by Alyssa Cole
“Well, now you are home and everything will be all right. And I have spoken with some people, those who still respect me, and they can get you an apartment close to the prison. That way you can come visit me every day, as a good child would.”
“Yes, Father,” she said, the grip of his hands and the knot in her throat making her feel like the frail woman who had always given in to his will.
How had she lived her life this way for so long? How had she swallowed her hopes and desires to appease this man’s ego, which would never be satisfied?
“And that way, I will know you are safe,” he said, squeezing her hands more tightly. Nya’s throat muscles worked. She still loved him, as much as she detested him, and she remembered long, long ago when hand-holding and praise from her father had been her world.
“Yes. I need your guidance, Father,” she said meekly. “You were right about how awful it would be out in the world. I was so naive. I was deceived by so many people. I hate to tell you this, but . . .” Nya took a deep breath. “I lost all of my money. I had to sell everything in our home.”
“What?” Alehk said, his grip on her hands loosened and she slipped them away, wiping them on her dress before pressing them together in supplication.
“Oh yes. I wish you hadn’t done wicked things and been sent to prison. Now I have nothing. You have nothing.”
“Why would you do such a foolish thing, girl?” His voice was no longer an agonized whisper. It was harsh with disbelief.
“Why, Father, you know that I am silly and weak and can’t do anything on my own. You’ve told me this my whole life.” She glanced up at him with wide eyes, watching him mentally scramble. “I don’t understand why you would get locked away in prison and leave me alone if you knew that. It’s almost like you wanted me to suffer. Is that what you wanted?”
Alehk grimaced. “Only Ingoka decides who suffers and who doesn’t. If you are suffering it is because you have caused her offense.”
“Is that why you are in prison, Father?” she asked. “Because you have offended Ingoka?”
“No,” he said vehemently. “It is because my enemies have conspired against me. But Ingoka also rewards suffering.”
Nya tilted her head. “Father, are you saying that if I behave wickedly, and suffer for it, I will be rewarded?”
“Ah! My heart!” Alehk clutched his chest, his face suddenly pinched with agony. It took everything in Nya not to give in to panic.
He’s lying. He wants to hurt you.
Her father panted. “I have such a short amount of time left, you know. The doctors told me that I could die any day now.”
There was the pivot, once he’d tied himself into hypocritical, nonsensical knots.
“The same doctor who told Grandmother about your collapse?” she asked sweetly. “I’d like to talk to this person.”
“He is on vacation now, my child.” He sighed. “I have money so don’t worry too much about what you have lost.”
“Hidden money?” Her stomach lurched as she remembered all the things he had refused to reveal to the authorities.
“Yes. The information is in the chest with your mother’s wedding dress,” he said in a low voice, as if he hadn’t defiled his wife’s memory by using that dress as a cache for his traitorous profits.
“Oh no. I sold that chest, Father.”
Alehk Jermami shot up to a seated position. “What?”
“I sold it. I told you I sold all of our things. I am sorry.”
Now that her father was visibly upset, a hand at his head, Nya wished she hadn’t lied at all. She didn’t enjoy causing him pain. The only thing she wanted from him was an apology, and a love that didn’t suffocate her—she would never have those things.
“Actually wait, Father. I think I didn’t sell that chest.” She watched as he sagged back down onto the bed, thinking she would keep his secret when anyone with common sense would expect her to tell Ledi and Thabiso about it. “I have to go now.”
“Will you come visit me tomorrow?” he asked, his heart pain and shock completely forgotten.
“Yes,” she lied.
“And you won’t leave me again?”
“No,” she lied, blinking back tears. There was no pleasure in these lies, so she gave him one truth. “I love you, Father.”
She kissed him on his forehead, then turned and left before he could see her tears.
As she walked through the gates of the prison, it was her turn to clutch her chest. She doubled over, trying to breathe deeply like Portia had once taught her. How could someone so unworthy of her love still cause her so much pain?
It seemed love didn’t differentiate between worthiness and unworthiness. Some monsters couldn’t be defeated—they would always have their claws in you. She could understand why Johan had been so adamant about avoiding the emotion. She had lost him and her father both, in different ways, and it was awful. Terrifying. But she wouldn’t shy away from love. She would likely be hurt, again and again, but if she closed herself off from that, wouldn’t it be just as her father had wished?
She stood, breathing under control, and got into the car with a driver from the palace that had been waiting for her in the parking lot. She stared out the window as it pulled away, staring at the less familiar sights surrounding the prison, and the bustle of the city center, without truly seeing them.
She tried to imagine remaking a life in Thesolo, going to these shops again and walking these streets, but the same feeling of being trapped descended on her again. She loved her country, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of constriction that had marked so much of her life there. The door to her birdcage was open, but it still felt too small.
“Here we are, Ms. Jerami,” the driver said as they pulled up in front of the palace after passing through the security at the entrance gates.
“Thank you,” she murmured, sliding out as a member of the palace staff opened her door. She walked toward the gardens instead of going inside to see her friends and family. She was tired and she was lonely, and she didn’t want to talk about her father yet. She also didn’t want to talk about Johan and have to reveal her lie to her grandparents and the rest of the kingdom.
She passed Lineo, the palace guard who had witnessed so many of her embarrassing moments, and nodded. The woman didn’t smile, but she nodded in return before touching her ear and turning away from Nya. Tears warmed Nya’s eyes as she imagined Lineo and everyone else realizing they had been right—Nya had been silly to think things could work with Johan. Everyone would know he had pitied her.
No. He loved you. However it had turned out, that was one true thing in a lifetime of lies. She wouldn’t let anyone take that away from her.
She exhaled deeply, walking toward her gazebo. She considered not going in to avoid memories of Johan but those were unavoidable, and maybe it would help to immerse herself in it. She didn’t want to hide from pain—she didn’t want lost love to warp her, as it had warped her father.
She was almost inside the structure when she heard a strange yipping noise.
She paused, looking around, then entered under the curtain of flowers and found . . .
“Phokojoe,” she said, stopping up short. A man with a fox’s head stood in the gazebo, leaning against one of its posts. The fox god sported a fine blue vest over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
“Lovely maiden,” the fox god said in a slightly muffled voice tinged with a Liechtienbourgish accent.
Her heart began to beat fast, too fast. There was a pain in her chest, one she felt more deeply than she had in front of the prison but that filled her with gladness instead of sorrow.
It seemed Johan had done some reading.
“Phokojoe, I have nothing to offer you,” she said in a trembling voice, responding with the appropriate line from the fairy tale.
The fox god took a step forward. “You have treated me well and I will never forget that. What is it you most desire, lovely maiden?”
<
br /> “A job?” Nya joked, deviating from the script, because she wanted to make Johan laugh and because she still wasn’t quite sure she could trust the happiness threatening her.
The fox head mask tilted. “Hmm. Employment isn’t my domain, though I know some gods who could help with that.”
“Great,” she said. Then closed her eyes and pressed her palms against them, unable to contain the emotion swelling in her. Joy. Fear. Hope. Love.
She hiccupped out a sob and then heard the sound of the fox god’s designer shoes on the wood floor of the gazebo, moving toward her. When she peeked through her fingers she could see the blue of his pants and the dusting of auburn hair on his forearm as he stood before her.
“Is there . . . is there anything else you desire?”
The mask couldn’t muffle the vulnerability in his tone, and she dropped her hands and looked up at him with wet eyes. He was within arms’ length now and she reached out, running her hands up his chest before gripping the bottom of the mask and pulling it up and peeling it back. She laughed when it got stuck on his nose, forcing her to yank it to get him out of it.
Johan’s auburn hair was plastered to his head with sweat and his face was flushed, but his eyes were so bright and hopeful as he looked down at her.
“I know this is a bit presumptuous,” he said, and then that slow grin spread across his face.
“Yes. The story ends in Phokojoe’s favor.” She slipped her arms around his waist and looked up at him. “Imagine his luck, meeting a woman whose greatest desire is . . . him.”
His hands were sliding up her back now, rubbing at the tension beneath her shoulder blades.
“I’ll have you know that I’m a scholar of fairy tales,” he said. “I have a different reading of that ending. He wasn’t her greatest wish. She was his.”
They just stared at each other for a while, Nya enjoying the familiar solid bulk of Johan against her, even if he was sweaty and smelled like rubber.
“Why were we fighting again?” she asked eventually.
“Because we’re human, and have baggage that love doesn’t make disappear into thin air?”
Nya made a shocked face and pretended to pull away from him. “Eh! I thought you were a fox god! What trickery is this?”
Johan held her tight. “No trickery. I love you. And I know love is just the beginning of what it takes to make things work, but maybe we can try that? Making things work?”
His gaze was so earnest and so intense that she had to look away to think clearly. She rested her forehead on his shoulder. “I just came from seeing my father.”
His hold on her tightened. “Are you okay?”
She sighed, leaning into him a bit more. “He wasn’t really sick. And I was so mad that I–I lied to him. I told him I had lost all of his money.”
“That’s not so bad,” Johan said.
“I told him I would go see him again, but I won’t.” She pressed her forehead harder into his shoulder and one of his hands came up to stroke the back of her neck. “I’m cruel, aren’t I?”
“I think on the cruelty scale, using your possible death to make your daughter bend to your will is slightly higher.”
She let him hold her for a long time, let all of her emotions swirl inside her and then begin to settle.
“I’m sorry for making you feel awkward with the game thing,” she said, hugging him tightly. “I would have also been upset if I found out you were playing a game in which you date a bumbling girl from Thesolo.”
He pulled back to look at her, brows raised with interest. “Is there a game like that on the market?”
He was grinning, and she grinned, too. “You’re looking at it. Real-life three-dimensional dating simulation N.Y.A.—naughty young antelope.”
He laughed then, and even though she hadn’t been away from him for long, his laughter seeped into the parts of her that had become cracked under the knowledge that she might never see him again, filling those fractures.
She took a deep breath and met his gaze. “I want to be with you.”
“When?” he asked.
“Now.”
“Where?”
“Do you still have a kingdom?” she asked, remembering the referendum through her haze of happiness.
He glanced up and to the side. “Actually, I’m not sure. They were still tallying the votes when I left. But you are welcome to come back with me, even if it’s no longer a kingdom when we return. I have my own apartment, you know. It has a huge bathtub and several large mirrors.”
Nya’s cheeks warmed.
“I think we have a lot of details to work out, but the basics are you love me and I love you and we want to be together. Is this accurate?”
“Ouay,” Nya drawled.
Johan’s laughter was light, more carefree than she’d ever heard it. “We’ll figure this out. Together.”
“You should kiss me now,” she murmured, pushing up on her toes.
“Comme tu willst.”
His lips pressed against hers as a sudden rain shower drummed along the roof of the gazebo. When their mouths were bruised and their hurts were full, Nya held Johan tightly, like any person would hold on to their wildest dreams. He held her back, like he would never let her go.
Epilogue
Ten months later
Nya stopped into the coffee shop near Castle von Braustein as she had every morning for the last two months, having discovered that she enjoyed their pastries more than those served at the castle, where they spent a good chunk of their time since Lukas was heading off to California and their first year of college soon. The referendum had gone in the von Brausteins’ favor, and Lukas’s panicked attempt to manipulate it had resulted in better communication and new ideas of tradition—and intensive family therapy.
Nya had been going to therapy on her own and with Johan, and though they both sometimes struggled not to fling their baggage at one another, most of their time was spent, well, happily ever after.
Nya hovered in front of the café’s glass refrigerator, struggling over which pastry to choose as the barista made her caffeine-free mocha latte.
The coffee shop was down the street from the office space Johan had rented to house his newly rebranded nonprofit organization six months ago, and where Nya had been hired as director of education and youth programs. It was nepotism, sure, but she was also well qualified for the position and took her job very seriously.
She had coworkers who respected her decisions, and her own desk where she could sit and carry out important work. Johan was in and out of the office but tried not to give her too much attention. They’d both decided it would be unprofessional for him to give her suggestive glances across the office and, well, Johan had a hard time not showing exactly what he was feeling when he looked at her. It had grown even harder, lately, but she didn’t mind when he popped into her private office to kiss her cheek or rub her shoulders.
She finally settled on getting a box with a variety of muffins, tarts, and pastries for her coworkers and began the walk into work.
Yes, her back ached a little as she walked and she missed her family, but she was happy.
It all felt so . . . perfect. She’d thought she needed to go to a big city to find herself or return home ashamed. She’d thought she had to be boring and frumpy, or all-out glamorous.
Now she spent her days at a job she loved and her nights with the semi-prince she was planning a wedding with. She got to travel the world, sometimes staying at the finest hotels and sometimes in remote outposts, sometimes just for fun and other times helping to garner humanitarian attention and aide.
She’d thought her dreams were too big, but she’d been wrong—they’d been just right. All that had been missing, for her, was the person she could share them with.
She was almost back to the office when she heard a car come to a stop on the cobblestone street next to her.
She looked to her side to see one of the palace’s black SUVs. The back window rolled do
wn to reveal the face of the man who was still absolutely smitten with her, who still held her every night, but made sure to always give her space to fly free.
“Ca geet et?” she called out.
“I’m good. Need a ride?” he asked, raising one brow. His seductive gaze morphed into one of annoyance as Lukas’s hand pushed his face back into the seat. Their smiling face popped up in the window; their hair was no longer pink, simply grown out long and worn down around their shoulders today.
“How do you tolerate him? Honestly. We have to go meet with some business leaders from France and all he could ask was, ‘I wonder if they’ll bring macarons? Nya loves macarons.’ Sickening, honestly.”
“Oh, you know you think it’s cute,” Nya said, opening the box of pastries and sticking it through the window. “Take a couple for the road. I’m going to be late for work.”
Lukas grabbed a scone and Johan ducked his head to kiss the back of Nya’s hand instead. Then he took an éclair with a wink. “See you tonight, Sugar Bubble. I’ll be a little late because I had to reschedule my appointment with Dr. Freudsbard.”
“Okay, see you tonight! Have fun haggling with the French!”
She watched the car pull away, then immediately screech to a halt.
Johan jumped out, ran up to her, and kissed her with the same passion he had the first time he’d debauched her, even as his hand slipped over her stomach and rested on the bump that could barely be discerned yet.
Both of her hands were full, so she kissed him even harder since she couldn’t slide her hand atop his to reassure him.
“Go to your meeting, Phoko,” she said gently before giving him a final peck. He was smiling his nervous smile so she knew what was coming.
“You sure you’re feeling okay? Does that have caffeine in it? Maybe you shouldn’t be walking?”
She gave him the most loving glare she could muster. “Johan.”
“Sorry! Working on it, working on it. I really just wanted a kiss.” He snuck in another quick brush of his mouth over hers. “I love you.”