The spell showed you how another person saw you.
It was expensive, but not so expensive that it didn't find its use. If you were in the burgher class it was expected that you would experience it a few times in your life. One of those was before marriage.
Cordelia went in with great trepidation. She was sure that Aldwin was right for her, but less sure that she was right for him.
And then, two hours later, once it was all over, they had to talk about it, in a way that Aldwin loved to talk about everything.
"There was a sweetness to him," said Aldwin. "But now I worry, only lightly, that you think I make more concessions than I really do. There was more romance to him, I suppose. Very lovey, which I suppose is good."
"Well, that's good," said Cordelia.
"Is something the matter?" asked Aldwin.
"No," said Cordelia. "You can go on."
"I need some time to stew," said Aldwin. "We talked a lot, but I do fear that we got tangled in tangents. I think we could have been good friends, actually, if he were real, though ..."
"Yes?" asked Cordelia.
"He was intelligent, but I knew more than him, which I suppose is an artifact of the spell. He didn't know all the things that I knew, he knew all the things that you knew, except you don't expect me to know much about textiles, so some of those things that you knew were barred from him, and that meant that he sat at the intersection of our domains of knowledge." Aldwin looked at the ceiling for a moment. "I do wonder if there's a way around that."
"Perhaps," said Cordelia.
Aldwin looked back down at her. "Is something the matter? You haven't said what your experience was like. Was she pleasant?" He grinned at her, a winning grin that had made her fall in love. It was heartbreaking.
"Aldwin, I'm ... not sure that I can do this," said Cordelia.
His grin turned to a frown. "Why not?" he asked. "I love you, you should have seen that."
"Aldwin, she was perfect," said Cordelia.
"You're perfect," said Aldwin. He laid his hand on hers.
"No, Aldwin, I'm not," said Cordelia. "And when I've heard you say that before, I've always thought that it was you being poetic, but I met her now, the me that lives in your mind, and she is perfect, she has none of my blemishes, none of my flaws, she's kind and gracious and intelligent and funny."
"My dear, you're all those things," said Aldwin. "That's why I'm marrying you."
"But I'm not those things," said Cordelia. "My version of you, did you think that he was handsome?"
"I suppose it didn't occur to me," said Aldwin. He looked to the ceiling again and considered that. "His hair was a bit curlier, and his nose somewhat broader, but no, I think he looked like me."
"The woman I saw was a goddess," said Cordelia. "I can't compare to her."
"You are her," said Aldwin.
"Won't you believe me when I tell you that I'm not?" asked Cordelia. "And if we follow through on the engagement, and you marry me, how can I help but worry that you'll figure that out one day and leave me?"
Aldwin frowned at her. "Is that what this is about?" he asked. "You think my love is fickle? It hadn't even occurred to me to ask my other whether he was wavering."
"I think you're brilliant and handsome," said Cordelia. "But I looked at her, spoke with her, and kept thinking to myself that I couldn't live up to her. I yelled at her and she calmly defused my anger. When I cried, she comforted me."
"It was really so bad?" asked Aldwin, raising his eyebrows. He had very expressive eyebrows, it was something that Cordelia had always found herself appreciating.
"I fear that you don't actually know me," said Cordelia. "You don't see the ugly, twisted, miserable creature that I am."
"Come now," said Aldwin. He seemed befuddled. "Perhaps I think more highly of you than you think of yourself, but I won't have you talking so poorly of my bride-to-be."
"It's how I felt, next to her," said Cordelia, looking down. She had tears in her eyes. It was undignified. Her other would have never.
Aldwin moved closer to her and tilted her chin up. She looked at him, blinking away her tears, which rolled down her face and made her lip salty. His eyes, that saw her so.
"My sweet, we have our entire lives to get to know each other better," said Aldwin. "I will love you no less if you falter, if you yell, if you cry, if you flop around and fail. If we do this again, ten years from now, I expect that I'll have the same rosy view of you, overly rosy, in your estimation. That's love. That's what it is."
But of course for her, that wasn't true at all. He'd said as much, he'd spoken to his other, he'd seen a more or less accurate portrayal of himself. Didn't he see that? Or would he realize it only later? She wasn't sure. Did she not love him? Is that what it meant? She thought that she loved him.
"I do love you," said Cordelia.
"Good, because we're getting married soon," said Aldwin. He patted her on the hand. "Come, let's dry those tears and find someplace to eat."
She let herself be led for the rest of the day, and returned to herself within half an hour, letting the shadow cast by the spell slide off her, joking with him, engaging him in his interests, putting on a smile that she didn't entirely feel.
But that night, as she lay in bed, the image of the goddess, the woman she was not and could not become, would not leave her mind.
