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Eight years ago, I was a married woman – I still am, though no longer to the same person I married then. Two marriages in fourteen years, I know people would talk. They’d talk about how I seduced you, taken your estate, and then conspired to kill you, or poison you, or threaten you into leaving somehow. You never gave me a choice, you know, never asked me for my input. That was just the way you were, maybe because you’re older than us, or maybe because you just have a martyr complex.
Let the neighbors and gossipmongers talk, anyhow. It doesn’t really matter. House Kaslana’s ancient luster faded in the war fifteen years ago, and it remains today a shell of its former self. When the enemy forces took over the Schicksal capital and shot my father and mother dead, they seized my ancestral home, and scattered our family all over the country. I guess that’s just what happens to the family of a war hero. The Holy Maid Kallen was dead, Seigfried and Cecilia was dead, Bianka, my elder sister, missing. Only Aunt Theresa and I remained, from the good graces of House Apocalypse, and of course, my aunt’s foresight in anticipating the outcome of the war, her swiftness in arranging our marriage.
With my cousin Ana also dead, House Schariac had been completely wiped out, and House Apocalypse now stands alone among the Three Pillars of Schicksal, having been deemed crippled enough. Though personally I think Risa Apocalypse betrayed the country in her desperate bid to seize power, and thus is why Apocalypse retains some of its past standing. I was too young to completely understand all of it, I think, and some details are too buried in blood and soil for me to ever know. Back then, what was important was staying alive, following my aunt’s instructions so I may someday bring the family name out of ruin. But wasn’t that too much for a seventeen year old girl? You agreed. I know you did. That’s why you agreed to marry me.
I didn’t know which great family in Shenzhou you hailed from. Later, I found out you were from a long line of decorated military generals, with a celebrated martial arts school under your name, but it was enough that you were in Schicksal, and you held some diplomatic standing. As foreign ambassador, they could not touch you, could not demand you give up the Kaslana heir under threat of violence, unless they wished to wage war upon Shenzhou as well. They could not risk that.
You and I, we’ve known each other for a while, actually. Do you remember? We were kids together, at my aunt’s private school, you, me, Mei and Bronya. Admittedly, I didn’t like you back then. You were too stiff, too much of a rule-follower, for my tastes. You were a teacher’s pet, and how I hated that, how I hated that Mei liked you, how I hated that you always had higher grades, performed the best in all extracurriculars, and you being three years older meant that the teachers put you in charge of the rest of us. I was elated when you went back to Shenzhou. Mei cried then, but all I could think of was how to make her fall for me. What a selfish kid I was. We wouldn’t meet again for another six years, when you came to replace your ailing father at his post here.
My clever aunt, a whole year before the war ended, already felt the cogs moving towards Schicksal’s downfall. Perhaps it was the odd death of Overseer Frank Apocalypse, that tipped her off that Schicksal was also under siege from the inside. I didn’t believe her, honestly I thought she was overreacting. Perhaps I had too much faith in my sister Bianka, or my beloved Mei, drafted and fighting in the frontlines. Perhaps I was just too scared of considering what would happen to them if we lost. I still remember when news broke of the western front being breached, the 41st Regiment annihilated by the enemy. I remember wanting to run out there myself, only stopped by Aunt Theresa, trying her very best to anchor me to reality. I remember the next few days spent in a haze of anxiety, you came to see me, but I didn’t want to see you. It was in the following months that my aunt gradually and firmly kept suggesting to me the idea of marrying you.
She’d tell me I was of age, and I needed somebody to get me out of my misery so I could begin thinking of the future, such as getting married happily, having children, starting a family, like everyone wished for, and reviving the house. I knew she didn’t really mean it, it was just that she was scared of the capital falling, and she was worried for me. Of course, I didn’t listen to her at first, I was grieving. I lost my sister and my lover, I wasn’t all that open to propositions of marriage. She understood, of course, my ever gentle, hardworking aunt, she understood, but I could see the anxious look in her eyes, despite how much she tried to cover it up with cheery smiles and encouraging words.
And you were, too. Gentle and kind and understanding. She had to have been talking to you, right? Pushing you to propose to me. It took you quite a while, and at first I took this as a sign that you didn’t actually want to marry me. I thought you’d be more insistent, like the main characters in romance novels, but you actually didn’t propose to me for a long time. Not until you’d courted me properly, until I was able to enjoy myself around you, until I began eating properly again, until I took care of myself again, and you were there, helping me through all of that, despite how disinterested I was in it all. Until I began to smile again. You didn’t propose to me until you could convince me that perhaps Bianka and Mei were still alive, and they could still come back. You gave me hope, you did your best to make me happy, and perhaps that was why I began to love you, why I accepted your proposal.
Of course, the relief in my aunt’s expression was palpable even through her excitement, I think it even overtook her joy. You, though, I suppose you looked happy enough, but I should’ve taken the look in your eyes as a foreshadowing of sorts.
I wouldn’t say you were a bad spouse. In fact, I think you were perfect, albeit rather distant. I will not lie to you, I fell for you more and more each day. You were good to me, romantic and loyal and dutiful. I was happy with you, and tried to tell you as often as I could. I told you I loved you, many times, but I don’t think you ever believed me. I think you loved me, you must have, no one shows that much care and dedication towards someone they didn’t love. You must have loved me, you kissed me so softly and held me so gently, you stayed by my side for five years, shared in my joys and my sorrows. You must have loved me, right?
Do you remember it, our wedding? It was a traditional western wedding, because the marriage really only mattered in the west, though I wouldn’t have minded marrying you again, in your home country. It was a small affair, being during wartime and all, but I’m glad my mother and father at least got to attend my wedding. I miss them so. They adored you, you were always so polite and well-mannered, and I suppose parents will always wish for that sort of partner for their children. I still have our picture, you know. I didn’t throw it away. You were so handsome, with that polite smile of yours that always seemed hesitant. I did wonder that day if you truly loved me or if you were just going along with what Aunt Theresa said, for some unknown purpose. With what I know now, I don't know what our marriage did for you, if anything, I was a parasite. So you must have loved me, right?
You were wonderful to me, but you were a little inscrutable sometimes. Your smile often looked just a little sad, just a little wistful, and it made me wonder if it pained you to be married to me, and that you were doing a horrid job of pretending to be happy. But sometimes, the sun might shine through the clouds, as you would say it, and I’d see you, truly happy, like for a moment you’d forgotten what it was that weighed you so. And you would look at me, with all the adoration in the world, and I knew you loved me.
I remember when the capital fell, and my parents were executed along with most of the Schariacs, and you held me close against your breast through those long grieving nights, stayed by my side as I stood vigil during my parents’ wake. You were with me when I buried them, a steady and comforting presence, just like you were during those days after Bianka and Mei went missing. You planted my mother’s favourite flowers in the yard, so I’d remember her always, and painstakingly recreated my father’s pendant for me to keep, that’s how I know you loved me.
You worked tirelessly in searching for my sister and Mei. For that I am truly grateful. For a time I believed this was what caused you so much pain and stress, and I thought about asking you to stop, but how could I, when it was my loved ones you were trying to bring back? I could not bear to see you so agonized, yet I could not leave my sister and former lover to their fates. I remember you’d spend nights poring over documents and maps, writing letters to your network of spies and connections. I am grateful, yes, but I didn’t want you to risk your health, as much as I wanted to see them again, it was my duty as your wife to care for you. You sometimes listened, and sometimes you didn’t. But even then, your dutiful work tells me you loved me.
Everything you did for me, I hold so dearly in my heart. Despite the sadness lurking in your eyes, I know you must have loved me.
We were together for five years, and for all that time I remained chaste, that was strange. You did not touch me on our wedding night, you laid me in bed and kissed me, bid me good night, and turned over to sleep. I didn’t mind it then, I was convinced my good aunt merely tricked your kind soul into a marriage with me, and despite being attracted to you, I understood if you just did not reciprocate. But you did love me. Did you love me so much you refused to take me for your own? As embarrassing as it is, I do remember attempting to seduce you, yet I always failed. Perhaps it’s an issue of my skill, or despite loving me you simply didn’t find me attractive. I heard that happened sometimes. In the end, I think the most likely reason for this is the very same reason behind your wistful manner. For all my efforts, I still haven’t been able to figure out what you were getting out of this marriage. I’m getting status, security, and you were even looking for my missing loved ones. You did not even want a child from me.
I wonder now as I wondered then, was I good to you? Were you happy with me, truly happy? Someway, somehow, without even knowing what it is, did I ever manage to give you what you wanted? I tried to be there for you, care for you as you did for me, do my duty to you as you did for me, love you as you loved me. I wanted you to share your burdens with me, but you rarely ever did. All I could do was love you, and you didn’t take that either. Perhaps I was a terrible wife after all. Perhaps in the end I was unfair to you. For that I am truly sorry.
You were not a bad spouse, you were perfect, even. But oh, you were a frustrating one. I loved you, dearly, yet you’ve never believed me. I often wonder why that is, what of my expression, of my movements, were so unconvincing? Where did I fail you? What did you see in me that marked me a liar? Something unknown to me, something unconscious and unbidden. I wouldn’t know how to start apologising for such a thing, but I will beg your forgiveness all the same. I have but one theory of what this unconscious thing is, and I can’t blame you for it, but I wish you’d have given me time to talk to you. I wish you listened to me, instead of the demons that constantly haunted your head. I wish you didn’t make my choices for me. I know I spent the most of this letter reminiscing. This is my appeal to you, my truth to you, so please bear with me.
After five years, your searching actually bore fruit, you found them. I was overjoyed, of course I was, I’d thought them dead, but because of your efforts they had been found. I cannot say it enough, how truly thankful I am to you. It felt like I’d only lost them yesterday, that I’d heard the news of the loss of the western front, that my loved ones were missing or worse, and then you were telling me Bianka was spotted in the Sugar Countries, in hiding but alive, and only a few months later you tell me that Mei had been recovered from a slaver’s ship bound for the Coral Islands, in quite a terrible state, but alive nonetheless. You’d found her, and brought her home.
It was unknown to me then, but you’d begun preparing for a long trip while I was visiting Mei at the hospital. And when she was discharged and came to visit me at the estate, and she embraced me, as she missed me and I missed her too, I met your eyes as you stood behind her in the distance. In that moment I think I understood why there was such a poignant sadness in you.
You didn’t believe I loved you because you were convinced I was waiting for Mei. And because of that, you smiled at me, when our eyes met, with the same hesitation and longing as it always had, and you walked away.
Maybe that was the unknown, unconscious, and unbidden thing. Maybe you were right, maybe I had been waiting, maybe I didn’t love you as I loved Mei, maybe that’s what you saw in my eyes, on that day, and maybe on every day of five and a half years. I don’t know, I don’t pretend to have full control over my emotions, I am human, and fallible. You left one morning, telling me you had urgent business to attend to, and in my human lacking I let you go without asking further. Could you not have given me a chance to choose? A chance to say goodbye? Instead you made the choice for me, you had gone behind my back as Mei lay comatose in the hospital, signed all the papers, and next thing I know, the Shenzhou Ambassador had rushed back to her motherland to take care of her father on his deathbed, and I have inherited all her possessions at the Schicksal mansion. You must’ve thought you were being so sneaky, so smart. I remembered why I hated you as a kid, you had this quiet, sanctimonious air of someone who believed they knew better, someone used to being the smartest one in the room. You must have believed that if you asked for my opinion, I would choose to sacrifice my happiness with Mei to stay with you. You are a stupid woman.
Call me greedy, a spoiled noble brat, but I would have tried to keep the both of you. I am not wont to let go of my happinesses, I’ve already lost my parents, my cousins, and my friends in the war, I would have you know that I would have held on to the both of you even if they pointed a gun to my head.
You found Mei and Bianka for me, it’s only right that I search for you, too. I did not find you at your home in Shenzhou, I could not find any of your relatives. Years have passed since, and I have married Mei. She remembers you, you know. It did not surprise her as it surprised me that you were a good partner. Shenzhou is a large place, I’ve come to realize, much larger in life than in the geography books, and I do not have your network of spies or your connections and influence, despite obtaining your estate. But I found some of your disciples, though regrettably none of them could tell me where their master is staying. Still, I will be leaving a copy of this letter with each of them, just in case. I hope this could reach you, somehow, someday.
I’m reminding you of all our time together because I believe you loved me. I believe you would have wanted to stay with me, if you only believed me when I said I loved you. If you never did love me, then I hope you are living well, wherever you are. Thank you for taking care of me all those five and a half years, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for playing along with my dear aunt’s plans. Please write back, at the very least, it pains me to know nothing of you.
But if you ever loved me – if you still love me, then I will wait for you. I’ve kept that feather over the front doors that you adore so much. I’ve made sure your beloved chickens are well-fed in your absence. Please come back home. Come back to me.
Yours forever,
Kiana Kaslana