Hello - it's me. With more. Because I keep reading your (beautiful, amazing) comments and realizing that I left you guys with a kind of shitty ending. So here's a lengthy (15K) two-part epilogue, complete with plot.

I considered making this its own story since it summarizes all of my soulmate AUs, but ultimately it's Ivan's story to tell, so I'm just going to attach this to TOOIEBI. I do plan to post two oneshots to the end of Not With Haste and TToHYA, to tell people who follow those stories that there's more, so if you feel like reading those then they should be up soon.

The title of this epilogue, Love Is Strong Enough, comes from the song "San Francisco" by the Mowglies. I think it's a nice celebration of love, and damn is it catchy.

Ivan watches his nephew make his way across the ballroom floor. This is the first time Nikolai has displayed any sort of direction—he usually wanders, politely bowing his head at the families a Braginski owed respect. Something has caught Nikolai's eye, though, and while his walk appears as smooth as always, Ivan senses his newfound determination.

"Something up?"

Alfred speaks up from behind Ivan and hands him a glass of wine. Ivan nods at his soulmate in thanks and casts his eyes towards Nikolai.

"He is walking towards something."

Alfred hums, his eyes following Ivan's. "Or someone."

Halfway across the ballroom, Nikolai has emerged from the crowd of mingling nobles and come to stand before a girl speaking softly with Lord Emil Bondevik. Nikolai waits, hands clasped behind his back until Lord Bondevik has finished speaking, and then he says a short sentence to the girl.

The girl says a longer sentence in return. She has light brown hair, like Nikolai's, and a face predisposed to smiling. When Ivan has noticed her this evening, he's caught her trying multiple times to straighten her shoulders in the posture of a noble. He knows because he's taught Nikolai likewise.

Nikolai stills. His shoulders lift in a surprised laugh, and the next thing Ivan knows, he's rolling up his sleeve and displaying the sentence on his arm.

Oh.

"Sorry, I'm saving that for my soulmate." Alfred mutters Nikolai's words from memory. Ivan tears his gaze away to find Alfred smiling. He looks up at Ivan, eyes wide and a little wet. "Ivan, he asked her to dance."

Ivan looks again to his nephew, who's now guiding the girl with a lightly trembling hand to the dance floor. Both are keeping their eyes on the floor, suppressing grins. Behind them, Lord Bondevik folds his arms and examines their backs with a curious, somewhat satisfied expression. He then sweeps his gaze across the ballroom until he finds Ivan against the opposite wall and makes eye contact.

Lord Bondevik raises an eyebrow.

"I think," says Ivan to Alfred, "we have some questions to ask as well."

"I know you want her for yourself, but let me make my case."

Ivan stares at Lord Bondevik. He expected that, by privately meeting the younger lord after the ball, he would only establish the identity of his nephew's soulmate. Lord Bondevik, however, doesn't seem to have the time to pretend they're not negotiating yet.

Kaoru Wang, a renowned merchant and Lord Bondevik's rumored soulmate, returns from the door he's just closed and sits beside Lord Bondevik. He leans backward in his chair and crosses his arms.

"She wants to be a Bondevik," says Lord Bondevik. "She's not fully trained, but—"

"Emil," says Kaoru. He glances sideways at Lord Bondevik, who frowns and looks away. Ivan guesses that Lord Bondevik is already deviating from a pre-planned negotiation tactic, because Kaoru takes over. "She stowed away on my ship when I was visiting two years ago," says Kaoru. "She showed Emil her words and begged him to make her the heir. Because nobody but a noble asks someone to dance, you know. She knew she was meant to be noble."

"And she's my niece," says Lord Bondevik. "She's already a Bondevik, anyway. We just have to keep her in the family."

"Which you could help with," says Kaoru. He sits up straighter. "Just let your heir marry into the Bondeviks."

Ivan looks between the two men before him. He wishes Alfred were here, more out of habit than need. Alfred is chaperoning the two newly-discovered soulmates, and Ivan thinks he can barter enough for them both.

"Your niece," he says to Lord Bondevik. "The daughter of your brother?"

"Yes."

"The same brother who ran away?"

"Yes, to be with his soulmate."

"A man?"

Lord Bondevik stills. "I don't see how you would know that."

"Alfred Jones and I are soulmates," says Ivan. "And Alfred knows your brother's situation quite well. Which means that your niece—Anna?"

"Yes," says Lord Bondevik, but he's quieter this time.

"She is adopted. She does not have your brother's blood. But Nikolai is my sister's son by birth. He is a true-blooded Braginski."

"The son of a servant," points out Kaoru. "That's who you're going to give the family title to?"

"Better a half-blooded noble than a full-blooded commoner," says Ivan. "And besides, I have been grooming him for the title since his youth, and he is male. Your niece would have married into another family regardless."

"Not if we could convince the family that she had the blood," says Lord Bondevik bitterly.

"And I value your attempt." Ivan leans forward, forgoing propriety. "Can you not adopt?" he asks. "Your brother did. I did. Adopt someone with blond hair, like yourself and your brother. A male, even."

Kaoru and Lord Bondevik exchange looks. "It hasn't been high on our list of priorities," says Kaoru.

"You are younger," Ivan concedes politely, and it's true. Lord Bondevik and his soulmate are in their mid-thirties, whereas Ivan, Alfred, and nearly everyone he knows are halfway through their forties. At this time in their lives, though, their parents were staged or matched and their children halfway to grown. For every noble marriage Ivan counts, he knows of at least one noble postponing marriage until his or her parents die and can no longer push for a staging. In a strange way, Ivan is in both groups; in public he is a lord too invested in his social work to find a bride, and at home he is married to his soulmate and live-in head of charity.

Kaoru and Lord Bondevik are following a similar path to Alfred and Ivan, albeit a little belatedly. Kaoru often disappears from the noble scene thanks to his long stints of trade away from their city, but when he returns, he attends every event with Lord Bondevik and stays at his side in a manner that reminds many gossips of a wife. Lord Bondevik neither confirms nor denies these rumors, but two years ago he shook the noble world by announcing an heir, Anna Bondevik, the daughter of his belated brother. Ivan largely remembers because he felt cheated—he'd announced Nikolai as heir a few years prior, and the gossip surrounding the event only stirred because of Lord Bondevik's echoing announcement. It didn't help that Alfred already knew the girl's parents and could attest to the fact that Lord Bondevik wasn't even using this tactic on a half-blooded noble.

Honestly, Ivan doesn't know how Lord Bondevik expected to keep his niece in the family. She's female and not related by blood. But if there's anything Ivan knows from the arguments he and Alfred had, before they asked Toris and Natalia for the largest favor they could ever ask, it's that the matter of heirs drives a wedge between same-sex soulmate pairs. He suspects that Kaoru and Lord Bondevik faced the same argument, until the solution stowed herself on a ship and begged to meet her soulmate.

"It's just our luck," says Lord Bondevik. "Of all the nobles she could be matched with, it's the one family who knows where Lukas went."

"At least we share a burden," says Ivan. "You did not believe that Natalia died too?"

The corner of Lord Bondevik's mouth turns up. "Alfred and I do the same work, and he knows my family. We have to talk sometimes, although now I understand why it was never about you. But he knows a little too much about Nikolai's parents for them to have been dead such a long time."

"He continues to live with her," says Ivan. "We only borrow him for lessons and the occasional ball."

"This was Anna's first ball," says Kaoru. He eyes Ivan. "Does your sister approve?"

"She knows the necessity," says Ivan.

"That's not the same thing."

"She approves," Ivan rephrases. At least, she did when Nikolai was eight years old and Ivan first asked. He knows his sister well enough to know she would have said otherwise, if she changed her mind.

Kaoru stares at him a moment longer, and then nods. "You know, I tried to send Anna back to her parents," he says. "They sent two letters before I could. Lukas's was basic—he just asked Emil to take care of her. Mathias guessed why she left. He knew she wouldn't wait for her soulmate forever."

"Does he approve, then?" asks Ivan.

"As long as she finds what she's looking for," says Kaoru. "And tonight she did."

Lord Bondevik jerks away to examine Kaoru. "This is your idea of negotiation?"

"It's a lost sale," says Kaoru, still looking at Ivan. "You'll take care of her, won't you?" he asks.

"She's my niece!" says Lord Bondevik.

"And mine." Kaoru finally turns to look back at his soulmate. "Emil, we were only a stop for her. Nikolai Braginski was her final destination, and she's there. Now all we can do," he says, gesturing to Ivan, "is make sure that where she settles isn't going to make her miserable."

"But what about…?" Lord Bondevik looks lost.

Kaoru sighs and sits back. "We'll figure it out. We'll know what to do when we find another heir, anyway."

The two of them share a moment of defeat. Then, as one, they turn to look at Ivan.

For the first time in this conversation, Ivan feels like the one backed into a corner. "She will be cared for," he says. At least with his nephew as her soulmate, he can promise that.

"Ivan?"

Ivan looks up from his paperwork to see Alfred leaning in his doorframe, frowning. He pushes aside his paperwork and stands to meet Alfred halfway. "What is wrong?" he asks.

"I have something you should see," says Alfred, holding out a single piece of parchment.

Ivan takes it and reads.

Dear Anna,
[He crosses out "I would be pleased if" and "It would be my pleasure to"]
Please meet me at Starling Bakery this Thursday afternoon, as soon as you finish lunch. My uncle Feliks will greet you and bring you upstairs. Don't tell your uncles.
Yours,
Nikolai

Ivan wants very badly to believe in the innocence of this letter. "So he intends to show her where he grew up," he says. "I do not see why I need to read this before he sends it."

"That's just the thing," says Alfred. "You weren't supposed to read it. You know how I got this? There's a girl, Alexandra, who comes to my afternoon reading lessons, and she asked me for directions to the Bondevik manor because her friend asked her to take this there. I told her I'd take it for her."

Alfred jerks his finger at the paper. "You know who else did this shit, Ivan? Me and you. You know how I'd give a note to Mattie for you, and he'd pass it on? This is exactly that!"

Ivan realizes that he's holding his breath. "Alfred, he would not…"

"Ivan, he's meeting her upstairs. I mean, we've done a pretty good job of keeping the commoners from knowing about Nikolai's status, even if we had to tell the nobles, so it's definitely not because he'd be recognized. And if he wanted to meet her, he knows he can ask us—he knows we're soulmates, we know we want him to find his! So…so why is he doing this?"

"Are you sure you are not angry because you are feeling betrayed?" Ivan asks. Between him and Alfred, Alfred was the one to first win Nikolai's affection. Ivan has his respect, but Alfred remains the confidante and the messenger between uncle and nephew.

"C'mon, Ivan, you gotta have a bad feeling about this too. Wanting time together is normal, but wanting it hidden from us isn't." Alfred looks up at Ivan, and in his eyes Ivan can see the confusion and the fear. "…What if he doesn't want this anymore? What if we're pushing him into the title against his will?"

Looking back at this scrap of a note, Ivan sees Nikolai's handwriting, the fine script of a noble. Literacy was one of Nikolai's first priorities, and Ivan understood even at the time that a title didn't bear as much interest to a ten-year-old boy as a love like his parents had. He thought he'd made it clear that he meant to help Nikolai find his soulmate, and if Ivan valued having an heir just as much as helping his nephew, well, only he and Alfred knew. This letter, slight and secretive, punctures a hole in that idea.

"Do we assume?" Ivan asks Alfred. Their sides are pressed together as they stare down at the paper Ivan is holding.

"We should ask," Alfred says.

"Really?"

"Don't you wish your parents asked you?"

"They knew I wanted the family title."

"No, they told you you wanted it. Didn't you wish your parents asked you about me?"

"Frankly, no. My father would have harmed you."

"And we need to tell Nikolai we wouldn't hurt Anna. Or…or separate them, or something. Hell, we're getting them married. Anything he wants, he talks to us." Alfred looks forlornly at the letter. "I just don't want him to think we're forcing him into anything."

Ivan nods vacantly. He'd been so sure, when he first got Natalia's permission, that adopting Nikolai was best for all parties. Now he worries that he needs to renew his increasingly-guilty conscience.

Alfred insists that he be the one to talk to Nikolai. Ivan is hurt, but not hurt enough to deny that Alfred will have the better effect. Alfred promises he'll be gentle when he approaches the soulmate pair at Starling Bakery, and he'll report directly to Ivan when their conversation is done.

Ivan doesn't trust himself to work while the discussion is taking place, so he visits his sister.

Natalia opens the door to the cottage at the edge of the woods. Her brow furrows. "Trouble already?"

"Your son is currently meeting his soulmate at Starling Bakery. He tried to send a letter to her through a commoner."

"Alexandra." Natalia nods.

"You know?"

"Of course I do," says Natalia. She departs from the doorway, but leaves the door open. Ivan enters and shuts it.

Natalia sets a kettle to boil at the stove. She takes a moment to stare out the window, something Ivan has seen her do more with every visit.

"How have you been?" he asks abruptly. He knows there are reasons besides Nikolai that he needs to see his sister.

"Better," says Natalia. "Since Nikolai met Anna, she's all he can talk about. It's a good change."

Ivan doesn't voice the question that bubbles up. Natalia turns around and answers him anyway. "I like hearing it. Toris and I had such a different courtship. Nikolai's will be better."

"Yours was good," Ivan says.

"Mine was my own fault," says Natalia. "I never wanted a soulmate, and only when Toris was gone did I realize I wanted him." Her arms, crossed against her chest, begin to look more like she's holding herself together. "I wasted time."

"He valued every minute," says Ivan. He means it in comfort, but he worries that he sounds like he's scolding. "Even when you didn't know who he was. You know that."

"I know now." Natalia's eyes flicker as she realizes her position and thrusts her arms away from herself. She busies them finding two cups and some tea leaves.

"I am sure Toris would be proud," says Ivan. "His son is already much more forward than he was."

"Nikolai is too much like his father," says Natalia. She trains her eyes on the kettle, which is puffing its first bursts of steam. "He relies too much on the soulmate bond."

"So you discouraged him from meeting Anna today?"

"No. I told him to meet her."

Ivan stares at his sister, who continues looking at the kettle.

"Natalia," says Ivan, not sure if he's angry or hurt. "You wanted him to become the Braginski heir. You gave me permission to teach him our family's ways."

"Yes. When Nikolai was ten, and when I had a husband to fight with about the matter. When Toris could point out that you were using Nikolai's hopes about his soulmate to take him into a world I left, and when I could ignore him because that world gave me Toris. Toris is dead now, Brother, and no title or wealth will bring him back." Natalia's eyes snap to her brother's, simmering with some of the fierceness she had as a teen. "I only have Nikolai to remind me of him, and every day—every day I remember I owe my brother, but I owe my son. I owe him too, Ivan."

The kettle's whistle pierces through Natalia's words, and she turns to the stove. "Tea is ready," she says.

Ivan sits still. He doesn't even move his hand to accept the cup Natalia places on the table before him. She sits up straight like the noblewoman she was supposed to be. She holds her teacup but doesn't drink, and she looks over Ivan's shoulder to where he knows her bedroom is.

"Father disinherited me," she says after a few minutes. "He disinherited me because I pretended to have a baby. Because I showed just how far I had strayed from our family's values, to taint myself and prove my commitment to a life that wasn't his. And over time, I became committed. Then you and Alfred came, begging us for our son, and suddenly I had obligations again. Toris never asked anything of me, but we both asked something of you."

"My protection," Ivan murmurs. "To keep Father away."

Natalia nods. They're silent a moment, and then she snorts. "You remember Toris's moments of panic."

Ivan keeps eye contact, understanding. He only saw one instance, when he and Alfred had sat in this same room and said that the time had come to discuss Nikolai's future. Toris had gone pale—his hands had begun to shake—his voice cracked—and the next thing Ivan knew Natalia was shoving him and Alfred outside and barking at them to return another day. She explained later that Toris suffered those moments of panic not often but regularly enough, when what he cared about most came under threat.

"He once had one as I was telling a story to Nikolai. Rumpelstiltskin, you remember it?"

"Where the baby almost went to the troll?"

"Imp. Because the mother owed him her firstborn, for saving her life and helping her marry the king. I never told that story again."

"I am the imp, then."

"An even worse imp than the story," agrees Natalia. "We never made any bargain with you, but neither Toris nor I knew how to say no to you and Alfred. Alfred led me to Toris, if only by accident, and you spared us from Father's wrath. Even if we didn't owe you our life together, we knew we were so fortunate to have Nikolai. More fortunate than you were."

"You did not have to share him," says Ivan. "We would have found another way. Another heir."

"The servants gossip. Rumors of my motherhood were already years old. It would have made so much sense to have Nikolai appear. We could finally repay you. And Nikolai wanted so desperately to meet his soulmate. We'd already taught him the basics of writing, but he knew he wouldn't meet his soulmate here. You were his best chance." Natalia looks her brother in the eye. "And I chose to believe that."

"And now he has. You were right."

"Now he has. And now what part of this deal benefits him?"

"He…he can marry her. And provide for her."

"He could already," says Natalia. "Toris taught him to bake."

"A pastime."

"You wouldn't say that if you saw him at work. Baking is all he has left of Toris. I know it, and Feliks knows it, and probably Alfred too."

"Not Alfred." Alfred would have told him, Ivan's sure of it. And he seemed so devastated to think that Nikolai was no longer happy with the plan. Ivan, too, is feeling increasingly uneasy as he sees his sister alone in a kitchen she'd shared with her soulmate, reevaluating the biggest decisions of her life in the frame of his death.

"I wish I had done more," says Ivan. "For Toris."

"You couldn't have. He was too ill by the time we thought to reach you."

"If I had checked in, or sent a doctor faster—"

"Do not even think of blaming yourself the way I blame me. He said he was fine. I believed him. He was wrong, and now he's dead."

"I am sorry."

"I am too." She sighs. "So is Nikolai. I made too many mistakes with Toris. I see that now. And I worry that Nikolai will let the noble world influence how he wants his life to be. Just as I did." She looks up and meets Ivan's eyes. "And I am sorry, Brother, but you are part of that world."

"I never got to Nikolai," Alfred says as soon as Ivan is sitting on the fence beside him. They stare out into the woods together, their backs to the Braginski property, in nearly the exact spot where Ivan took Alfred the first time he knew they were soulmates. In the past it felt like a battleground, each of them fighting for their own interests, but now Ivan considers their seating as something like a confessional. Alfred goes first.

"Feliks intercepted me before I could get upstairs. He told me he wasn't letting anybody up to disturb them. I swear he dotes over Nikolai more than he did over Toris, but this time it was…fates, it was something else." Alfred swallows. "He told me I'm losing my touch with commoners. Which…I get it, I'm with you all the time, I'm doing things with noble money, I go to a lot of the noble parties. But he said if I couldn't guess why Nikolai was meeting Anna, maybe I'm losing my touch."

"Then what did you do?" asks Ivan.

"I argued with him for a bit. Then some customers came, and I tried to go upstairs, but Feliks ran around the counter and blocked it before I could get up. And he glared at me, and I left."

Both Alfred and Ivan take a deep breath. The spring air still echoes with last winter's cold, but Ivan can't even find comfort in the promise of summer.

"What about you?" asks Alfred. "You were visiting Natalia?"

"She regrets her decision," Ivan says. He tries to summon the will to elaborate, but too many thoughts are turning in his head. He is no father, and his soulmate is alive; he can't fully understand Natalia's thoughts. He only knows that, if he were his sister, this situation would make him sick. He imagines some golden-haired child, the product of him and Alfred, being stolen from him by a sibling he loves to take part in a world he'd freed himself from years ago. He imagines being left alone in what was once a home, spending his days trying not to think of Alfred's smile and hoping that the world will keep his child's smile alight even a moment longer.

Just the thought of losing Alfred terrifies him. They're both robust, although Alfred has gained weight and Ivan suffers from back pains. Time has smoothed them both, settled them into a routine of half-truths among the nobility and subtle, honest improvement of the city. Their marriage feels less an act of defiance and more a statement of fact—a reassurance of Ivan's love for Alfred, not a counter to Alfred's old dreams of escape. Ivan has ensured his investment in Alfred by using his nephew to keep up pretenses.

Now, with Nikolai no longer a constant, Ivan wonders what else he could lose. If Nikolai runs away, if Ivan and Alfred are discovered as soulmates, if the Bondeviks take Nikolai for their own—all such distant possibilities, but each devastating. Each wrenches from Ivan the title, the house, the name he has worked all his life to keep.

Ivan finds his voice again. "If you lost everything, and you could only take one thing from your old life—what would you take?"

Alfred snorts. "You really have to ask me that, big guy?"

Ivan looks at him quizzically.

"You, of course."

"Because I am your soulmate."

"Because you're my husband, and I love you. I'm not so much attached to anything in that house"—he jerks his thumb backward to the Braginski manor—"or anywhere else. But I built my life around living with you, and I'm not letting that go."

Ivan honestly doesn't know what he expected Alfred to say. Alfred values telescopes and books and old letters, but it doesn't occur to Ivan that in his own hypothetical situation, Alfred can take something beyond a memento. He can take exactly what he values most.

"How about you?" asks Alfred.

"I suspect I will be cheating to copy your answer."

"So don't copy. C'mon, I'm curious."

Ivan thinks. He has two beautiful telescopes and a library full of astronomy references and guides, lovingly expanded over the years. He has family records dating to the founding of the kingdom, every staging and match and birth and death carefully outlined. He has the writing materials he used to trade letters with Alfred during their courtship, and he has the documents they've worked on together, their handwriting mingling as they outline charity budgets and projects.

None of those things will make him happy in this hypothetical new life.

"The more I think, the more I would choose you," says Ivan, "but if I could not, I would bring our marriage certificate."

"Hm," says Alfred, smiling lightly.

"It would remind me that we chose each other."

"So you'd want that even ahead of all the Braginski things?"

"In another life, I would not be a Braginski."

"You might not be my soulmate, either."

"But that is a part of me I am less willing to lose."

Alfred smiles at him. Years ago that same smile would have sent Ivan's heart racing, but Ivan sees nothing but his sister, her elbows on the table, her hands wrapped around a cup of tea as she thinks of her lost husband. Ivan wills his heart to beat faster again. He wills himself to memorize Alfred's smile.

"You know," says Alfred, "that was all I wanted to hear, back before we got married. Even a little after."

"It took me longer to realize that fact," says Ivan. He lets that sentence sit. He hears Natalia's voice: I wasted time.

Ivan is wasting time. He wasted time denying he had a soulmate. He wasted time delaying a staging he wanted never to happen. He wastes time now, hiding his husband from the public eye with meaningless titles and a string of projects. For the fourteen years that he's been a lord, he's been delaying what he's increasingly wanting: a life with Alfred. He doesn't need to shout his love from the rooftops—he only needs to share a roof with his love.

Behind him is a manor that has been in his family for generations. Before him, a forest that hid secret conversations where first Natalia and then Alfred pushed for more, for other, for something beyond Ivan's current life. Ivan has resisted. Now he strains his mind to remember why.

After a few more moments of thought, he gives up. He takes a deep breath.

"You aren't attached to this house, yes?" he asks Alfred.

"Yup, I just said."

"Nor our current life?"

"Right. Mostly. I'd miss running the reading classes."

"Suppose." Ivan gulps in a second breath. "Suppose we changed it."

"Changed what?"

"Our life."

"I'm sorry—what?"

Ivan looks evenly at Lord Bondevik and Kaoru Wang. "I am renouncing my title."

"The Braginski title?" Lord Bondevik clarifies.

"The very same."

"So Nikolai—"

"Is no longer my heir. I requested this meeting to inform you that he may marry into the Bondeviks, if he so chooses. I must warn you, however, that he seems not to choose a noble life. Ask your niece about his letters."

Lord Bondevik turns to Kaoru, perhaps meaning to ask if Kaoru detects any joke. Kaoru looks back with wide eyes and a helpless expression.

"How do you even do that?" asks Kaoru. "Renounce a title, I mean."

"I sent a letter to the king. I explained that I have failed the Braginski title in lacking an heir, and I returned all territory, all duties, and all taxation rights to the crown."

"And your manor too?" asks Lord Bondevik.

"That too." Ivan settles back in his chair.

"Where are you staying, then?" asks Kaoru. "Are you on the run?"

"I have secured temporary residence for myself and my soulmate, using the funds we had left after I gave severance pay to the servants. My entire household is currently out of work." Ivan frowns. That took a lot of paperwork, a good portion of the family's fortune, and a speech to the household that he hopes never to have to deliver again. "If you wish to contact me," he adds, "you may reach me through Lord Williams or, if you decide to employ him, my former butler Eduard. He is a sworn confidant and a loyal servant, and he would serve your home well."

"So Lord Williams knows about this, then," says Lord Bondevik. "Does he have plans to renounce too?"

"I cannot speak for my brother-in-law's plans," says Ivan. "I have no desire to cause any more of a stir than I have."

Kaoru snorts. "Really?"

Ivan raises an eyebrow.

"You're renouncing your title," says Kaoru. "Nobody has done that, at least that I know of. And I'm guessing you're doing it for Alfred, and do you know how that will look to anybody who finds that out?"

"I don't see how you would know," says Lord Bondevik to his soulmate. "You're not a noble."

"I've seen enough," says Kaoru. He readdresses Ivan. "Already people can guess, based on how you pulled an heir out of nowhere instead of marrying and making one the old-fashioned way. Especially in our generation, where everyone is making loopholes for their soulmates, people are going to notice you outright ignoring the rules."

"I am not ignoring the rules," says Ivan, but the statement feels dirty on his tongue. "I have dutifully surrendered everything to the crown."

"So the crown will control your part of the taxation?" asks Kaoru.

"They have to," butts in Lord Bondevik. "Somebody has to, and it's the crown who tells us to collect."

"In exchange for what? A chance at becoming king? Emil, you told me the Braginskis are fourth in line for the throne. That's pretty good odds, but that's also expecting not only the current king to die without heirs, but two more kings on top of that." Kaoru casts a glance at Ivan. "I just don't think you're the only one who will think giving up the title is a good idea."

"You're not a lord, Kaoru," says Lord Bondevik, leaning closer in his anger. "You don't know the pressure."

"I know it's drilled into all of you from the day you're born," says Kaoru. "Soulmates are for commoners, soulmates are for the truly noble families, soulmates come second to the family—what's the point of having a soulmate if that soulmate doesn't come first?"

As Lord Bondevik volleys another defensive comment, Ivan sits back and smiles to himself. Truth be told, for the past month leading to this moment, he's been terrified. He's slept poorly, he's barely eaten, and he can't remember the last meeting he had that wasn't conducted in utter secret.

But this errand is his very last as Lord Braginski. When he leaves, after Lord Bondevik and Kaoru stop arguing long enough to dismiss him, he will go to his temporary new home, where Alfred will be waiting.

He can hardly wait.

Ivan hears a knock on the door and waits before he acts on it.

The voice of Marie, the inn-keep, floats through the wood. "Your sister to see you, sir."

"Send her in," says Ivan. He shifts in his chair and sets down his book, but he finds himself standing when he sees the sister he didn't expect slipping through the door.

"Katyusha," he says. "You should not have come."

"I have taken care not to be followed," says Yekaterina. She smiles widely at Ivan and envelopes him in a hug. Ivan towers over her and tries his best to let her hug as much of him as she can reach. "How is commoner life treating you?" she asks.

"It treats me well," says Ivan as they break apart. He offers his sister the only other chair in the room and bids her to sit across from him. "I confess that there have been some troubles, particularly where Alfred is concerned."

"He mentioned fearing losing his touch with commoners," Yekaterina says.

"He has not, I am pleased to say. He heard the comment from someone who meant to hurt him. But he finds trouble continuing his work without the Braginski family supporting him."

Yekaterina frowns. "I would offer our support without hesitation. Only—"

"I know. You have your own affairs to attend to. Alfred has found some support with Lord Bondevik, although he has encountered some frustrations recently—"

"He did not mention?" Yekaterina blinks. "Lord Bondevik is renouncing his title."

Ivan looks owlishly at his sister. "No."

"Yes."

"He fought his soulmate about it."

"And it seems his soulmate made a very convincing argument. He plans to steal away on his soulmate's ship and petition Lord Karpusi to resume his charity work."

"But…" Well, this would explain Alfred's frustrations about contacting Lord Bondevik. "His land will be returned to the king, then?"

"As was yours, yes. And Ivan"—Yekaterina leans forward and takes his hand from where it rests in his lap—"he is not the only one to renounce."

"…Oh?" Ivan's mind whirrs as he tries to think of families with the same situation as him. A secret soulmate, or a lack of heir, or some indicator that the family title is not worth as much to them as it was to their fathers.

"The Cechs, the Vargases—many more are surrendering their titles and their lands to the king."

"The Vargases?"

Yekaterina's face contorts into sadness. "Feliciano Vargas was taken into the custody of the king. He decided to renounce in person."

"Into custody?" Ivan's ears ring. Disgruntlement he expected—it was why he and Alfred rented a room at Marie's Bed and Breakfast on the outskirts of town, to lessen any backlash—but he certainly didn't expect imprisonment. Especially not for the same kind, generous painter with whom he first confided his soulmate secret.

"The king is displeased," says Yekaterina. "Nearly half of the noble families have refused their titles, leaving the king and his advisors to set up interim taxation methods. Some families have left more money than others, and their parts of the city are in disrepair."

"But—why?"

"Why are they taking money?"

"Why are they renouncing."

Before Yekaterina can answer, the door knocks again, this time in a special pattern. Ivan recognizes the knock and calls, "Come in, Alfred."

The door swings open to reveal Alfred, already halfway through unbuttoning his coat when he sees Yekaterina. His face breaks into a smile. "Katyusha!"

"Alfred," she says, and stands to hug him too. She "oofs" as Alfred returns her hug with equal fervor. "I was just telling your brother about the families abandoning their titles. He asked why."

Alfred props himself at the edge of the bed, facing Ivan and Yekaterina, and looks at Ivan skeptically. "Really? You know completely about my parents' history and ours, and you have to ask that?"

"Not everyone shares our situation," points out Ivan.

"But not everyone's story is so different," says Yekaterina. "Our parents' generation was made more of stagings than soulmate matches. We were taught just as they were, and our grandparents before them, to give up our interests in favor of the family's standing. But all of the gossip is the same, because we do the same things—we lie about never meeting or never pursuing our soulmates, we lie about searching for brides and husbands, and some of us lie about heirs."

"It's all for personal gain," says Alfred, frowning. "If nobles are going to be selfish, they should at least be up-front about it."

"Hence renouncing the title," says Ivan.

"But the renouncement is not harmless," says Yekaterina. "The king is becoming overwhelmed as he manages these new ownings. And if his capture of Feliciano Vargas is anything to go by, he is becoming frightened. He seeks to restore order. So far the pattern has occurred only within our city, but if it spreads…"

"It could be an uprising." Alfred sounds almost awed.

Ivan looks at his soulmate with caution. "All this cannot have stemmed from my renouncing the title."

"If your choices affect so few people, then why are you being sought by the king?" asks Yekaterina. "Why have I had to ensure no soldiers follow me here?"

"I assume because I have not asked permission."

"No," says Alfred. "The king's frightened. He can't handle things without the nobles there to delegate the taxing and the infrastructure funding."

"That is so." Yekaterina nods.

"So we need to send him a message."

"A message?" Yekaterina looks surprised. Ivan, in contrast, has known Alfred long enough to know exactly where he's going with this train of thought.

"A message!" Alfred sits up from the bed. "If we can convince families in any of the other cities to renounce, then maybe he'll see nobody's happy with the current system. Then he'll listen to us and—and we can start something new!"

"Alfred, he is the king," says Yekaterina. "He has the right to establish how our world operates, and—"

"And obviously this world isn't operating well enough for everyone." Alfred turns to Yekaterina. "I know you and Mattie are mostly happy together, but—but I asked you years ago why you chose him instead of your soulmate, and I think you just wanted to play things safe."

"I did." Yekaterina looks vaguely uncomfortable.

"Don't you wish you—"

"Alfred, please," interrupts Ivan. He turns to his sister. "I understand that you are trying to place my sympathies with the king. I appreciate it, Katyusha, and you know that I am no revolutionary. But I also refuse to remain complacent to a system that hides who I love and ignores who I am."

Yekaterina looks at him with a mixture of pity and despair. "And who are you, Ivan?"

"Now that I am no longer a noble, I hope to find out."

"He's part of a family," says Alfred. "He's a good brother to Natalia and a good uncle to Nikolai."

"And now he cannot provide for them," says Yekaterina. "Ivan, it is only me and Matthew now. Only we can pay for doctors, rent, or anything else they may need."

"My service to them was protecting them from Father," says Ivan. "Then I decided that this made them indebted to me. Now I see that I was wrong. I will not force my poor planning onto Nikolai, and I will not make the same mistakes as Natalia."

"And I don't see why this has to stop with us," says Alfred. He sits on the arm of Ivan's chair. "Katyusha, listen. The way things were, nobody was happy. Not me, not Ivan, and not anyone else in either of our families. It was scary, and we're not permanently settled anywhere yet, but I think Ivan did a good thing renouncing the title. And I know people like my parents would have had really different lives if they'd had the option to do the same."

"But your literacy programs—" says Yekaterina.

"The programs are just part of the bigger picture. I have people who stop lessons because they're terrified their parents will find out. I get people who ask me if they'll be arrested. Everyone's half terrified of having a noble for a soulmate, and I can't even tell them what I know. But we can change that." Alfred leans forward, and the arm of the chair creaks under his weight. "If we get the king to see this problem is important enough, he has to listen. Otherwise how is he going to make the kingdom run smoothly?"

"He may use force," says Yekaterina. "He has already used imprisonment."

"He might. That's why we have to be ready for him. We need more nobles renouncing, and we need commoners. They're suffering too."

"Alfred, I understand. Your life has not been the luckiest. But what of the meantime? Charity programs will stop. Food and clothing will be kept from those who need it. Roads and buildings will go unbuilt and unrepaired. Nobles are responsible for all of these things, and losing them means chaos. Would you risk chaos for the right to marry a soulmate unconditionally?"

Alfred and Ivan look at each other. Alfred speaks. "I just don't see why anyone has to choose between their soulmate and their job."

Ivan looks over Alfred. He's developing wrinkles around his eyes and his mouth, and he will probably need to find an actual seat in a few minutes or else harm his back. But he's speaking with a shine in his eyes that Ivan saw less and less over the years. Now their routine is broken. Now life is new and frightening again, and Ivan can think of no other person he would rather face it with.

He leans up, pulls Alfred's shoulder down, and kisses Alfred on the cheek. It temporarily dulls the ache in his stomach that wonders just how far he's willing to go with his decision.

A week later, another knock resounds on Ivan's door. This time, Ivan knows it isn't Alfred asking for entry—Alfred has traveled to see Lord Karpusi and join Emil Bondevik in asking for his support. It also can't be Yekaterina, who—the last Ivan heard—is fighting with her husband and is likely preoccupied.

Ivan decides to sit still inside his room.

"Uncle Ivan?"

Ivan exhales. He comes to the door and opens it. Braginski blue eyes stare at him. Nikolai grew to be Toris's height, several inches shorter than Ivan. From the way he carries himself like Natalia, though, he lends himself some stature.

He looks nervous.

"Nikolai," Ivan says. He ushers his nephew in and closes the door. He notices Nikolai glancing behind himself before Ivan can fully shut the door.

"Have you been followed?" Ivan asks. The hunt for Ivan Braginski, the original renouncer, has intensified. Royal soldiers wander the streets, comb records, pick through the vast networks of nobles and merchants. Ivan is lucky to be hosted by a commoner's inn.

"I don't think so," says Nikolai. "I think some of the soldiers in town recognized me, though. I had to walk to Uncle Mattie's house and get a horse from them."

"And your mother?" Nikolai asks.

"She's taken a week off of work. She doesn't want either of us to be seen."

A leak of guilt springs in Ivan. Natalia can't exactly afford time off, being the only breadwinner. He tried to offer the last of the Braginski money to finish paying off Natalia's and Toris's old home, but Natalia wouldn't accept it. Ivan reluctantly redirected the money to Alfred, to fund his visit to Lord Karpusi.

"Aunt Katyusha promised to give me some food once I returned the horse," says Nikolai. He and Ivan both nod at the same time, and Nikolai focuses his eyes on Ivan. His hands are behind his back, but his shoulders relax minutely.

"Mama wants to know why you did it," Nikolai says.

Ivan eyes his nephew. "I imagine she is not the only one."

Nikolai casts his eyes downward. For being eighteen years old, he has a tendency to revert to boyish habits.

Ivan gestures for Nikolai to sit on his bed, and sits beside him. They both look towards the door. "I know about your meeting with your soulmate," Ivan begins.

"At the bakery?" Nikolai blanches. "I knew Uncle Alfred knew, but—"

"Uncle Alfred tells me everything," says Ivan. "You know that. He found the letter in the hands of your friend Alexandra."

Nikolai frowns and looks up at his uncle. "I didn't mean to make you angry," he begins. "I didn't mean any disrespect, I just wanted to show Anna—"

"Nikolai," says Ivan with a sigh. "You did not make me angry. In fact, you made me very sad."

This, if anything, is the wrong thing to say. Nikolai deflates. "I'm so sorry."

"Not for the reasons you think, my nephew," says Ivan. He bumps Nikolai on the shoulder. "I am not sad for lacking an heir. I am sad because Alfred and I did exactly as you did."

"Really?"

"For nearly two years before we married. It was stressful and frightening, and I had hoped that you would not know the same courtship Alfred and I did."

"It's not the same anyway," says Nikolai with an odd combination of humor and bitterness. "Neither of us is actually noble."

"You have Braginski blood," Ivan points out.

"By half. But I'm no noble, and I know that." He looks Ivan in the eyes, and for the fastest of moments Ivan sees Toris, his gaze firm and certain as he informs Natalia's father that he is Natalia's soulmate. "I'm a baker, and I'm Anna's soulmate. And it wasn't until Anna that I knew that was all I was."

Ivan looks back at his nephew. He slowly exhales. "I know," he says. "That is why I could not let myself make you be anything else."

Nikolai waits for some sort of addendum. When he hears none, his face breaks out into a smile. Ivan smiles back.

"I really like it," says Nikolai. "Just being the two things. Being an heir was fun, I guess, but I saw you and Uncle Alfred and I just…"

"I understand," says Ivan. "For the longest time, Alfred was not happy about our arrangement. It took longer than it should have for me to agree. I hope that your story will be happier."

"It already is. I introduced Anna to Mama the other day, and it went well."

Ivan raises an eyebrow.

"Alright, maybe Mama was a little quiet. And Anna was nervous, but Anna's a really good cook, and she told stories about her dad who works at the docks and her papa who works at a pub, and it turns out Mama knew her dad. So we got to talk about that. Then Mama talked about Dad." Nikolai's voice turns quieter. "She said Anna's dad helped her realize she needed to find him."

"How much do you know about your parents' courtship?" says Ivan. His own knowledge is confined to whatever he has witnessed of Toris and whatever Alfred or Natalia has let slip.

"Mama made him leave for a while," says Nikolai. He begins to play with a hangnail. "She didn't want a soulmate. But then she almost staged with Anna's dad, and after that she went out and looked for Dad."

"Because she didn't want to be without him."

"Because she missed him. Because nobody else was like him."

Ivan places his hand on Nikolai's knee. Nikolai looks up. "You are like him," says Ivan. "Your mother is fierce, but so was he. And he loved you and your mother more strongly than I have ever seen."

A weak grin bubbles up on Nikolai's face. "Mama said Anna was trying to win her over with food, just like Dad did."

Ivan can't help but laugh. "Did it work?"

Nikolai is interrupted by footsteps outside the hall. He and Ivan instinctively fall silent. There are too many feet outside, and in too thick of boots.

Ivan looks over at Nikolai, whose face slowly grows paler. He sees some sort of realization enter Nikolai's eyes. He realizes a moment later: Nikolai was followed.

"Is there a window?" Nikolai hisses.

Ivan holds a finger up to his lips.

The footsteps stop in front of Ivan's door. A heavy fist pounds on the door three times. "By order of the king I demand entry," a deep voice calls.

Lighter footsteps follow. "Sir," says Marie the inn-keep, "I must ask that you leave my guests alone—"

"Near the chair," Ivan hisses to Nikolai. As Marie's protests grow louder and the soldier retorts, Ivan ushers Nikolai to the window in the farthest corner of the room. From underneath the chair Ivan pulls out a rope, an escape option devised by Alfred, and ties it to the bedpost while Nikolai lowers it down the window to the story below.

"Go," Ivan hisses. Nikolai looks at him incredulously.

"They're looking for you, not me!"

"They know who you are. Go first—I will follow."

With a dubious look, Nikolai scoots himself onto the window frame and clings to the rope, climbing down it. Ivan holds the rope steady, careful not to let the bed scoot across the floor with Nikolai's weight.

THUMP. The door is impacted. A piece of the door's lock bounces onto the floor. Ivan closes his eyes.

THUMP. As the soldier kicks the door once again, the rope in Ivan's hands goes slack. Nikolai has reached the ground. Ivan looks back—the door is about to give.

He runs to the other side of the room and unties the rope from the bed.

As he tosses the rope out the window, eradicating all evidence of Nikolai's presence, the soldier breaks down the door.

Four men run into the room and surround Ivan, who stands in the middle of the room. The fifth and last man—presumably the man who kicked out the door, the one who argued with Marie—hands a pair of shackles to the men holding Ivan's wrists behind his back.

"By order of the king," he says as he watches Ivan be bound, "you are placed under arrest for treason, evasion of the royal guard, and marriage beyond class. You will be held in royal custody and tried on these charges before the king. Your silence is advised until such a time as you may find adequate defense at your own expense."

Of all of these charges, Ivan is most surprised that they found his and Alfred's marriage certificate. He thought he'd taken that with him when he left the manor. The only other copy rests with—

Lars.

Lars, whose cousins own this inn. Lars, who promised protection to Ivan and Alfred simply for being his soulmate's brother and brother-in-law. Lars, who lost a life with his soulmate to a noble system he'd detested since youth.

Lars, who likely never realized that renouncing his title was an option until Ivan did it.

Ivan's renouncement did not only destabilize the current system of networks and rules. It upended it. And while Yekaterina or Natalia would argue that he is only now about to face the consequences, Ivan realizes that he already has.

I killed Toris because I am a bad person.

I'm hoping to have the next chapter published at max a week from now. I just have to choose one or both of two different ways to end the story - nothing that will change the plot, but just how to wrap things up. Maybe I'll do both, I dunno.