“See, I’m quite certain I don’t want those either,” said Arris.
Demelza groaned. “My voice. I am of veritas swan descent. When I sing, people speak the truth. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Honesty? The certainty that the bride you choose loves you?”
Arris stared. “Veritas swans? If they’re even real, their voices are, forgive me, supposed to be extraordinarily beautiful, and yours is…”
“Horrible?”
“Well… yes.”
Demelza shrugged. “I know.”
“Is this a joke?”
Demelza did not have time for this. She opened her mouth and trilled a quick tune, a snippet of her father’s lullaby for them:
Woe, woe, woe
Shall cry the men who know you!
Sharpen your teeth and stretch out your wings
And the world shall be yours for the taking
Singing it aloud brought tears to Demelza’s eyes. Whenever Prava got to that part of his lullaby, he used to swoop Demelza onto his lap and hold out her arms before tickling her.
You are precious to me with or without wings, little dove, he would say.
Now she wished she had been a little less precious.
“I’m astounded your voice hasn’t driven me to tears either,” said Arris, grimacing as she finished. But his grimace fell away when he saw the air between them. It was spangled with her truth magic, flecks of light dancing between them.
“What is that—”
“Proof,” said Demelza. “Now speak true, Prince. What is a secret you wish no one knew?”
Arris’s eyes bulged. He tried to clap his hand over his mouth but it made no difference.
“I—how did you—” he spluttered out before saying: “I very much wanted a scar on my face because I thought it would make me seem interesting and so for awhile I was always bumping into things on purpose but when that didn’t work, I took a knife to my face, but then my sister frightened me and I poked my cheek and… and now I have a dimple, which is, in fact, a scar.”
Arris looked mortified. “I had no desire to share that information.”
“I can’t imagine why,” said Demelza. “Now do you understand what I am capable of, Your Highness?”
“You… you really can bring the truth out,” he said. Arris sank to the floor, staring up at Demelza in a way that made her feel extremely self-conscious. “You… you could change everything.”
In the distance, fireworks shot off the boat. The smoke twisted through the night sky, forming the silhouette of a dancing couple. A moment later, the smoke configured intothe shape of a great hand, which waved through the air in a beckoning gesture before pointing to a range of towering, glowing mushrooms, which were to house the bridal contestants for the duration of the tournament. Demelza had yet to be assigned a room, for the whole of her afternoon had been dedicated to spying on Angharad. The velveteen frets of the mushroom caps emitted a silver light and Demelza understood that it was a summons for the evening.
“They’re calling me,” she said.
Arris looked out the window, frowning. “But we’ve only just… ah, fine. Listen, find me by the lake, yes? At midnight?”
He stood up and seized Demelza’s hands.
“I think you might be the answer to my every wish,” he said. He was looking at her as if she had put the moon in the sky. It was all… a lot. She snatched her hands back and then, not really knowing what to do since she had not even thought to imagine this far, she patted the prince on the shoulder.
“Thank you,” he said, as he left the orangery. “Truly.”
All her life, Demelza had never slept anywhere but in the soft rushes of her mother’s nesting tower or beneath the night sky ceiling of her library. In the past, she fell asleep to her sister’s snores, with a wing shoved at her back and someone’s feathers tickling her nose. Lately, she had been lulled by the agitated rustling of the library’s philosophy tomes, whose ideas left them in a constantly restless state.
