“As you wish.”
Though he smiles at me as he takes the tray away, it is not mirrored in his eyes and I watch him, puzzled.
* * *
The bath gives me the time I need to think, the sweet-scented water soothing my nerves as I sink into it and allow my hair to swirl around my head. We’ve never dined alone together before; we’ve never spent any time alone together before. But there’s little more than six moons before he turns twenty, so I suppose he must be preparing for our wedding. The thought leaves me feeling hollow, even though I knew it would happen. Our wedding. I will be a wife. I can’t imagine being someone’s wife. Not only a wife, but queen one day. Merek’s queen. Mother of the heirs to the throne. There’s an odd swooping in my stomach as I imagine it, and I sit up swiftly, sloshing water all over the floor and gripping the sides of the tub, the sanctuary of the bath ruined.
For the remainder of the afternoon I kneel before my totem, staring at it blankly, until the sun goes down and I dress in the red gown and add the combs to my hair. With little else left to do until it is time for the prince to come, I return to my sewing, oddly able to focus on it.
When the prince is finally announced, I’m close to calmness.
“Twylla,” he greets me, and I drop into a bow. “I hope I find you well. I have obtained special permission from the queen to escort you to the portrait gallery while the servants prepare your room. Your guard will remain here to supervise the arrangements.”
My mouth falls open and the prince bites his lower lip as it begins to curve upward. I blink at him, unsure whether I heard him rightly.
“Twylla?” he says when I continue to stare at him in awe. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” I nod shakily, pulling myself together. He doesn’t offer me his arm; instead he gestures for me to leave before him. I hesitate, unwilling to present my back to him, but he nods.
“It’s fine, Twylla. Please, go on.”
Only he could convince the queen to let me leave without a guard.
I feel giddy when I step out before him, knowing he is behind me. Lief’s gaze meets mine and for a second I’m sure he has winked at me before he stares straight ahead, his shoulders held stiffly as Merek follows me out. When I reach the door at the bottom of the tower, I realize I’m afraid to step out. I look back and the prince nods at me again.
“Go on, Twylla. The queen has granted permission.”
I open the door and step into the west wing of the castle, unescorted save for the prince.
* * *
The prince walks at my right, in Dorin’s place, and the space at my left leaves me feeling exposed, as though I’m only half dressed. Even when I’m not confined, I rarely go to the heart of the keep, and the novelty of the route adds to the surreal sense that what we are doing is not truly happening. My eyes dart around the corridors, seeking signs of anything that has changed during the weeks I’ve been banished from them. But no, if I didn’t know better I’d swear the vases of white roses that line the halls are the same ones I walked past on the day Dorin was stung. It’s as though time has stood still, as though the castle has been in an enchanted sleep. And that makes me think of the Sleeping Prince, and Merek’s interest in me after the hunt, and how it waned after he watched me sing for his stepfather. Is that why it’s taken him this long to seek me out?
I look at the prince and see his fierce gaze locked on the doors ahead of us, his profile as proud as his mother’s. He doesn’t speak as we make our way to the portrait gallery, and I follow his lead, keeping my eyes on our destination, wondering what prompted his invitation tonight. And whether it’s at his own behest or the queen’s.
It takes me a while to realize that it’s not only me without a retinue. As the sole natural heir to an endangered throne his safety is vital; he, like me, is constantly guarded against threats. Twice I turn, scanning for concealed guards watching from a distance, but see nothing. I ache to ask him where they are, what strings he pulled to have us both seemingly unchaperoned.
We turn into the gallery and at once the two sentries at the end vanish through the doors. I cannot help myself; I turn to look at the prince, my eyebrows raised in question.
“I asked for peace,” he says, stepping away and turning to look at the portraits on the wall. He asked for peace. And it was simply granted. I envy him, until I, too, look at the walls.
It must be eerie for him to look upon these ancestors who he so resembles. And the women that his sister would surely look like, if she’d lived. I’ve been here once before, in my early days, when the king himself took me through the room, portrait by portrait, telling me who they all were. I recognize Carac and Cedany from the song, both of them stern, their proud chins tilted to the sky.
On the far wall the largest painting is of the prince’s father, King Rohese. He steps toward it, leaving me behind as I stare up at his family. If there had been any traces of deformity in their features when they lived, then the artists wisely ignored them in their work; each one is a study in pride and elegance. I join the prince in front of his father’s picture.
“Do you remember my father?” he asks.
“I don’t, Your Highness. I never had the pleasure of meeting him.” I remember spiced ale, and clove-studded oranges, and Guinea peppers and trout. I remember what my mother ate for his Eating—pride, vanity, anger, and jealousy—but I never met the man when he lived. “I was here, though. With my mother. For his Eating.”
He nods. “I remember. You were singing”—he pauses, turning to look at me—“singing as my father lay dead.”
“Your Highness, I’m so sorry,” I murmur, mortified.
“You were very small,” he continues. “I remember wondering, if Alianor had been healthy, would she have been as small as you or tall, like us. Your hair looked like fire. I’d never seen anything like it before. You were the first child I ever saw, save for my sister.”
I blink rapidly as I realize what he means: that he followed his stepfather, that he watched me, too. I had no idea.
“My mother didn’t notice I’d gone. I don’t think she heard you. But I had. I heard you. I saw you. You were very different to me,” he says before I have time to speak. “You could sing and smile and be free, and I had to mourn and be regal. I was eight years old and I’d already spent almost two moons in mourning for my sister. I wanted to play and run, perhaps even sing, but not grieve again. I barely knew my father; his business with the kingdom kept him well away from our nursery. It’s difficult to grieve for an idea.”
After four years of silence, his desire to confide in me so openly is unnerving and I don’t know how to reply, or if I am supposed to at all. I want to tell him I wasn’t free, that my disappearance that day had cost me when we were back in our cottage. But he gives me no chance; instead he turns back to the portrait.
“I look like him, do I not? Of course, we all look the same—but then you know why. My sister, Alianor”—he gestures to a soft portrait of a small child, gazing blindly out of the canvas—“would have looked like our mother had she lived.”
When he pauses, his eyes moving between the pictures of his father and sister, I finally find my voice. “You must miss her, Your Highness.”
“I barely knew her, in truth. She was a sickly child and spent much of her time being kept away from anything that might damage her. I had quite the solitary childhood. How old were you back then, Twylla?”
“Six, Your Highness. It was the year of my sixth harvest.”
“And now you have had your seventeenth harvest?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Twylla”—he turns to me—“will you do something for me?”
“Of course, Your Highness.”
“Stop calling me ‘Your Highness’ when we are alone. We’re betrothed.” He half smiles as my heart stutters at his words. “My name is Merek. Sometimes I worry I might forget my own name, I hear it so little. Please call me Merek.”
I nod and he raises his e
yebrows in prompt. “Merek.” I sample his name. It tastes of the peaches I stole as a child, the flavor of cream licked from the bowl when no one was looking. Forbidden.
“Better.” He nods before continuing. “Next year marks my twentieth harvest, as you know. Not that the harvest measure means anything in the castle. I didn’t help gather the harvest in my eighteenth year. I suppose that means I’m not truly a man yet.”
He turns away again, walking back down the gallery, and after a moment I turn and follow him. He pauses again in front of a small portrait, the young woman inside it looking eerily like Alianor.
“That’s my grandmother, daughter of the famous Carac and Cedany. She was lucky to survive childhood—they never thought she would.”
“Did you know her well, Your—Merek?” I test it again.
“Not at all. She died before I was born. Our family tends to have short lives, despite our positions. I can’t imagine why.” His words are bitter. “She brought the hounds to the court, you know. She heard of them somewhere and demanded to see them in action. She introduced the idea of hunting our enemies. My grandmother. How sweet she was.”
I think of how her husband found her finger after she died and wonder if he regretted the dogs then.
Merek frowns, his lips curling, and then he nods. “We should go now. The preparations should be complete and this is not my favorite place to come.”
Without another word he sweeps from the gallery, leaving me stumbling again to catch up. Behind me I hear the guards reappear in the room as he crosses the threshold.
He doesn’t speak on the return journey. His stride is long and the pace swift, and I have to lift my skirts so I don’t fall trying to keep up with him. The corridors are much more crowded now—it seems the rumor has spread that the prince and I are abroad and everyone wants to see us—but he strides through without responding to people’s greetings. They greet me, too, but they stand back against the walls as they do. I don’t pay them much mind, though. I’m too busy thinking about why the prince would take me to the portrait gallery when he clearly has no love for it. It seems odd, to request freedom and then go to a place you hate. What would make you choose that?
Lief stands outside my door, his posture stiff and formal, his face a mask. He opens the door and Merek enters without acknowledging him. This time as I pass he definitely winks, his left eye scrunching deliberately, and I have to press my lips together to stop myself from smiling.
A table has been laid by the window, my bureau moved against the bed. Candles gutter softly in the draft from the door and are reflected in the silver of the plates and cutlery, the light flickering across the totem. There are goblets and tumblers, a vase of tuberose and tansy in the center. It’s sweet and I’m touched at Merek’s attempt to create a less formal setting. He crosses the room with confidence, pulling out a chair for me. When he is seated opposite me, he nods at Lief, who pours us both wine as if he had been doing it all of his life. Once the wine is served, he melts away, leaving me alone with Merek.
Merek studies me from across the table, his head tilted. He sips his wine, and I try to busy myself examining the flowers.
“If I may be so bold, that color doesn’t do you justice. It looks like something my mother would wear.”
“The queen chose it,” I admit. “Bright colors, red especially, please her; she says it’s the right color for Daunen. And that it pleases the king.”
“My mother doesn’t care what pleases the king.”
I look away and lift my glass to my lips.
“Do I make you uncomfortable?” he says. “I suppose I must—if anyone else were to say such a thing, it would be treason, after all.”
“You may speak as you wish.”
“ ‘Your Highness.’ You might not say it aloud, but I hear it nevertheless.” His grin is twisted, hardly a grin at all. “Forgive me, Twylla. I do not have much opportunity to talk freely to people I’d choose to talk to. But then you must understand that; your situation isn’t so different from my own. Neither of us have peers, or friends. There is no one like us in the whole of Lormere. It makes one see the world differently, I believe.” He takes another sip of wine. “Don’t you find it wearying, Twylla? To live so much inside your own head? I know you have your Gods, but are they enough? Do they give you the answers you need?”
I don’t know if I’m supposed to answer him or not. He says things I can’t possibly agree with, as much as I want to. He speaks as though we’re lifelong friends, confidants, and it’s too much, too soon. I wish Lief would bring the food, or that the candle would fall and set fire to the tablecloth, anything to stop this.
“I don’t enjoy it,” he continues. “I can’t imagine anyone would. To be so alone, here in a court full of people. I was the only child of rank here until they brought you in. No one else my age, no playmates, no one at all save a never-ending band of tutors and nurses. Surrounded and yet isolated … We’re alike, you and I.”
Still I say nothing, my eyes burning from staring at the tabletop.
“You will not reply? As you wish. But we are. Even on progress I was kept at arm’s length. You would have thought two harvests of traveling together would have brought camaraderie to our party, but sadly not. It’s the same for you—people stay away.”
“Did you enjoy your progress?” I ask, clinging to the one subject that might tear him away from this dissection of our lives.
He looks at me, his face unreadable. “It was eye-opening,” he says.
He raises his hand, clicking his fingers together, and Lief materializes in the doorway. “We are ready,” Merek tells him before he looks back to me. “And I certainly have a better understanding of how a kingdom works now—” He pauses as Lief brings our food and refills our glasses. Merek ignores him, waiting for him to leave the room and close the door before he speaks again. “It’s a simple system: In Lormere the land is governed by the lords who sit on the Privy Council. My mother and stepfather consult with the council, who report on issues in their cantons, potential threats and tenant queries and the like, and then decisions are made about how to manage them. My mother issues a decree, seals it, and then the lords see it done.”
“And that is all?”
“In a manner of speaking. A lord governs part of the land—Lortune, Monkham, Chargate, Haga, and so on. They appoint the priests, the sheriffs, and local peacekeepers, oversee justice and petty courts, hold audiences with their tenants and so on. In return they are paid a tithe in taxes and goods from the communities they govern, and they pay us part of that tithe to assure their continued positions and titles.”
I glance at my plate, oysters swimming in butter and chives. Oysters are Eaten for untempered jealousy; all the fruits of the water mean jealousy in some form or other. I decide to ignore the food for now.
“It seems a neat system.”
He nods, lifting an oyster to his mouth and pouring it in. “It’s neater than Tregellan, certainly.”
“In what sense?”
“They have no monarchy—it was never re-established after the war. They are ruled now by a council, one representative from each canton. They vote to pass a decree or law; no one man or woman can make the final decision, so decision making can go on for days. There have been occasions where the issue hasn’t been resolved at all, because a clear winner with a majority vote hasn’t been determined. It is inefficient.” He smiles wryly and I remember the queen’s comment at the hunt when he said the same to her. “However,” he continues, “they are years ahead of us in terms of medicine, and they have alchemy, which is one of the reasons I sought to make such good connections there. They won’t give up their secrets easily, but if there’s one thing I agree with my mother on, it’s that we need to harness those things here in Lormere. I’m hoping Tregellan might be a little more inclined to share their knowledge when we rule.”
His words make my skin feel prickly. When we rule.
“Did you meet any of the alchemists?”
He lifts another oyster and tips it down his throat, dropping the shell into a bowl. “We’re the only kingdom in the realm that doesn’t have the secrets of alchemy. Tregellan thrives because of it. Even Tallith used to employ it, and they were richer than we’ll ever be without it. In Tallith it was a royal vocation, to be an alchemist. Only those of the blood could practice it.”
“Is that what you want?” I ask him. “A rich kingdom?”
“Is that wrong? Wrong to want my people to thrive? Wrong to want food and medicine for all of my subjects?”
“No, that’s good.” I hesitate.
“Do you think me greedy?”
“I didn’t say—”
“A person can say a lot without speaking,” he retorts, drinking deeply from his glass.
“Riches didn’t save Tallith from falling,” I say softly.
Merek looks distant and takes an oyster before putting it back on his plate uneaten. “No, I suppose they didn’t. I saw it, you know. The old castle. I found the coin I gave to my mother there.”
“What was it like?” I ask, desperate to end the tension between us.
He picks up the same oyster and stares at it before again replacing it. “Desolate. You would never know that five hundred harvests ago it was the center of the world. The castle is a ruin, only one tower stands and two of the Great Hall walls. Save for the remains of their Hall of Glass, the rest has fallen into the sea or been overgrown.”
“Nothing remains?” For some reason it makes me shiver. How can a whole kingdom die? How could the Gods abandon them like that? Again I think of the hunt and Lord Bennel’s question and I hear myself asking, “Was there any trace of the Sleeping Prince?”
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