“By what?”
Demelza sighed. “If this is about my report on the contestants, you shall have it by the week’s end, though I can say with reasonable certainty that I do not believe Talvi or Ursula are here to harm you.”
“Really?” asked Arris, brightening. “That’s good.”
“Yes,” said Demelza. “Again, a further report shall be—”
“You look like you’ve been crying,” said Arris. He still had not moved from the floor and was now regarding her curiously with his arms wrapped about his knees. “Why?”
Demelza slumped into the nearest chair. She didn’t have much talent for lying. None of her sisters did. Perhaps it had something to do with their veritas lineage, for they could only evade the truth, but not deny it. Demelza didn’t see the point in being coy. Telling the truth wouldn’t make her seem any less competent than she did right now with tears crusting her face.
“I suppose you could say I’ve had an ill-timed personalcrisis,” said Demelza. “I’m only now realizing I’ve lived the entirety of my life in the service of someone else. I have asked you for shelter and safety, but I do not know what I’ll do once I possess them. I cannot hide from my father forever. And when someone asked me what I want, I had no answer. Am I supposed to have an answer? I don’t think I’ve ever asked myself what I wanted. I wanted to be useful to my father. I wanted to be needed. Necessary. And now I find that I am, but for all the wrong reasons! I’m not wanted for my intellect or whatnot. I’m simply wanted for my heart. It feels… it’s horrible.”
Demelza finally drew a breath. “Does any of that even make sense?”
“Yes,” said Arris. “I understand that perfectly.”
The prince’s eyes possessed an unnerving intensity. At first, Demelza felt as if the whole of her being was rifled through, but then his eyes softened, as if he was letting her peer inside him as well, and when Demelza looked at him, it was like stumbling upon a mirror. Here they were. Two individuals whose purpose outweighed their personhood.
“How do you stand it?” she asked.
Arris laughed. “I suppose I don’t fight it, and that helps. I find a certain comfort in knowing that I’m not supposed to possess all the answers to the universe. It lets me approach each hour as a gift, which my sister tells me makes me exceptionally annoying company.”
“Are you the sort of annoying that waxes philosophical about the sunrise?” asked Demelza.
“No, but I once wept over what I considered to be myfirst and last experience of a perfect spring breeze,” said Arris.
Demelza didn’t want to laugh, but she did. Arris grinned. It made his ears stick out a bit more.
“For however long it lasts, it’s my life and I shall live it as I wish,” said Arris. He leaned forward, and the sparkle vanished from his gaze. “But I’ve had years to fight my way to that perspective, and there are many days where I cannot find my way back to that sense of peace. As for what you said about not knowing what you want… I think that’s good.”
Demelza scowled. “How so?”
“Sometimes, the space to want is a worthy enough goal,” said Arris. “I don’t know what I want except to keep wanting, which is a choice that would be taken from me were I to turn into a tree.”
Arris stood, dusting off his copper-colored tunic and fussing with his hair. He looked a little rumpled, but no less handsome. He extended a hand to her.
“Help me find my future bride, Demelza, and I shall do my utmost to make sure that you too find the space to discover your wants.”
“Very well,” said Demelza, and they shook upon it once more.
Demelza sank back into the chair. She felt like an open wound. It had been humiliating enough to announce to the royal family that she had no talent. It had been even worse sulking back into the antechamber holding all the other contestants, who had at least managed to do something. Edmea was at the front of the group, arms crossed and looking at Demelza as if she was something discovered upon the bottom of her shoes.
“I hadn’t even considered extreme patheticness as a strategy, but well played,” said Edmea.
It was a dismissal as much as it was a declaration:
Demelza was not one of them.
Demelza groaned. For the hundredth time that day, she longed for her sisters. They would know how to fix this.
“I need to gain the confidence of your contestants again,” said Demelza. “My performance for the talent portion was not well received.”
“You know that was a one-time exception, yes? If I pull that stunt again, they’ll think I’m smitten.”
“I know,” said Demelza. She stood up, pacing the room. She had thought the prince would be more anxious, but he was just curiously poking about the room. Arris went to the fireplace to inspect the assembled books.
“I wonder what books they supplied you—ugh!The Complete Works of Rodolfus Frey? The man is a fool. Who picked these?”
