“The war happened.”
Olive’s half-smile was replaced by a quiet sadness when she answered Dwight’s rhetorical question. She barely even remembered those times anymore. And thinking of them now was like thinking of someone else’s life. But the disarming niceness of Dwight, the same he’d had then, brought those years at the university swimming into focus. And, as she looked at Dwight, she made a decision.
Exhaling a little sigh, Olive got up from the stone bench and took Dwight’s hand, moving with a sudden decisiveness. Glancing again back at the entrance to the ball, she led Dwight away from it, down a narrow, shrub-lined and maze-like path in the garden. “I hope,” she told him, forcing another half-smile as she led him further into the shadows of the garden, “that your reputation won’t be too tarnished by disappearing with a lady for a little bit.” Suddenly it occurred to Olive that, by now, Dwight could even be married. “You won’t get in trouble with your wife?”
Despite her gestures towards his reputation (and, she supposed, Bryony’s), Olive continued to lead him away into the garden until the narrow, maze-like path opened up into a little, flower-strewn clearing. There she released his hand and turned to face him. Olive could feel her heart beating loudly, though she wasn’t sure why exactly. Was it that she feared he would betray her? Or did she fear he might reject her now, or…? She didn’t know. But she’d decided to answer at least some of his questions.
“I was sent away,” she told him, launching directly into her story. Perhaps she was worried she would lose her nerve. “While I was under house arrest in Uthlyn, an Adhara came for me. I didn’t really believe that the camps existed then. I expected she’d just remove me from the city and kill me in the wilderness and that would be that. I didn’t even try to get away… For lots of reasons, I guess. I suppose I didn’t know what else to do, and I knew that going with her, to whatever end, was what I was expected to do. But I was wrong anyway. I was sent… I spent two years in the camps, I think. Maybe a little longer.” The short summary of those years felt odd to Olive. But how could she explain now the multitude they contained? “I won’t bother you with a description of those years,” she simply said, a little numbly. “But there was an uprising in the second camp I was sent to. Many people died in it, and more mages than soldiers, but I escaped. Since then I’ve been on the run, living in the wilderness with a few others who escaped. Trying to keep ahead of capture and a return to the camps.”
Olive’s green eyes strayed from Dwight, looking sideways into the darkness. What should she say now? She couldn’t tell him the truth, even if she wanted to. Her responsibilities weren’t just to herself anymore. After a long moment, she let out a ragged exhale and continued in half-truths.
“It’s been… difficult. But I knew that my father would never break ranks with Calent on the war, even if it was to help me, so I didn’t have any other choice. When I heard that, that he’d been assassinated, though,” Olive’s voice caught, and her eyes were fixed firmly on the ground now. Apart from all else, the emotion in her voice now was entirely true, “I thought that Avery might be different. I hoped that he would shelter me, but I didn’t know how to contact him. When I found out about this ball, well, I thought surely he would be invited, if he was Duke now, and I could plead my case. I didn’t know…” She broke off, silent for several long moments, before she concluded quietly, “I only just heard.”