In Which Alsina Asks Bluntly

October 8, 1165

Alsina had been surprised to hear her husband enter the house so early in the afternoon, but by this point in their marriage, she knew well the scuttle of his boots against the floor and the swish of his cloak as he tossed it onto the back of one of the dining chairs.

She wished he'd come home early more often. Eilyssa was a sweet little girl, but she often went to the castle with her father during the days, occasionally staying the night there as must have been the case today, leaving Alsina alone with the housekeeper--a sanctimonious old maid who didn't seem capable of speaking to her without looking down her nose in disapproval. She had taken to spending most of her days alone in her room, not waking until long after Aldhein and Eilyssa had left and retiring shortly after supper, which was usually the only time of the day she actually saw her husband.

But for some reason, she was feeling a little bolder today. "Aldhein."

He turned his head and squinted at her, his expression unchanging. "Alsina."

She ignored his apparent indifference to her presence and settled beside him on the couch. He was not the worst sort of husband--he had never laid a hand on her, to beat her or violate her--but she found that he treated her the way a farmer might treat a cow who was too old to give milk and too lean to be slaughtered for the meat. He fed her, and he kept a roof over her head, but nothing more. He simply tolerated her.

"Why don't you like me?" she blurted out, prompting a raised eyebrow on Aldhein's part. She hadn't meant to say it--or, at least, not in such blunt terms--but in the immediate hindsight, she doubted she could have phrased it more delicately without missing the point. Biting her lip, she sat back and waited for his answer.

He continued to stare at her; if he blinked at all, his eyelids must have been in perfect unison with her own. Finally, he tilted his head and frowned. "I do like you."

Alsina felt her eyes bulge as whatever color she'd ever had in her face to begin with rushed away. "But... but you said you didn't. Remember?"

Aldhein shrugged. "I lied."

For all the nights she'd spent agonizing over that one comment, she found this didn't make sufficient sense. "Why?"

He sniffed, as though she were a child who had asked one too many times why the sky was blue. "Why so curious today?"

Whether he meant to or not, he had an uncanny talent for tearing about any shreds of hope she had with short sentences comprised of words she had always thought harmless. She did not care to expose any more of herself while freshly wounded. "I, uh... I just wanted a conversation, I suppose."

He glanced coolly at her through narrowed eyes. "In that case, I suggest you look elsewhere. There is little I can offer you in terms of conversation."

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