She heaved a sigh. “You don’t even keep track of years anymore? It’s in a week.”
A week to the new year. That made six months away from home. Six months with Beast. It seemed both too short and too long. I had lived forever in the castle at the same time I’d barely stepped foot in it at all.
“Tell me you’ll come,” she repeated with force.
After six months away, a week at home was not too much to ask.
“I’ll come.”
She squealed and threw her arms around me, almost impaling me with the knife in her hand.
“Careful, Callista!”
“Sorry!” She pulled back, laughing, and returned to the potatoes and onion.
After I handed the bread off to Rob to turn in the coals, Callista and I finished the stew.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, wiping her hands without looking at me.
“Just put the knife down next time.”
“No, about ...” She gathered a deep breath, clutched the pot. “Telling you not to love before Astra. I thought I was being a good sister, but now I know it’s not something you choose.”
I didn’t envy her the day she’d made the announcement of her own marriage. It couldn’t have been easy.
I tried to say I hadn’t loved Stephan, but I only said, “I forgive you.”
And as I followed her to the fireplace, my steps felt a bit lighter. Until she hung the pot and turned to ask—
“Are you staying to marry Stephan? I think you should, no matter what Father says.”
Rob’s eyes were on me too, before he reached carefully to flip the bread.
“I don’t love Stephan,” I managed at last.
Callista gave me a pinched look. “Beauty, I’ve seen the way—”
“If she doesn’t love him,” Rob interrupted, “that’s that.”
I waited for him to say he’d warned me, that he’d predicted things with Stephan would end badly.
But he didn’t.
“You never liked Stephan,” Callista huffed, glaring at Rob.
“No, I didn’t. But I don’t make Beauty’s decisions. If it’s her decision not to marry him, I’m all the happier.” Rob looked up at me. “And if he tries to hound you otherwise, you just say the word. I’ll send him off with more force than Father did.”
This was a different type of regret. Just when I’d thought I experienced the full spectrum.
I didn’t know.No, that wasn’t it. I didn’t trust. When Stephan told me my family would hate me, I believed it.
Because why shouldn’t they feel the same way I did?
I smashed my tongue between my teeth, felt the pain to the back of my skull.
“I—I have to—” I waved a useless hand, already stumbling toward the door.
Rob called, “Hey, there’s a storm—”
