The Letter
1824 Words
The grain saved lives.
Aldric watched from the walls of Ash-Keep as his people ate—slowly, carefully, afraid that the food might disappear if they swallowed too fast. Children who had stopped crying began to laugh again. Mothers who had stopped hoping began to dream again.
But Aldric could not eat. Could not laugh. Could not dream.
Liana was gone.
And every night, he wrote her letters he could not send.
"The winter is ending," he wrote. "The snow is melting. The first green shoots are pushing through the soil. I wish you could see them. I wish you could see everything."
He folded the letter and hid it beneath his mattress, next to the shroud his mother had woven.
One thread at a time, he reminded himself. One thread at a time.
---
Theron's spies were everywhere.
In the kitchens. In the stables. In the council chambers. Liana could not sneeze without her brother knowing about it. She could not cry without him sending a servant to ask why.
She sat in her room, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Aldric.
Is he eating? Is he sleeping? Does he think about me as much as I think about him?
A knock on the door.
"Come in."
Theron entered. His golden hair was brushed. His blue eyes were sharp. His smile was thin.
"You're thinking about him," the king said.
"I'm always thinking about him."
"Then stop."
Liana sat up. "You can't command my heart, Theron. You can command my body. You can lock me in this room. You can threaten to kill the man I love. But you cannot tell me how to feel."
Theron's smile disappeared.
"You're right," he said quietly. "I can't command your heart. But I can command your hand." He walked to the window. "You will write him a letter."
Liana's blood went cold. "What?"
"A letter. Telling him to stay away. Telling him that you've chosen Valdris. Telling him that you never want to see him again."
"I won't."
"You will. Or I will send my army to Cruzar. Not to take grain—to take heads." Theron turned to face her. "Five thousand soldiers, Liana. Enough to burn every village. Enough to kill every man, woman, and child who ever looked at Aldric with love."
Liana's hands trembled. "You're a monster."
"I'm a king. Monsters are for children's stories." He walked to the desk. He placed a quill and paper before her. "Write. Or I will write for you. And my letter will be much less kind."
---
Liana wrote.
Her hand shook. Her tears fell on the paper, smearing the ink. But she wrote.
"Aldric," she wrote. "Don't come back. He will kill you. I love you. Forever. Goodbye."
She signed her name. She sealed the letter with wax. She handed it to her brother without looking at his face.
"Send it," she whispered.
Theron took the letter. He smiled.
"Thank you, sister. You've made the right choice."
"I've made the only choice," she said. "There's a difference."
---
The letter arrived at Ash-Keep on a spring morning.
Aldric was in the fields, helping his people plant the first crops of the new season. His hands were covered in soil. His back was sore. His heart was almost light.
Then Voss rode up, holding a white envelope.
"A messenger from Valdris," Voss said. "For you."
Aldric wiped his hands on his shirt. He took the envelope. He recognized the handwriting—Liana's handwriting, delicate and sure.
His heart pounded.
He opened the letter.
He read it once.
He read it twice.
He read it a third time, hoping the words would change.
They did not.
"Don't come back. He will kill you. I love you. Forever. Goodbye."
Aldric sank to his knees in the mud.
The seeds scattered around him. The farmers stared. Voss knelt beside him.
"Aldric? What is it?"
"She's gone," Aldric whispered. "She's gone."
---
That night, Aldric sat alone in his room.
The letter lay on the table beside his mother's shroud. He had read it so many times that the words were burned into his memory.
Don't come back.
He will kill you.
I love you.
Forever.
Goodbye.
Voss entered without knocking.
"You're not eating."
"I'm not hungry."
"You're not sleeping."
"I'm not tired."
"You're dying, Aldric. Slowly, quietly, but you're dying." Voss sat across from him. "She didn't mean it."
"How do you know?"
"Because I've seen love. Real love. The kind that makes you do stupid things. The kind that makes you sacrifice yourself so the other person can live." Voss leaned forward. "She wrote that letter to save you. Not to hurt you."
"Then why does it hurt so much?"
"Because love always hurts. That's how you know it's real."
---
Elara came next.
She sat on the floor beside Aldric, her one hand resting on his knee.
"I knew your mother," she said. "Before the Tithe. Before the soldiers. Before she lost her fingers."
Aldric looked at her. "Tell me."
"She was in love. Madly, stupidly, hopelessly in love. With a man who could not stay. A man who had to leave. A man who broke her heart every time he walked away."
"Theron's father."
"Yes." Elara's eyes were distant. "She used to say that loving him was like holding fire. Beautiful and warm and absolutely certain to burn."
"How did she survive?"
"She wove. Every time he left, she wove. She wove her pain into blankets. Her longing into shawls. Her love into cloth that kept other people warm."
Aldric looked at his hands. His mother's hands.
"She wanted me to weave," he said.
"Yes."
"But I don't know how."
"Then learn." Elara stood. "Your mother didn't become a master weaver overnight. She practiced. She failed. She tried again. And again. And again."
She walked to the door.
"Love is the same, Aldric. You practice. You fail. You try again. And eventually... eventually, you create something beautiful."
---
The next morning, Aldric went to the loom.
His mother's loom. The same wooden frame she had used to weave blankets for children who had no parents. The same threads she had pulled with her remaining fingers, bleeding but never stopping.
He sat before it. He placed his hands on the wood.
"I don't know how," he whispered.
Then learn, his mother's voice seemed to say.
He picked up a thread. He tied a knot. He began to weave.
---
The weeks passed.
Aldric wove every day. In the mornings, he worked in the fields. In the afternoons, he held council with his people. In the evenings, he sat at the loom and tried to make something beautiful.
His first attempts were clumsy. The threads tangled. The patterns were crooked. The cloth was rough and ugly.
But he did not stop.
"I'm not a weaver," he told Voss one night.
"You're not. But you're learning."
"What's the difference?"
"Practice." Voss pointed at the loom. "A thousand hours of practice. That's the difference between a beginner and a master."
Aldric looked at his hands. Calloused. Scarred. Still whole.
"I have time," he said.
"You have time," Voss agreed.
---
The first letter from Liana arrived on a rainy afternoon.
Not the letter—a different letter. A secret letter. Hidden inside a sack of grain, wrapped in oilcloth, sealed with a kiss instead of wax.
Aldric opened it with trembling hands.
"I'm alive," Liana wrote. "Theron watches me constantly, but he cannot watch my heart. I love you, Aldric. I will always love you. Don't give up on me. Don't give up on us.
I'm weaving a plan. Slowly. Carefully. One thread at a time.
Wait for me.
Yours,
Liana"
Aldric read the letter three times. Then he pressed it to his chest, next to his mother's shroud.
"She's alive," he told Voss. "She's still fighting."
"Did you doubt her?"
"I doubted everything." Aldric looked at the loom—at the cloth he had been weaving, rough and ugly and full of mistakes. "But I'm learning to trust again."
---
Theron knew.
He always knew.
The spies in Cruzar had seen the grain sacks opened. The oilcloth uncovered. The letter read.
But Theron did nothing.
"She's playing games," he told his advisors. "Let her. Games keep people busy. Games keep people distracted. While she's playing, I'm building. While she's dreaming, I'm conquering."
"Conquering what?" his general asked.
Theron smiled. "Everything."
---
The months passed.
Spring became summer. Summer became autumn. And Aldric's people grew strong.
The fields produced grain. The hunters returned with meat. The children grew fat and loud and full of laughter.
And Aldric wove.
Every evening. Every night. Every moment he could spare.
His hands learned the rhythms. His eyes learned the patterns. His heart learned to hope again.
"You're getting better," Elara said one day, examining his cloth. "The threads are even. The pattern is clear. This is good work."
"It's not beautiful."
"Not yet. But it will be."
Aldric looked at his hands. At the loom. At the cloth that had started as a mess and was slowly becoming something more.
"One thread at a time," he said.
"One thread at a time," Elara agreed.
---
The second letter arrived in winter.
Again hidden. Again secret. Again full of love and fear and desperate hope.
"Theron is planning something," Liana wrote. "I don't know what. But he's meeting with generals. Visiting armories. Counting his soldiers.
Be ready, Aldric. He's going to attack. Not Cruzar—something bigger. Something worse.
I love you. I miss you. I'm coming home.
Soon.
Yours,
Liana"
Aldric read the letter. Then he called his council.
"Prepare for war," he said. "Theron is coming."
"How do you know?" Kael asked.
Aldric held up the letter.
"Because the woman I love told me so."
---
That night, Aldric stood on the walls of Ash-Keep.
The snow was falling again. The same snow that had fallen when he was a boy, watching his mother lose her fingers. The same snow that had fallen when he buried Marta, the first of many to die from hunger.
But something was different now.
He was not alone.
Voss stood beside him. Elara stood beside him. Kael and the other leaders stood behind him. And somewhere to the north, in a golden cage, Liana was waiting.
"She's coming home," Aldric said.
"How do you know?" Voss asked.
Aldric touched his chest—where his mother's shroud lay beneath his armor, where Liana's letters lay next to his heart.
"Because she promised," he said. "And I believe her."
The snow fell. The wind blew. The fire in Aldric's heart burned brighter than it ever had before.
One thread at a time, he thought. One thread at a time.
I will bring her home.
I will build a world where she never has to be afraid.
I will weave something beautiful.
No matter how long it takes.
- Writer
