Page 118 of Caging Darling

Tears swell in my eyes, stinging.

He hesitates, his breath fogging in the cool night. “I won’t tell you, if you don’t want to know.”

I pause, and though I already know my answer, I weigh the pain.

There’s no future for me and Astor. Not in this life. Not in this version of events. But there’s a sick part of me that knows that when I’m lying in Peter’s arms, a puppet in the life I was sold into—sold myself into—I’ll want a place to go. A corner that, rather than being dank and lightless, is thriving with the blossoms of a life passed up. The garden that was taken from me.

“It can’t hurt much worse than what I’ve already experienced,” is what I settle on.

Astor’s throat bobs, but he continues all the same. “I was supposed…” He stops, takes a breath. “Had I kept the Mark—” Again, he halts, and I wonder if he’ll back out of telling me the story, but he digs his hook into the side of the crow’s nest and starts again. “When my Mark first appeared, I thought my Mate would take me away from Iaso. I thought it would cause me to be unfaithful. I’d resolved in my heart that if I couldn’t remove the Mark, if I couldn’t control myself, I’d leave Endor, leave Iaso behind to find a man who could actually love her without distraction. Without secretly longing for another. But I couldn’t bear the thought, so I went to the Seer in Endor.”

I know this part of the story, but I can tell Astor is working himself into the worst part, so I don’t stop him. “I thought that if I kept my Mark intact, I would ruin the woman I loved. That I would destroy her. I didn’t know…” He closes his eyes, wincing. “When the Sister showed me the rest of the tapestry, I realized I hadn’t accounted for certain outcomes. In the Eldest Sister’s original plan, Iaso and I were to marry at sixteen. At twenty-six, she was going to bear our first child. A daughter.” His throat bobs with a wistfulness that is agonizing. “And then our second, two springs later. She was going to love being a mother. And the girls were going to adore her.” He blanches, looks ill, and though I can’t tell if it’s from the story or his infection, my heart aches. “And then, when she turned thirty-three, there was meant to be an accident. A fall, and she was…” Tears spring from his eyes,run down his cheeks. “Iaso was meant to have a quick death, a painless one. She was meant to die a woman whose dreams had been fulfilled. She was meant to be happy and adored, and then pass from this life to the next in a moment. She was never supposed to hurt.”

My heart aches for Astor, but for Iaso, too. For the life she was meant to live. The life that was stolen from her.

“She was supposed to get thirteen more years and two beautiful daughters,” he says. “We were supposed to be happy together. And I was to mourn her, instead of clinging onto her. And her spirit was supposed to pass on.”

It’s awful of me, but I find myself doing the math in my head. But Astor has already reached this point of the story. “In this version, I would grieve her for two years. And then one day, I’d receive an invitation. One from a nobleman who owned a fleet of ships and needed a privateer to protect them on the waters as they sailed for Kruschi. I was to meet him at his manor to bid for the job. He’d invited several others, but I was to turn down the opportunity, considering the pay was much too low.”

His eyes go glassy, and it’s as if he’s there, reliving the life he never experienced. “But then, just as I walk out of his office, eager to find my next contract, I stumble into the library to fetch my daughters. I’d left them with the nanny of the house to watch while the nobleman and I discussed business, you see.”

My breath catches, heart spasms, but Astor doesn’t stop there. “And when I stroll in, there’s this beautiful woman on the floor playing with them. One of my daughters is late to speak, and the woman is familiar with this because of her brother, so she’s gotten out this contraption and is using it to play with the little one. And I just watch for a while. The woman is so caught up in the world she and my daughters have created that she doesn’t even realize I’m standing there. She’s made up this far-fetched story, something about a woman who is cursed to liveout a thousand lives in her dreams as she sleeps perpetually, and she’s telling it to them as they play with the toys she fetched for them out of her brother’s room. And my girls are laughing for the first time in a long time—they have a morbid sense of humor, you see—my oldest beaming in a way I haven’t seen since their mother died.

“And then, I shift or move, or something gets the woman’s attention, and she jolts her head up like it’s she who’s been woken from a dream, and…” He taps his hook against the side of the crow’s nest. “And she has these beautiful golden freckles on her cheek. They course down to her jaw.” He mimics the motion with his hand, caressing my Mating Mark down to my jaw as the tears fall. “And I find myself mesmerized.”

“How does she react?” I ask, my voice trembling.

He snorts, and it’s a pained but amused laughter. Tears wet his eyes. “She apologizes for not noticing me earlier.”

“And you?” I ask.

“I tell her never to worry about apologizing to me again.”

My legs are shaking, and from the way he has to prop himself against the crow’s nest, I imagine his are, too.

“And what then?” I ask, like I could keep asking the question for an eternity and never be satisfied.

“I waltz out of the room, storm into her father’s office, and tell him I’ll take the contract, provided he grant me permission to court his daughter.”

I laugh. It’s so preposterous. “And then?”

A sly smile curves on his lips. “The courting process doesn’t take all that long. You’re rather easily convinced to marry me.”

I laugh, gasping, and elbow him in the ribs. He laughs too, but it’s on the edge of a cough. “And then?”

His gaze dances upon me with a longing that makes me want to die. “And then I take you back to my ship and make you mywife. And I give you anything and everything your heart has ever desired.”

My throat hurts. “Do we…do we have children?”

He winces, shutting his eyes. “Another daughter.”

My heart hurts. “Was she supposed to have been born already?”

He nods, tears falling onto his cheeks.

There’s an aching in my soul I can’t quite describe, for the child I never felt swell in my belly, never felt kick. For the baby I never held in my arms, never knew to love. The pain isn’t only for her, but for Astor’s eldest two daughters, the girls I would have loved and adored as my own.

I take a step toward him, but Astor actually flinches, shaking his head. “Darling, I know you’re quick to forgive, but before you do, I’d like for you to consider this—I took everything from you. I took half of your Mating Mark and hoisted it upon someone else. You weren’t…You weren’t ever supposed to fall sick as a child. You weren’t supposed to have a bargain tying yourself to Peter. Meaning your parents weren’t supposed to cage you up, then barter you to potential suitors when you’d come of age.”

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