The stares of the villagers didn’t bother Rizanne. She hadn’t been well seen at court, and the change from contempt to curiosity had been quite pleasant. But they held their distance as much as the nobles had. Different motives, same results.
She wasn’t sure how much they really knew of her. They called her Lady Riza, and shared the court’s misconception that she was half elven, but didn’t seem aware of what she’d been to Roland. Perhaps the ever-thoughtful Meredith had arranged for a clean slate for her.
Rizanne had used the shortened form of her name ever since she left the Light court. She’d used careful truths to hide her identity, and no human had made a connection between Lady Riza and Princess Rizanne. Everyone assumed that her mother was human when she claimed to be half Light elf through her father. That wasn’t true. Shalynne was a Lady of the Wild court, the so-called Blood court, before she married Rizanne’s father.
It had been a relief to live among humans, to be seen as nothing special. Different, but never special.
Roland had changed that. Even before he was old enough to love the way an adult did, he’d treated her like he did no other. With him, there’d been no reason to pretend or offer half-truths.
It made her current loneliness harder to bear.
Rizanne was thankful that class difference held the villagers at a distance. As much as she didn’t want to be alone, she couldn’t bring herself to let anyone close. It felt like trying to replace Roland, trying to fill a place in her life and soul that should remain empty, waiting.
She spent her days working in the garden, using a bit of magic to make even rare plants thrive. Phoenix blossoms and Shaasey lilies were her favorite flowers when she was a child and growing them was like bringing a piece of the Light realm to her. Of course, most Light elves would have been surprised to see the thorny vines of a kouri climbing the back wall of her house, but Rizanne didn’t care. Few of her father’s kin would be coming to visit her, and those that did knew her well enough not to comment. Deadly poisonous if provoked, the kouri could also produce an abundance of blood red flowers when in a pleasant mood. Those flowers reminded Rizanne of her sister, and she took comfort in them.
Sometimes, the plants weren’t enough to keep her mind busy. Her thoughts would drift to could have been and what if, building endless speculations of futures made impossible. Rizanne wondered if it would have been better if she’d been sent to Vianne after her parents’ death. If she’d been raised in the Wild court, maybe she wouldn’t have met Roland. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so achingly alone… But those were foolish thoughts. She had met him, and even in her darkest moments she couldn’t regret it.
The humans had a saying, ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than not have loved at all’, and Rizanne couldn’t help but agree. Despite the emptiness, despite the sorrow, there was hope – hope she nurtured as best she could.
She was no Songstress, but she had the ear for it when she tried hard enough. She could hear the faint melody of her life, hear the weak notes where Roland’s melody would have risen, hear the stronger chords where his would have waned. So long as that didn’t change, they would meet again. The Song was perfect harmony, and Rizanne would never fit together with anyone else.
And so she sat in the stillness of her lonely cottage, listening to the sound of her loss and heartbreak, hoping she would never hear a single note of healing.