A Sinner’s Chance

I purposely arrived at the room Arya and I shared early, the sun had been over the horizon for less than an hour by the time I arrived. I patiently waited in the kitchen-cum-dining room in plain sight of the single door that led both in and out of the room. The time slowly flowed by while I sat in meditation and I waited for the door to open.

When the first day passed without her reappearance I didn't think anything of it, since it was quite possible that her clan was located further away than a round trip of a week, especially if she spent multiple days there. Every morning I would wake early and wait by the door, almost as if I was an abandoned puppy waiting for their master to return. On the seventh day I began to worry, surely her clan wasn't that far away, seeing as she came her for school. By the tenth day, I was unable to sit down as I restlessly waited to see if she would come through the door.

Finally on the twelfth day, my patience was rewarded when I heard the door open and the familiar sight of Arya began to walk through the door.

Without hesitation I bolted forth just as she had managed to come fully inside, my hand slamming against the door forcing it shut as I practically pinned Arya flat against it. The only way for her to escape would be to hug tightly against me and shift around me. However Arya seemed too shocked to properly react to the situation, not that I blamed her, I had definitely come in too quickly and with too much force. But we were here now and I didn't plan to let this opportunity go to waste.

Arya had a complicated look on her face as I stared at her intently. It had only now occurred to me that there was perhaps a better way to have gone about this since I was the one that was supposed to be apologizing. Realizing this I relaxed slightly as I brought my arm down from the door and wrapped it around Arya giving her a soft hug as I leaned in. "It's good to see you, and I want to apologize for whatever it is that I did to offend you." My words were soft and I pulled away and looked at Arya as I finished.

There were a few emotions I could see cross her face in a flash, relief, anger, and finally sadness as she looked back at me. "Don't lie to me. I'm just her to grab my things and then I'll be out of your hair forever." Her voice was shaky as she pushed against me to separate us further. I couldn't understand what was going on or what had happened that suddenly shifted her opinion of me so harshly.

Even with my bewilderment I was determined to understand the situation, so I put more power into my arms, thwarting her attempt to push us apart. "I don't want you to leave, tell me what's going on. Why is this happening?"

I felt her tense for a moment before she stared into my eyes, tears seemingly on the edge of escaping. "You don't know?" Her voice was nearly a whisper, a faint trace of hope laced within. "Really?"

I shook my head and loosened my embrace. "I swear on my mother's grave, I really don't know what is happening."

She froze a moment, her expression becoming gloomy once again. "I thought your mother was still alive? Did something happen to her?"

Realizing my mistake I shook my head and smiled. "I meant my biological mother, I wasn't always a member of the Eldur household, I'll tell you about it if you'll tell me what's going on." Arya hesitated before nodding her head. Since I didn't think that she would make a break for it I let her go and we sat down at the small table located nearby.

"Earlier the same day I told you not to worry about me, I got a message from my father. He said that your father had brought up talks of breaking off the engagement. I took my frustration out on you that day since I thought you had asked for the negotiations." Arya began, before taking a deep breath to stabilize herself.

"For a while it didn't seem that my father would break the engagement for any reason, but he suddenly changed his mind about a week before Winter break started. He didn't tell me the reason but he brought me back to the clan briefly saying that this would be my final year and that once the year ended I was to come back to the clan permanently."

I took a deep breath as I worked through all the information she'd dumped on me. For reasons unknown my father had decided to break the engagement off, and Arya's father had similarly accepted for unknown reasons despite being so against it at first. On top of that, this would be the last sixth months that Arya would spend at the school, as she was being brought back to her clan for another unknown reason.

I wanted to bang my head against the table because of my lack of information, but I held back by instead just rubbing my temples. The sole reason I could think that my father would break off the engagement was that a better suitor had appeared, but I couldn't think of anyone that really fit that bill other than a few ridiculous ones, such as the Hero, or the prince. 

As for why Kavir had okayed it was something that would probably remain a mystery since I didn't know him that well. He'd been so insistent that he'd had to give away all sorts of rare and unique resources to balance out the deal, yet he'd suddenly relented for seemingly no reason.

Regardless of the reasons, I only had six more months to spend with Arya, a fact that cut me deeply emotionally. Not only would my dream be to be free of the Eldur house's responsibilities and be an Adventurer, but more importantly, I didn't want to part with Arya after all this time. I took a moment to sort through my emotions before looking at Arya seriously.

"Do you want to stay with me?" It was a simple question, but one with heavy emotions and significance.