The Letter Aelinna Cannot Send

She left Hold-Above-the-Snow on the morning of her sixth day.

She did not, before leaving, take a second audience with the queen. She did not, in her last morning, climb the tower to see the astronomer. She did not, in the inner court, take leave of the chamberlain in any of the small ceremonial ways the convention would have required. She rose at the fifth hour, dressed, ate the small steady Avarathan breakfast the household had laid for her on the small table inside her chamber door, and walked down the inner stair to the lower court with her travelling case in her own hand.

She had, on the fifth night, written four letters.

She had written them at the small desk under the eastern window of her chamber. She had written them in the small careful hand she had been taught to write in by her mother. She had written them on the small stack of clean paper the chamberlain had provided. She had written them in the order the seasons had taught her to write them.

She had written the first to Major Raven.

It had begun:

Major Raven — I have been north. I have read what cannot, in your tent, be read. I have seen, on a snowfield outside the Hold, a figure that —

She had stopped at the dash. She had read the page. She had written it again.

Major — there are measurements the kingdom has not been keeping. I have been keeping them on a small bronze clock in the south tower. I am not the only one. There is, in Avarath, a master ledger —

She had stopped at the second dash. She had written the page a third time. She had written it a fourth. She had, by the second hour, written six pages, four of which had crossed out. She had read the surviving two pages. She had folded them. She had carried them, in the small slow careful walk of a princess in a foreign chamber, to the small iron stove on the lowest landing of her tower, and she had laid them on the embers, and she had watched them burn.

She had written the second to Silas Grimshaw at Darklume.

Father Silas — I have not been to your cathedral. I have been to the north. I have been given an instrument. I would —

She had not been able to finish the sentence. She had written the letter in three further drafts. She had not, in any of them, been able to name the council's vote. She had not, in any of them, been able to name the bronze clock either. She had, by the third quarter of the hour, written four pages. She had read the surviving page. She had folded it. She had walked it, again, to the iron stove. She had burned it.

She had written the third to her father.

She had written it for ten minutes. She had not, on the third writing, attempted to name anything. She had attempted only the small steady opening of a letter from a princess to her king. The opening would not come. She had written Father and stopped. She had written To His Majesty and stopped. She had written Sire and stopped. She had set the quill down. She had not written the letter. She had not burned the page; the page had nothing on it that required burning. She had, instead, folded the page and placed it in the small inner pocket of her cloak, and she had not, in any of the further hours of the night, taken it out.

She had written the fourth, finally, in the small clear cold hour before dawn.

She had written it to a princess of Caedrin she had not seen in eight years.

The princess of Caedrin was no longer, by the convention, a princess. Tovalen had been raised to the regency on the death of his mother seven winters ago, and his sister Vashalin, with whom Aelinna had shared a desk at the academy at Avarath nine and ten years ago, had not, by Caedrin's small careful internal practice, taken any of her brother's titles. She had retained her own academy title.

The fourth letter had begun:

Vashalin — I am writing to you from a chamber at Hold-Above-the-Snow. Your brother does not know I am writing. My father does not know I am writing. The chancelleries of two kingdoms have not been informed.

I have, in this case at my feet, an Avarathan master ledger of the past four nights' hesitations of the eastern field. I have, in a small bronze clock at my elbow, three nights of my own measurements from the south tower at Vextar. I have, in the inner pocket of my cloak, a letter to my father that I cannot finish. I have, in the small private corner of my own discipline, the careful private memory of an academy desk-partner I have not corresponded with for eight years and to whom I am writing now because every other recipient I might, by the small careful private workings of my training, have written to has, by some quiet measure of the season, ceased to be a recipient I can write to.

I am asking only one thing. Has Caedrin any measurements of its own?

— A.

She had read the letter once. She had not changed a word.

She had sealed it with the small private wax her mother had used for personal correspondence — the same wax she had sealed her own first letter to the astronomer with, the previous week. She had pressed the small inherited seal. She had set the letter on the desk under the bronze clock.

She had gone to bed.

She had not, in the morning, taken the letter out of the desk to look at it again.

She had carried it, in the inner pocket of her cloak, on the long descent from the upper terrace to the lower court. She had carried it, in the inner pocket of her cloak, during the small clean farewell at the lower gate, where the chamberlain had handed her the small parcel of provisions the queen's household had prepared for her, and where the astronomer, who had not climbed down from her tower, had not appeared. She had carried it, in the inner pocket of her cloak, on the first hour of the carriage road south.

She did not, in any of the slow hours of the road, mark it.

She did not, in any of the inn-stops, give it to a courier.

She carried it.

At the second inn-stop, the captain of her column came to her at the small low table in her upper chamber, after the inn's evening meal had been cleared. He stood at the door. He did not enter.

The captain did not, on the asking, meet her eyes.

She inclined her head, once.

He withdrew. The door closed.

She sat at the small low table for a long count.

She had, by the second night of the road, decided that she would not, in the foreseeable seasons, give the fourth letter to any of her father's couriers. She had decided that she would, instead, give it, in person, to a princess of Caedrin she had not seen in eight years, at a court she had not been invited to, at a time her own father had not authorized — and the deciding had been the easiest decision she had taken in a year.

A princess who wrote to a foreign rival had begun to operate on a register her father's chancellery did not maintain.

A princess who carried the letter herself had decided, by the carrying, to stop being her father's heir.

She did not, at any of the inn-stops, name the decision.

She did not, on any of the inn-stops, take the letter out.

She carried it.

The carriage came down through the upper passes, through the small frozen way-stations, through the two great inns at Crannet and at the lower country's trading post, through the long careful slow re-entry into Krypton's eastern marches, and she did not, on any morning of the descent, change her mind.

The letter, at the fifth night, was still in the inner pocket of her cloak.

The kingdom did not yet know. The kingdom would not, by any of her formal correspondences, find out.

She held the cloak closed against the cold with the small clean discipline her mother had taught her, and she watched the long road south, and she did not, on any further hour of the road, take the letter out.