant. Mandy watches over me best she can, but my step-family takes perverse pleasure in ordering me about. You, though, are hundreds of miles away, and I never wanted you to know my troubles. Also, I suppose the curse makes it difficult to explain forced servitude.

I love you. You will never see this letter, or anything else I write, but it comforts me to tell the truth here as if you're reading it anyway.

Your Loving Friend,

Ella

Anger and guilt wash over Char as he reads he final sentence. Never has he felt so terrible. Ella spent her life cursed with obedience, worked as a servant in her own home and sacrificed her own happiness for the his and Kyrria, and he repaid her with hatred! Why was he so blind, so foolish not to realize "Hattie's" letter was exactly what he initially suspected it to be-a lie? He thinks back to that painful moment when he read Ella's enclosed note. Oh, it resembled her cheerful, witty tone enough to stoke his wounded pride. But had he truly bothered to ask why she acted so out-of-character, he could've learned the truth before Ella died. Instead of calling her all manner of insults then attempting to forget her, he could've helped her escape her step-family, or find the fairy who gave her the curse, or any manner of things!

Warm tears trickle down his face, but Char doesn't bother to wipe them. In some way he blames himself. It is silly, of course, perhaps event conceited, to think he could've prevented Ella's early death. He doesn't even know the cause of it. But he has no way to make things right, no way of begging her forgiveness. It should not have been so easy for her to earn his hatred, not when she proves more noble and selfless than he, Kyrria's future king, should be.

Char stares at the remaining letters. She loved him. And despite all his efforts to forget her, he has never stopped loving her.

Before he can begin the next letter, a knock at the door interrupts his anguished thoughts.

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