Chapter 17
"Appeal to A Queen"
Bovianum, Capital of Samnium
A Week Later
Aurora was trembling like a leaf in the breeze, and with every step she drew closer to the gates, her weak knees threatened to yield and send her crumbling to the ground. Already she had risked everything to arrive on her enemy's doorstep and beg for sanctuary and leniency, and yet she had lost the most valuable asset who could make this mission worth any success: Haemon. A week she had travelled alone along the High Pass and held no company aside from a pack of wolves who had caught her scent and tracked her along the rocky path. She couldn't dare to sleep at night for this reason, needing to protect the horse and herself, with only the dagger Haemon had left among their packs to keep her safe. She had scarcely eaten, and at all hours the fear and anxiety wrought havoc on her insides, twisting and snarling them in constant pain, until she was certain the stress had worn an acidic hole in her stomach. Even now it burned and ached, and cold chills sprung up all along her pale arms and made her shiver noticeably. She halted to compose herself and adjusted the cloak around her shoulders. So many times during those long days, which felt like months of endless fear considering the wolves and guards nipping at her heels, she had considered surrendering. Not until she was forced to stand without him did she realize Haemon had been her strength: He pushed her when she was too frightened to continue, and he picked her up when she fell. He was the only reason she had ever made it so far, and knowing that she had lost him swept the ground out from under her with debilitating force. She hadn't cried though she wanted to. If Haemon hadn't come for her as he swore he would, then she could only assume he had been captured or killed. In light of this, she saw his "plan" more and more like a sacrifice. Had he knowingly given himself up so that she could escape, and if so, why?
The last question in particular haunted her thoughts. It all felt too familiar, and when she had dared to sleep in the light of day, the ghost of her memory awoke to remind her…
She tried to scream, but Alix's hand was clamped firmly across her nose and mouth. His other arm was wrapped around her waist and holding her steady against him as he eased against the wall. Fires licked from torches in the main corridor and cast willowy, dark shadows along the edges. They shivered uneasily and threatened to draw back their cover and reveal the two small children huddling in one corner and awaiting a chance to flee. Mere paces from them Acaeus' body lay lifeless and twisted on the floor. His golden hair was stained from his own blood, pooling thick and black around him, and his dull, glassy blue eyes gazed across his shoulder with chilling vacancy. Two more men were dead by his feet, likely victims of his blade for her eldest brother had been a swordsman after their father, and as punishment, they had taken his hands so that he might be crippled and wander about the next life in humiliation and never to fight again.
These were monster Aurora thought and was sure they were the ukai come from the forest and looking for life to feast upon. She couldn't stop shaking, and she wanted to run and hide in her mother's arms… but they had taken her too.
"Don't look," Alix whispered in her ear, and Aurora struggled against him, wedging her small elbows into his ribs to make him release her. Her older brother held tighter, gripping so hard on her face that she couldn't breathe, and her tears pooled across his stocky fingers.
"Where are they?" bellowed down the hall, and Aurora froze as the long shadow of a man stretched toward them. "Where have you hidden them?"
"They're children," her father growled back, so wounded, barren, and angry that all the blood drained from Aurora's face. She'd never heard her father sound like that. It was a shock of pure, icy terror through her. "Let them go. They can do no harm!"
"No," that cruel voice answered. "When dawn comes, you will have no heirs left."
"You have me!" Lycaon yelled out furiously. "Let them go!"
Aurora wanted to call out to him. No one could hurt her father. He was the Crown Prince. He was the strongest, bravest man in Apulia, so that all feared and adored him. They should run to his side, and he would protect them! She fought against her brother who only grappled back, and he pinched her nose so hard fresh tears sprung to her eyes. Immediately she drove her heel down on his toes, and the boy yelped in pain. It was like all the air was sucked from the hall—silent as if the walls had ears to listen too and reveal their hiding place.
Then, all at once, their father roared, "Alix, Aurora, run!"
Heavy footsteps resounded their direction, and Alix took Aurora's hand and began a mad dash for the kitchen.
"They're running for the back!" one man yelled from behind them, his voice echoing down the corridor.
They twisted down another hallway, only to stop as they saw three guards sprinting toward them. Alix tugged on her hand and took them another direction, knowing the small halls and offshoots of their home better than the men chasing after them. They weaved through a servant's passageway, so narrow that they filed in one after the other and heard the men groaning as they ducked and squeezed in as well. Their burly armor and bodies slowed them down, and soon Alix and Aurora burst into the kitchen at the back of the home where they could scarcely see for the thick darkness and shadows. They hurried for the back door which would open to the chicken coop outside, when suddenly the main door to the kitchen was thrown open and a guard with a torch stepped inside, breathing heavily and searching about the space until his eyes landed on the two children holding hands.
Alix stole a knife from the table in the center of the room, even as Aurora pulled him toward the door.
"Brother," she whispered terrified and watched the man leap down the stairs and land before them. She tugged so hard on Alix's hand, he stumbled back a pace, but he shrugged her off.
"Go, Aurora," he said sternly and assumed a stance that their father had taught him, feet spread and elbows open in preparation for a fight.
"Alix—"
"I'm the oldest now," he interrupted, and his thirteen-year-old face was contorted with a decision he couldn't possibly understand.
Hearing their conversation, the man snorted as if amused and looked at Aurora who nervously staggered back a few paces toward the door but appeared too scared to turn her back and leave her brother behind. He lunged for her, his fingers brushing her blonde hair, when he cried out suddenly and missed his mark. Blood trickled from a gash on his forearm, and not a moment later, Alix swung across and sliced open the man's thigh next.
"Go!" he yelled at Aurora before the man's heel collided with his chest and sent him flying back into the sacks of grain piled along one wall.
"Alix!" she screamed.
More guards came through the main door as well as those who had followed them through the servant's passageway, and Aurora barely registered their numbers before she turned.
Through the door, past the chicken coop, into the forest, she ran. The black faceless trunks of the trees rushed past her until all was a blur of darkness and shadows, and she knew nothing but to race between their roots and up the rolling hills. Her heart beat so hard and so fast, it felt it might break through her chest. Her lungs and throat burned as she gulped down gasp after gasp. Her eyes pricked with tears, the lingering lines on her cheeks were icy cold, and her hair whipped around her. All was black. She had no sense of time, and when her foot caught on a rock and she felt hard onto her stomach, she didn't know where she was or how long she had run. Her cheeks were sweaty. Her legs felt like they were licked by flames, but a fresh burn sprung up in her elbows, knees, and forehead. She peeled herself away from the rocky terrain and hissed in pain. She got her feet under her but swayed and stumbled twice to keep her balance.
Run, she thought. Run!
Her breathing was uneven and hitching in her chest, and she realized with numb disconnect how she was shaking. She took a tentative step, and her knee gave. She groaned and tumbled onto the ground again, only to pick herself back up and try once more. She didn't notice the abrasions on her knees and elbows that were stinging and bleeding, and she only acknowledged the thin cut on her brow when the blood mixed with sweat and trickled into her eyebrow and eyelashes. She wiped it away, wincing as dirt pricked the wound, and reached the peak of the next incline where she turned around to grasp for her bearings.
In the distance, on the horizon of the trees the black night sky was interrupted by a warm, soft purple glow like a bruise upon the heavens. Nearest the edge of the tree line, the sky blistered with flecks of orange and red, but the image was obscured by the black woods. She stood and watched until it was nothing but wisps of smoke against the dawn.
Aurora brushed her forehead lightly with two fingers where the thin, smooth scar still lay. It was invisible to most given her pale complexion, but in the summer months when her skin adopted a glow, the white wisp remained unchanged. She had forgotten the sacrifice her brother made, but her memories of that night were scattered bits and pieces like fragments of glass that could never properly be joined together again. Apparently her guilt at leaving Haemon behind had unlocked this latest sliver. She felt like a coward. She felt responsible. If she hadn't fought her brother, they might have been able to sneak outside together. If she hadn't let Haemon leave her, they would still be together. And yet each time she was the one who left unscathed. Her life was little more than a chase as she sprinted away from everything that terrified her. She wondered if she would run out of ground or strength first. Given her lack of food and sleep, the latter seemed more likely.
Already she felt so weak. She had spent the last of their money in an attempt to transform herself into something more fitting of her title rather than on food or shelter. She couldn't wander up to the gates and declare an audience with the king when she looked like a dirty peasant. She had paid an old widow to wash and mend her red gown as best she could, and the next day when she had returned, the old woman provided a bowl and cloth for Aurora to clean herself as well as a comb to untangle her hair. When she had emerged in her gown with her porcelain skin smooth and clear, her straw-colored locks tumbling across her shoulders and down her back, and her golden diadem in place, the old woman had nearly fallen to her knees. Aurora accepted that as a fortuitous sign, but still, she was wary. She had no chaperone, no guard, nothing but the old farm horse and a dagger to protect herself. Suppose the palace guards sent her away, or worse, took advantage of her solitude?
The pearls of her golden flower earrings clinked delicately with every step she drew, and every chime was a reminder of the man who had given them to her. Haemon's first gift to her, which she had arrogantly denied, but now she donned them with pride. She thought of the ring he always wore and wished she had that as well, for it was so dear to him and so emblematic of his complicated past. If he were dead, some guard would steal it and never know of its worth or its story. The thought unleashed a burst of aggravation to cut through her fear. Haemon had protected her and given himself up so that she might live to reach the city. Such a man was more than any woman could desire for a husband, and now, without him, Aurora had enough distance to realize her blind fortune. In light of this, she adopted a specific plan when she stepped before the palace gates.
"Halt!" one of the guards called to her, though it was unnecessary given the gate impeding her path to the entryway of the Samnite palace. He approached her with his spear at his side, bronze armor shining beneath the sunlight, and his helmet was shaped in a way she had never seen before with two slender pieces of bronze protruding up on either side like wings. The face of his helmet rounded up, and a small point rested between his brows under which his dark brown eyes flicked suspiciously across her features, seeming intrigued and confused to discover a woman was shrouded beneath the heavy cloak.
"What is your purpose?" he asked shortly, as if he had already resolved that any answer she gave him wouldn't be worth entry to the palace.
Hands shaking, Aurora drew back her hood. The morning light glinted off her golden adornments and her straw hair, almost making the two blend and compliment each other.
The guard's face fell, caught between disbelief and shock, and he said nothing.
"I request an audience with the king," she answered with all the strength inside her concretizing her tone and making it assertive and tenacious.
The man frowned uncertainly, glanced toward his partner who said nothing, and then looked at Aurora again. "By whose authority?"
"My husband's," she answered without hesitation. It felt like her skin was vibrating and shivering, but she forced herself to stand taller and straighter as if she could lengthen up her spine and stand eye-to-eye with this man.
"I do not see him," the guard pointed out, almost mocking as he searched beyond Aurora and her old horse beside her.
She showed no sign that his words unhitched her calm, authoritative attitude, and if anything, her shoulders squared more firmly. Behind this guise, he could not see how she buckled with fear, but this was her last resort. "He is Haemon, son of Aeneas, Crown Prince of Latium—a noble ally to your king. We were ambushed along the High Pass. My husband sent me ahead to protect me and to seek shelter and aid from his good friend, the King."
The guard's face flexed in confusion, and yet again, he looked to his partner who had now dared to step forward from his post at the opposite end of the gate.
"You claim to be a princess of Latium," the guard noted, not quite sneering but close enough to make Aurora's skin bristle, "yet what princess rides alone and unguarded?"
"I claim nothing," she snapped sharply, eyes sizzling as they turned on the man and pierced him with her fierce gaze, "and I do not answer to you, guard. Is this how your king accepts his allies with interrogations from men of your rank?"
They could beat her for her keen tongue, drag her off to a cell and lock her away, then rape or kill her if the thought provoked them… As soon as the words tumbled out of her lips, she held her breath and waited, heart thundering in her ears, to see if she had pushed the limits too far. She clung tighter to the dagger in her grip which was hidden within the folds of her cloak and kept her gaze pinned on the second guard to be sure she did not look the least bit contrite or uneasy. Simultaneously, she was trying to decide who to attack first if they charged at her, but neither man moved, less said a word.
She saw the moment of weakness and pounced to claim it with a swift attack. "My husband is an ally to your king who is ever threatened by war with Apulians. Would you risk losing Latium's support and incurring your king's wrath by turning me away?" She almost spat the words like venom, and her presence grew with each second to loom over these men like the queen she was born to become. They each assumed differing looks: one's face fell open while the other's hardened in concentration.
They glanced briefly at each other before they snapped and beat on the wood.
"Open the gate!" one yelled out.
The other bowed his head and stepped out of Aurora's path. The gate swung open behind them and revealed the grand entry up to the palace, and for a moment, Aurora's guise nearly fell. She was exhausted past her flesh and bones and down to her innermost core, and the sweet relief that washed over her as she was granted access threatened to unravel all the delicate threads and sinews that held her up. She forced herself to stand tall and straight, but she was trembling still as the nerves clung stubbornly to her body. They would fade with time, rest, and food, but none of these would be of immediate benefit to her. For now, she needed to rely on her strength of mind to carry her through. She didn't move until a guard took the reigns from her, and she started from her thoughts and realized the gate had finished its yawning. She stepped forward, surprised to discover how steady her legs held her. Every step threatened to send her crumbling to the ground and ruin it all, but she was stronger, stronger than she even thought she could be.
"Take the princess to the palace," the guard instructed one man on the interior who stood at attention and nodded stiffly, and then he turned to another. "Announce her presence to the king." The second man rushed off ahead of them to find the king.
"Princess," the first man said when her gaze turned to him, and he bowed respectfully. "Please follow me."
He hurried up the path ahead of her, forcing her to assume longer strides to keep pace, but somehow she realized it made her feel more powerful to walk with purpose and resolve. Even so, her mind plagued her with all the weak points in her impulsive plan.
What will you say when the king discovers you are a princess of Apulia?
She had no answer, but before her eyes, her lie had not truly been a deceit. Despite the lack of ceremony, she and Haemon behaved as husband and wife, and he had been captured or died to keep her safe. He was her protector and rightful match in that respect: She wanted to claim him.
And when he realizes you were not attacked on the High Pass but betrayed by Apulia's bastard king?
She had no time to consider that answer for the guard led her up the steps to the large palace atrium where a servant was waiting, bowed as well to the princess, and said, "My Lady, the king and his counselors are in the throne hall, but the queen will accept you, if you are not too weary from your journey."
"No," Aurora responded promptly. "I would like to speak with the queen, permitting it is of no inconvenience to her."
"Of course," the servant consented. "I will show you the way."
Perhaps this was only another barrier Aurora needed to cross. If the king still doubted her identity, he might not wish to spare his time on her until his wife had respectfully checked her credentials and smoothed over any diplomatic wrinkles. Such was often the responsibility of a queen, to play intermediary and ambassador, and Aurora, if anything, felt she was walking into a pit of snakes. One wrong look or answer could turn the queen against her and ruin her possibility of gaining help from the Samnites. They might abandon her, moneyless and alone, to whatever fate awaited her. The mere thought awoke the burning ache in her gut, and she fought a grimace of pain.
No. You can't seem weak.
She pushed aside the pangs littering her body and was guided deeper into the palace and toward the left pavilion which were the queen's quarters with an independent atrium, bed chamber, and such. There she met the Queen of Samnium, a woman not much older than herself with black hair as rich and shiny as the night sky and green eyes like emeralds. At her side stood two young girls as beautiful as the queen whom Aurora assumed where her daughters.
"Princess," the Queen said in greeting and smiled amiably, "I pray any trouble gotten at the gate was not more than can be forgiven. You must understand the unusual circumstances of your arrival."
Aurora bowed to the woman and adopted a smile much more at ease than she felt. "Yes, I'm only fortunate I could convince your men to let me pass, lest I be forced to find shelter elsewhere within the city."
"It is dangerous to travel alone as a woman and especially one of royalty," the Queen commented, a sly look of mistrust flickering through her green eyes, but she was once more the pleasant host when she turned to the two little girls. "My two daughters, Perse and Lais, were eager to meet a Princess of Latium and welcome you to our lands."
"And such beautiful girls they are," she answered with a smile at the two young princesses. "Aphrodite favors them, no doubt."
Neither princess blushed or grinned shyly as she had anticipated, and Aurora realized the girls had been raised aware of their beauty and perhaps arrogant of it as well. She feigned ignorance on this matter and turned to the queen who was smiling proudly at her daughters. At the very least her compliment had charmed someone.
"You're kind to notice, but let us sit. You must be exhausted from your journey," the Queen decided, and the women moved to a small side chamber reserved for receiving guests. A servant took her cloak, leaving Aurora to pretend she didn't notice the ragged edges and tears in her once breath-taking gown. Instead, she considered the neglected looms with weavings in various states of completion lined along one wall, and Aurora remembered how her mother had practiced weaving and begun to teach her when she was young. She never took to it. She didn't have the patience or adeptness of her fingers to be successful, but suddenly she wished she had given it a greater effort. It would have pleased her mother that she carry on the tradition.
"Forgive me," the Queen said once they were seated, and her lips flickered in a rehearsed, rueful look. "I was not aware the Crown Prince of Latium was married."
So it began. Aurora kept her stance, sitting up straight from her seat with her back straight and shoulders relaxed down to elongate her neck as she had been taught when she was young, and vaguely explained, "It was an arrangement within the last month."
"Oh," she muttered and flicked one eyebrow, "and you would travel along the High Pass so soon after?"
She said it kindly with the proper amount of curiosity to her tone, so that by all appearances, Aurora could find no insult in it, but she knew there was no kindness in her eyes. Only distrust.
Aurora confessed, "I'm afraid that the account I told your guards was not quite the truth…"
Subtly, the Queen's features narrowed but did not seem surprised. Perhaps Aurora's act was not as effective as she had hoped.
"I am Haemon's wife," she said, "and I am also a princess of Apulia."
"Convenient that you should neglect the latter title when you arrive in my lands, which your king and his father before him sacked and plundered," she countered icily, her green eyes so cold they froze the hairs on the back of Aurora's neck.
No matter how the agitation rose in her skin and how she shuddered still, Aurora would not let her calm guise falter. "Yes, I did not identify myself as a princess of Apulia given our countries' tense history, but I have come here in peace and to seek Samnium's aid."
The Queen couldn't stop her sarcastic smile and stared at Aurora incredulously. "What aid could Samnium wish to give an Apulian princess? My sole generosity is that I have allowed you to breathe in my home this long."
Her heart skipped a beat at the threat empowered by the Queen's stony expression and potent posture. "You are allies of Latium, my husband's—"
"Recent allies," she acknowledged, "but you and I have much longer been enemies."
Swallowing thickly, Aurora realized Haemon's name could not protect her. She had walked into her enemy's arms, and there was no escape without their consent. Her only option was to continue speaking and to hope her purpose would surpass Samnium and Apulia's vendetta.
"I am not your enemy," she said. "Whatever war has been waged in my lifetime has been under the guidance of a false king."
"A false king perhaps," she interrupted and frowned, "and false pretenses as well. Your king attacked my people claiming that we sent assassins to murder Lycaon and his family with no proof and no reason to suspect us beyond rumors and his own desire for battle."
"You're right," Aurora agreed, and the Queen's face opened in surprise before she could stop herself. "Savas is the one who murdered my family, not Samnium or Latium or the Tribes of Osci."
She stiffened, and her attractive brow wrinkled with thought as she caught the insinuation.
Anticipating the question, she explained, "I am Lycaon's sole heir. Aurora, his youngest child."
"None survived…" the Queen whispered, realizing the significance of what Aurora was suggesting. A surviving heir of Lycaon: such was a powerful position to hold.
"Savas wished to use the bloodshed to advance his own agenda—to gain the throne and to go to war. Admitting that I survived did not help him accomplish either of those goals. He accepted me into his home to please the public and direct suspicion away from himself, but he kept word of my surviving a secret… until it benefited him."
She listened, but her face was strewn with doubt and suspicion. "Why have you come here?"
Aurora glanced at her lap where her hands were folded, and she considered the events which had precipitated her arrival. There was no better place to start than the beginning: "Haemon and his men came to Apulia to negotiate for my hand, but we were betrayed." She looked to the Queen again, no longer needing to force an act for the aggravation and insult the memory brought her gave her an overwhelming presence and powerful voice. "Savas sent his men to attack me and finish what he had begun years again, but Haemon saved me. We were forced to flee into the forest. We knew Savas would watch the paths to Latium, and so we chose to travel to Samnium, allies of Latium. We avoided capture until we reached Rytilä when Savas' men found us. Haemon sent me ahead of him and swore that he would find me along the High Pass." She realized her eyes were burning and pulsing, and she blinked to push away the ill-timed burst of emotion. She couldn't bear to look weak in front of this woman, but admitting that Haemon had sacrificed himself for her, that she had abandoned him, she couldn't keep her lip from trembling though her voice was remained strong a while longer. "That was seven days ago… I've come to Samnium to ask for protection. If Haemon," she paused and fought a fresh wave of guilt. "If he has avoided capture, he has promised me he will go to war with Apulia to defeat Savas and…"
Her voice broke off, she bit her bottom lip to still its quivering, but even so, the tears fell. She bowed her head to hide them and saw the drops land on her lap and turn the gown a darker shade like drops of blood on her. His death was on her. "Forgive me," she whispered and wiped away the tears with one shaking hand. His name, his face, his voice lingered in her mind to torture her weakened state, and she confessed, "I fear what they've done to him." Her eyes flickered shamefully toward the Queen, not even registering her expression, and once more to her lap. The tears fell. She was powerless to stop their charge and powerless to gauge how the Queen would take her rupture of emotion.
"There's nothing to forgive," the Queen commented quietly, and Aurora couldn't dare to look at her or hope that her words were sincere. She didn't realize the woman was watching her, green eyes brimming with sympathy. "A wife will worry without her husband."
Aurora's shoulders shook subtly, and she covered her lips with her hand to be sure no sound escaped. The words were daggers to her breast: She might pretend and say what she would, but they were not married. This concern, this guilt, this raw debilitating attack of emotions had nothing to do with marriage or the duty of a wife to worry about her husband. She was terrified that she would never see him again because she didn't know if she could fight without him. She wanted him at her side. He made her stronger. He made her brave. The thoughts threatened to shred what little self-control she had left, but she couldn't afford to crumple into a sobbing mess—not now, not yet.
Wiping at her eyes, she sucked back as much emotion as she could and tried to regain her composure so that she might face the Queen who hadn't said a word, whether out of compassion or disregard. Aurora couldn't tell, considering the woman's calm features, but she continued, "If I am given sanctuary within your walls, if Latium goes to war with Apulia, and if I return to the throne that is my mine by birthright, I swear to you that Apulia will never take arms against Samnium so long as both countries stand."
Her eyes shone with the sincerity of her vow, and the Queen appraised the mismatch orbs briefly, looking severe and torn. At length, she said, "It is not my decision to make but my husband's." She hesitated, still staring intently at Aurora as if searching for a flicker of duplicity, and finished, "But I am sympathetic to your plea. You will be under my protection until the King decides which course Samnium will take."
Aurora's lips parted in surprise, and she was the one to gaze at the Queen as if suspecting that her promise would shift to reveal some trick. There was no change. The woman was genuine on this front. A fresh wave of relief threatened to unravel her and send her shoulders sagging toward her lap. "You are too gracious," she said at last when she could regain her wits for the situation seemed impossible. They were sworn enemies meeting as if allies. Was it due to Haemon and his country's sway? She couldn't be sure, but she meant it when she said, "I am indebted to you for your kindness and generosity."
"Hold your praises," the Queen returned and did not share Aurora's enthusiasm. Rather, her lips pursed dryly with untold thoughts. "You still must face my husband."
Author's Note: Hi gorgeous gals! Sooo Haemon is still MIA. Uh oh! What will the king say when Aurora faces him? Next chapter Aeneas and Iliana have a heart-to-heart about Damian's fate, Alba Longa prepares for war, and I'll reveal what has happened to Haemon! We're getting to the good part, people :D
Thanks as always to AmyLNelson and klandgraf2007 for the sweet reviews!
Amy: Ah! It does give me pleasure to surprise you haha There are more twists to come (aren't there always? It's almost becoming predictable!). I agree that Haemon's actions were selfless in the last chapter, and I'm glad they came across that way. He can be a real dick, but he's a good guy when it counts. Clearly, Aurora is realizing her feelings for him, and in the next chapter you'll get a peek into Haemon's head :D Something is going up that will show where his head is at. I think you'll like it! Sorry you'll have to wait a bit longer to see what is going to go down with Damian and Iliana, but somethings will be decided next chapter :) You leave for Paris tomorrow (my time) isn't that right?! OMG I'm so excited for you! You're going to have so much fun! Hugs and kisses, and have a safe flight! xoxo
klandgraf: "Drama, suspense, and thrilling action." If I published this, and I need snippets for the book jacket, that would totally make it! :D Haemon and Aurora are not yet reunited, and it's been a week sooo that is quite awhile. So far you're right! Oooohhhh way to catch on to things! Clearly Aurora has some feelings deepening for Haemon now that she doesn't know what's happened to him :) You'll get a better picture of how Haemon feels next chapter haha I have to be all mysterious, ya know! Thanks for the sweet review, and I hope you had a great weekend! xoxo
