Kingdom of Ruses

by Kate Stradling

  She tried again. “You… you… are a nifara?” She couldn’t phrase it as a statement. Her doubts forced her voice to rise in a question instead.

  The Prince blinked, a slow, languid movement, but his expression remained solemn. “Is it so very surprising?” he asked quietly. “Until a few moments ago, I assumed you already knew.”

  “Why? Why should I already know?” she replied, feeling more and more like the conversation was spiraling out of her control.

  An exasperated laugh escaped his lips. “Because, my dear Viola,” he said quite plainly, “you are one too.”

  Chapter 8: A Ruse by Any Other Name

  Charlie has told me horrendous lies before. When I was three years old, he made me believe that mud pies were a delicacy. When I was four, he convinced me that bad things happened whenever I sneezed. When I was five, he told me that I wasn’t his real sister, but that Mother and Father had discovered me one night in the garden, crying beneath a rose bush, and that they didn’t really love me but kept me out of pity. He said that one day, the poor, homely couple that had left me there would come back for me, and that Father and Mother would gladly hand me over to them.

  I remember crying for days after that, until Mother finally had the truth out of me. Charlie was duly punished, and Mother and Father assured me that I was their daughter. They even brought Dr. Grayson over to explain how he had delivered me himself—through Mother’s belly button (which was another lie, of course, but an understandable one to tell a five-year-old, for I doubt I would have believed the truth at that age).

  I learned after that not to trust everything that Charlie said, and to be a little more skeptical of everyone, so it is no wonder that I am inclined to hold the legends of Lenore as little more than pretty stories, and that I tend to take what anyone else says with a grain of salt. So when the Prince said what he did, I thought for certain it was another lie. I just assumed that if I had once died, I would at least remember the event, as it does not seem to be something a person is likely to forget.

  Viola’s breath caught in her throat, but then her disbelief turned into laughter. “What?” she said. “What sort of rubbish are you spouting off? I’m as human as they come.”

  “It feels that way, doesn’t it?” the Prince replied with a faint smile. “But there’s no use denying it—I recognized you for what you are the moment I saw you. We nifaran can recognize our own far more readily than humans recognize us. Did you feel no such feeling when you first met me?”

  A chill crept up her spine, and her breath seemed woefully short all of the sudden. There had been something about him, she recalled, but… “Of course I didn’t,” she lied, and she backed away a step. “Did Charlie put you up to this? ‘Pull the wool over silly little Viola’s eyes, shall we,’ and that sort of thing? It’s not very funny.”

  “It’s not a joke,” he said in tones of deathly stillness. “You are a nifara. Ask your father—he acknowledged it when we spoke last night. He recognized what I was immediately, because he knew what to look for, because he’s spent years terrified that one of our kind would come and take you away from your family.”

  Her father had been acting very strange last night, and then again this morning, Viola thought. Still, “You’re lying,” she whispered.

  “Just ask your father,” said the Prince.

  She backed up another step. “Maybe I will,” she said with false bravado.

  “Good. The sooner the better,” he said. “It must have happened when you were very young for you not to remember it. The change is a rather painful process.”

  Viola stared at him, but his solemn façade did not crack. Her thoughts seemed suddenly vague and tenuous in her mind; nothing made sense even as she tried to focus. “It’s a lie,” she said again. Then, she turned and fled from his presence, down the stairs, across the library, and through the door. She could feel his eyes upon her every step of the way.

  As she burst from the Prince’s quarters, she did not spare the startled guards a glance. Instead she hurtled headlong down the hallway, her feet carrying her to the one person who could refute all the doubts that had sprung up in her heart. It was only mid-afternoon, and Father was sure to be in meetings. Viola had already interrupted him yesterday, but she did not think of this as she ran to his offices.

  Mr. Sterling the secretary started to say a greeting, but when he realized that Viola had no intention of stopping at his desk, he called out a warning instead. “Miss Viola, wait! You mustn’t—!”

  He was too late, for Viola had already slammed into her father’s office door and wrenched it open. Within, three pairs of startled eyes looked up at the disruption, but Viola honed in on her father. Nicholas Moreland stared back at her, and all she could think was that he was her father, that he loved her and would do anything to protect her. Tears were spilling down her cheeks before she knew it.

  Her father’s chair scraped back as he quickly stood. “Oh no,” he said, and he seemed to understand in an instant the source of her distress. “Gentlemen, I’m very sorry. Please, you must excuse me. Speak with Sterling about rescheduling.” All this he said as he scrambled out from behind his desk and led his daughter from the room. The two lords with whom he had been speaking did not even have the chance to protest.

  Viola allowed her father to guide her away from the administrative wing of the palace, and it was only once they were beyond that she realized he was retracing her steps back to the Prince’s quarters. She dug in her heels and looked to him in surprise.

  “He’s told you, hasn’t he?” said her father grimly. “I knew it would come out, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon. Come along and we’ll sort everything out.”

  Her entire world seemed to be unraveling as he led her back through the halls she had just traversed, back to the quarters she had just vacated. She had to remind herself to breathe, had to tell herself that her father hadn’t confirmed anything yet, not really. As they passed the sentries in the hallway, she couldn’t bring herself to lift her gaze. She felt numb, suddenly uncomfortable in her own skin.

  Together she and her father crossed through those great double-doors, through the entryway, back into the Prince’s library. The inner doors shut firmly behind them.

  The golden stranger was waiting, had descended from his position on the balcony to stand in the center of the room. Viola could see no triumph in his face in the brief glimpse she caught of him before averting her eyes. Instead he seemed only serious, as though someone had died.

  Someone had, she thought fiercely. She didn’t think it was possible, couldn’t understand how such a preposterous accusation could even be made. She was alive, breathing, heart beating and blood pumping through her veins. She was alive.

  “You told her,” said Viola’s father to the stranger, and his voice was oddly reticent.

  “She should have been told long ago,” the Prince replied in much the same tones. “I assumed she already knew—it’s too important for her not to know. If you wanted her ignorant, you should have told me so from the outset.”

  There was a long silence in which Viola stepped away from her father and surveyed him in dismay. “It’s true, then?” she whispered, her voice breaking the fragile atmosphere. “I am a nifara? How? How could you not tell me?”

  Her father’s glance was sorrowful and his eyes pled for her to understand. “How could a father tell his child that she’s not human, and that it’s his own fault?” he responded in kind.

  “What?” said Viola, and she took another step back.

  “It was my fault, Viola,” he said with sudden fierceness. “You are my daughter—I could not lose you! Not when—!” He cut off what he was about to say and turned from her to walk in the opposite direction. “I cannot make excuses for my actions,” he said. “They were selfish, the actions of a man too terrified of grief or pain. But I would do it again if I had to,” he added fervently.

  “Father,” Viola said, her voice faint. “When… when did it h
appen? How long have I been…?”

  He sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands. “Always,” he whispered. “You’ve been a nifara all your life.”

  The Prince started in surprise, an odd noise sounding in his throat. The Prime Minister spared him a tired glance and explained. “My wife was healthy throughout her pregnancy, but her labor was unusually difficult. It was late at night when Viola was finally born, and she wasn’t breathing—the umbilical cord had wrapped around her neck and strangled her during the delivery. Dr. Grayson pronounced her dead—stillborn—and set her aside to attend to Elizabeth, who was quickly failing. I… I suppose I went crazy in that moment, for I snatched the baby—you, Viola, I snatched you up and took you to the well of magic, and I poured every last drop I could on you, rubbed it into your little body, and willed you to live. And after the most awful spell of silence, you opened those beautiful eyes and let out the loudest wail I’d ever heard.

  “I didn’t realize at the time what I’d done. I returned to Grayson and Elizabeth and told them that I had pled for your life to the Prince himself, and that he had granted my plea. Elizabeth had been sinking into despair at her lost child and the news provided her with the strength to rally again. She welcomed you into her arms, and since that day she has never questioned anything regarding the Prince. He can do no wrong in her eyes, because he saved her child. My father discovered my deed the following day, though, and informed me just what it meant, that you had been revived by magic. It was too late to reverse, and I wouldn’t have done so anyway. We swore to keep it a secret, for fear of what trouble it could bring if the truth were discovered.”

  “Mother doesn’t know?” Viola asked quietly.

  Her father shook his head. “Grayson does, though. He’s much more perceptive than he makes himself out to be. He confronted me about your unnatural revival soon afterward, and I confessed the truth to him. That was when he discovered the Prince’s secret as well. Viola,” he added, and his eyes fixed upon her in a somber gaze, “this doesn’t change who you are. You are still our daughter.”

  “But I’m not human,” she said dully.

  The statement hung heavy in the air, her father unable to contradict it. Suddenly it made sense why he had always told her not to go into the city alone—if she had been recognized as a nifara, any number of dire things could have happened to her.

  “You know,” the Prince spoke up ponderously, and both Viola and her father looked to him in surprise, “in all the experiences I’ve had since the change came upon me, I can’t say that I ever truly felt inhuman. I was treated that way, yes, but the thoughts and emotions I have now feel just as natural as those I had before I died and was revived. We are not mortal, the nifaran, but I don’t believe that means we are no longer human. It just means that we are a special brand of human.”

  Viola considered this as she observed from the corner of her eyes how her father suddenly perked with a spark of renewed hope.

  “It’s too much,” she said miserably at last. “I don’t feel like myself anymore. I don’t know the first thing about being a nifara. What am I to do? How will this affect the rest of my life? What will happen when Mother finds out the truth, and Charles, and Edmund?”

  “You don’t have control over their reactions,” the Prince said before the Prime Minister could answer. “You don’t have any cause to worry about the future, either. Just live your life as it comes. I told you that you were lucky, Viola, to have such a father. Your family loves you.”

  She realized with a stunning jolt of clarity that he had already suffered through the fears that now crashed down upon her: clearly his birth parents had not been able to accept the change in their child. He had not mentioned whether he had any brothers or sisters, but it did not matter. He had been rejected by those who should have held him closest. In contrast, she had been embraced and protected by a father who knew exactly what she was from the very beginning. She had no cause to complain.

  As these thoughts came into her mind, she numbly nodded. Her eyes watched carefully for any sign of the pain he must have experienced.

  He seemed well enough guarded against displaying such a weakness. “Life as a nifara is not so very different from life as a mortal,” he told her, his expression schooled into the unreadable façade of a bored tutor. “You’ll find that you control magic better through the old tongue rather than the foreign one that mortals use, but other than that, you live and breathe and eat and sleep just as anyone else would—as you well know, Viola, for you’ve been doing it for years.”

  She nodded again, feeling like a young pupil brought before her first teacher. “What about that enslavement?” she asked, and she tipped the crown of her head toward the balcony, where the Prince’s book sat waiting. “How can I prevent something like that from ever happening?”

  His mouth pressed together in a grim line. “Don’t get caught by nefarious people. There’s magic running through your veins along with your blood. You must protect it from anyone who would exploit you.”

  She thought this was rather strange to learn now, when only that morning he had instructed her to slice herself open and bleed into the well. That cut had long since healed, she noted with a glance down at her thumb. It had not even left a scar, thanks to the magic he had poured over it.

  “There will come a day,” said her father slowly, “when all of this will be revealed to the ones you love the most. Nifaran don’t age as mortals do. As you grow older, your difference will become more and more pronounced simply because you will remain your same, beautiful self while the rest of us wither away. I wish you peace until that day comes—and afterward, if at all possible. To me, you will always be my one and only beautiful daughter Viola. Your life is a gift, and I know you will do great things with it.”

  His words humbled her. Her father had always believed her capable of anything, she thought. Was it because he knew what she truly was, or simply because he loved her in spite of that?

  “I’ll do my best,” she said quietly.

  Her father stood then and enfolded her in a tight embrace. As he held her close, he turned his eyes upon the golden stranger, the Prince, and said, “I owe you an apology. I knew if I entrusted her instruction to you that the truth would come out. I’m a coward who couldn’t acknowledge my wrongdoing, so I let you do it instead. I’m sorry. I should have told her myself.”

  The Prince nodded, then turned back to the staircase, which he ascended to the balcony once more. Somehow, his wordlessness embodied a sort of regal dignity that befitted the role he currently played.

  “Come, Viola,” said her father. “Let’s go home for today.”

  She allowed him to guide her away from the library, but just before they passed through the door, she hazarded a glance back over her shoulder. The Prince sat there on the balcony, silently muddling through another text. Suddenly he seemed not so much aloof as alone, and Viola’s heart ached with pity for him.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow!” she called on impulse.

  His gaze jerked up, those golden eyes filled with surprise. Then, collecting his wits, he nodded and raised a hand in farewell. The door shut between them, leaving her last glimpse as one of the stranger bathed in the orange light of the afternoon sun. Viola marveled at how much her life had changed in just a mere twenty-four hours.

  Chapter 9: Uninvited Visitors From Afar

  It is very surprising how quickly life returns to normal after some seemingly earth-shattering revelation is made. One moment I was told I am not a mortal human, and the next, my little brother is pestering me and I am Viola Moreland once again. I did feel strange for the barest instant, but then everyone treated me as they always do (and why shouldn’t they, for they don’t know the difference), and I shifted back into my usual routine.

  The Prince has been a little more careful around me since that day, I think—probably because he realizes the extent of my ignorance regarding his kind (my kind, I should say, but it still seems so odd to me). I
still find him unpredictable in many ways, but I suspect that that has less to do with him being a nifara and more to do with him being just a difficult person in general. In the mornings he gives me instructions in magical lore, and in the afternoons, I help him decipher the various accounts of nifaran within the Prince’s library. I don’t know exactly what it is he’s looking for—I do recall him saying once that he had exhausted his own people’s resources, and since I gather that he lived among other nifaran for a time, I would also expect that the nifaran would have more recorded on their own kind than anyone else. When I told him as much, though, he said that most nifaran lore is an oral tradition among the group he lived with, and that he is certain some detail has been lost over the generations.

  What detail that might be, though, he refuses to elaborate.

  Two days after we performed our ritual at the well, he and I returned and I could hardly believe my eyes. The entire clearing has burst into flowers, and the trees seem somehow brighter and stronger. Not only did the bucket make a splash when we lowered it, but the magic we drew back up has become a darker red, almost like wine. The Prince offered that first bucketful upon the ground, pouring it into the spell-pattern for good health there upon the dirt. We tasted the second bucketful, though—it was beautiful, a strange icy-warm sensation, and its sweet flavor has lost that cloying edge to it that I always disliked. We returned the rest to the well. The Prince says that the land still needs time to recover (it’s going to recover more than this?), and that we shouldn’t exploit it. I was all for performing the ritual again, right down to cutting open my whole palm, if necessary, but he stopped me and told me just to let nature take its course at present.

  I suppose he knows best.

  As the midsummer festival drew nearer, Charles and Edmund spent more and more time in the Prince’s library, planning the events. Viola tried to pretend that their presence didn’t bother her, but somehow in a very short amount of time, she had become used to being alone there with the Prince. She wasn’t going to attribute it to any sort of feelings for him (heaven forbid!), but she could hardly speak openly about the nifaran when Charles and Edmund were listening in, and she wanted to learn as much as she could in the time that the Prince was with them.