"I'm hoping that once we both tell him we wish to break it off, he'll do so. If not, I don't know. We'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it," Samantha said, taking a sip of her tea. "As for travel costs, I'll of course cover them. With teleportation, we should be in and out within a day.
"You still haven't said what's in this for me," Fate reminded her.
"Oh, that's right," Samantha said understandingly. "I forgot you're a commoner. No offense."
Fate's needle didn't move one way or the other. As he said earlier, the truth wouldn't offend him.
Samantha let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief before continuing her explanation.
"When it comes to engagements involving nobility, the two must annul the engagement by the time the bride turns twenty-one. We have less than two years before the law officially recognizes us as husband and wife.
"Not to mention the disgracefulness of getting married without a proper wedding, we'll have to go through all kinds of legal trouble and red tape after I turn twenty-one just to settle our accounts and get everything in order.
"And, since you're the groom, most of that red tape will be tied around your neck," she smiled cheekily. "The wife just has to sit back and watch.
"And before you mention running away," she said quickly, seeing that look in his eyes, "the Office of Nobile Lineages takes this very seriously.
"On top of having Guards chasing you down to put you in jail for failing to fill out all of their forms, you'll also have my irate father sending mercenaries for abandoning his little girl.
"I think I speak for both of us when I say that whole predicament should be avoided."
Fate was silent for a while as he finished his tea, thinking about the trouble he had somehow been thrown in.
There wasn't enough time left in the day to go see Samantha's father today, and his weekdays were packed. If he was going to do this, it would have to be on the weekend or Friday.
That'd mean pushing hoping he'd have enough time afterward to get sword training from the sergeant's brother, or just pushing it off until the weekend after.
It wouldn't hurt him to do so, and Freyn likely wasn't expecting him on a certain day, but he had already told Kravoss he would do train with the sword next weekend.
'No one's holding that to you,' Kravoss chimed. 'Get yourself out of this mess. A human in a loveless marriage is a horrible person to be around.'
'What would you know about that?' Fate asked amusedly. 'And don't forget who ran off instead of helping me. Where's my love at?'
'I dropped it off at the shop,' Kravoss said shamelessly. 'They said it's irreparable. I'm afraid you'll have to deal with mild respect and extreme scorn until I can get a replacement. Smelly human.'
Fate let out a laugh, earning a weird look from Samantha. He shook his head, trying to hide his grin and failing miserably.
Kravoss had managed to take all the tension out of his posture and mind, and he felt much more relaxed.
He had already started to forgive Samantha when they started their idle chit-chat, but Kravoss had cleared Fate's mind and let him look at the situation without bias, as humor often did.
The blame, he concluded, was at least half his.
He knew what Samantha would have said if she found out about his thievery, which was proved true when she said exactly what he expected her to.
When he thought about it, it was childish. Something he forgave himself for, as he was indeed a child back then, but that didn't change what it was. His actions spoke louder than any words that day.
He had shown, in an irrefutable manner, that he would rather brand himself a criminal for the rest of his life and endure several lashes than ask for a few coins from Samantha.
There was also the whole Ms. Appleton situation, and how she had hired those boys to throw apples at him and the Guard wanted him to apologize to her.
But the forgiving nature of Guards was well-known, along with how good they were at their jobs.
Fate was practically guaranteed to get caught in the act, if not by the Guard then by the security a semi-wealthy apple farmer like Ms. Appleton would have. How else would she stop the imps that liked to take crops from Brergan's farmers at night?
Brergan had always had a minor imp problem, which rarely evolved into full-on raids that Fate had helped fight off, but most of the time it was just simple stealing.
All of the farmers in Brergan had shelled a few of their hard-earned Lights for decent monitoring systems at the very least. There was also the rodent problem, which meant Fate was lucky Ms. Appleton didn't have something worse active.
Those monitoring systems were exactly how Fate had gotten caught.
And the alternative, apologizing to Ms. Appleton, was something Guards usually did for minor crimes like his, especially for young offenders. By refusing to apologize, he was telling the Guard that he would likely do it again.
Nothing that happened that day was outside of expectations. So why did he go through with it, knowing what would happen?
It was rooted in the same thing he used to make a Break Imprint: his pride.
He didn't want to stoop so low as to take advantage of his friendship with Samantha. He didn't want to apologize to someone that hated his guts.
Which, he realized, was what had pushed Samantha away.
Friendship was a two-way street. He had helped her immensely when they first met, but he had neglected to let her return the favor. He knew her better than he knew himself back then, and knew she had pride of her own.
Pride that he had spat on by completely ignoring her.