DANTALION AND ILLYSANDRE’S RELATIONSHIP WAS NOT BUILT ON LOVE. It was not even built on hate. Their’s is a marriage built on politics, indifference, and a mutual respect for one another. Though their union is not one of the more passionate or romantic ones to come about, almost eighteen years of marriage has brought with it stability, dependability, and even companionship.
— Illysandre;
Perhaps she could have loved him, had actually fallen in love with him once upon a time. He is handsome, charismatic, and it is so very, very hard not to fall in love with a fairytale come to life when her entire family is urging her to catch his eye. And who would not want those burning eyes to look upon them? To have someone look at you like you were the sun, the stars, and all things irresistible?
It is a pity, then, when he proposed. Her family milling expectantly in the background; her lady, the dowager queen, smiling behind her painted fan; he on one knee and she with her arm outstretched in the foreground; a glorious painting of a romantic proposal. Staged. Practiced. A formality. His lines delivered soft and sweet with eyes so very dead. And oh how her heart ached, how the fires in her heart puttered out. A pity that this man, this man of love and legend, should not love her.
And like many other noble lords and ladies, she gives in to this loveless eventuality. Resigned to duty, to destiny, to her family’s ambitions, she says yes.
— Dantalion
Perhaps he could have loved her, actually might have fallen in love with her in another time. She is beautiful, charming, and her connections so very, very hard to ignore. But he could not. Can not. Not when She will forever linger in his mind. Not when She had carved so deep a place within his heart that no power on earth could ever force Her out.
He was not in love with his new bride. Not when the courtship was so short— little more than a formality—and the engagement period even shorter. Not when she and the child they would have is a constant reminder of the things that could have, should have, been. But with time, he knew, he could come to care for her. When the years smooth out those sharp pains into something a bit duller, perhaps he could try to love again. But his heart aches at the thought; to betray Her once more even to soften his own longing.
He can only hope that this marriage, this union, would be kind to the both of them.
