“Oh… I… I was just thinking about how it always catches me by surprise how someone can be almost ordinary in one moment and, well, breathtaking the next,” he said.
When he met her gaze, he looked embarrassed. No doubt he felt extraordinary pity for her and had no wish to rub someone else’s beauty in her face. It was kind of him.
“Yes,” said Demelza.
The sea wind ruffled his hair and the light danced on the ocean. Arris looked handsome and soft and within reach in a way that Demelza could not explain but that she knew would hurt her. Clearly the day was conspiring to make a fool of her.
“Breathtaking,” she echoed.
“Demelza—”
“I have nothing new to report,” said Demelza. She should not cut off a prince, but he looked pitying and she could stand many things but not his pity. “If I do, I’ll let you know, but I’m not certain there will be anything to gather after tonight’s feast.”
“Oh,” said Arris. “Of course.”
“See you at the feast,” said Demelza, walking off.
“Goodbye?” called Arris.
Only when everyone had left did Demelza creep back into the pearl chamber. The whispers might have chased her away, but she would not let them define her. Alone, Demelza surveyed the wreckage of the table. The jars and ingredients had been upturned. Herbs had been clipped. Bones had been ground to dust. At the far end of the black table sat several gleaming fragrance bottles.
Who are you, who are you, little bird, little bird
Or perhaps, perhaps, you can’t find the words, find the words…
“You’re right,” said Demelza to her warped and glimmering reflection. “I don’t know who I am.”
But she wanted the chance to find out. And it was thatpure want that she distilled. When she ran her hands over the table, the ingredients of her own unfinished self called out to her. Spring buds and pond lilies, an ever-burning ember and a tincture of morning fog. All her yearning, her frustration, the things she did not yet know that she loved and hated, and all the hope that followed she braided together through the strange magic of the pearl chamber.
Who was she?
She didn’t know. Not yet. It was an adventure still unfolding and Demelza was determined to greet it with open eyes and an open heart.
28The Preferences of Beggars
As the grounds of Rathe Castle melted from spring to summer, so too did its ornamentation and landscaping. Gone were the blooming shrubs, the green maze and the courtyard with its dangling ropes of braided wisteria and amethysts. Gone were the landscapes of silver and bone, pink and bloom. Now a lazy heat settled over the land. The trees drooped. Clouds of fireflies spiraled through the air like ecstatic bonfire sparks. The cool spring pond shifted, its borders turning ragged and steep until it transformed into a slender waterfall that fed into a lagoon the deep, grassy hue of polished ozoralds. The glass boat wyvern also transformed. Its wings expanded and rounded. Vivid shades of tangerine and cerulean, cobalt and ruby, indigo and azure, crept across the crystal until the dragon’s wings became the stained glass panes of an exquisite moth. The rest of its body lengthened and slendered, and its once curved and regal horns plumed to feathered antennae. The creature skimmed the surface of the lake, and upon its wide,flat back appeared a round table surrounded by several floating cushions.
By the time Arris arrived to the feast, the contestants were already seated and halfway through what appeared to be the first course. Cordelia was the first to see him.
“Your Highness!” she called out as he walked across the creature’s wings. “How fortunate that you are joining us! We almost wondered whether we were to dine alone this evening…”
Irritation edged her voice. Arris was late. All day, his conversation with Demelza had rattled his thoughts. He had tried to speak to her before the feast and even brought her a piece of tadpole pie, but the guardian of vines had blocked him. Again.
“She is busy!” the guardian had said.
“Too busy for a piece?” Arris had asked hopefully. He even held up the platter and wafted it about the wall, as if the smell of it might seep through, find Demelza and convince her to speak to him again. The vines sighed.
“My prince, you are a downright fool if you believe that is the piece of you she desires.”
Between moping, making a pie and getting scolded by a sentient plant, Arris had barely found the time to get ready. Even so, he was grateful for all the distractions. He felt as though his own mind was keeping something from him… something that it knew would hurt him if he articulated the thought aloud.
“My apologies,” said Arris. An empty cushion hoveredby Cordelia, so he sat beside her. She extended her hand and he kissed it. “I knew you would all dazzle, and I wished to strike a good figure next to your beauty.”
The girls laughed—except Ursula, who grunted—and although Arris smiled at all of them, his attention was elsewhere. The moment he had stepped foot onto the wyvern’s wing, Demelza was all he could see. It was unnerving, honestly. Her loveliness had crept upon him so slowly that he almost hadn’t registered it until he had run into her outside the sea cave. Her features were striking but that wasn’t what had grabbed him, for if he could be lured by beauty alone he would long since be married and dead. It was the fact that every time he looked at Demelza or spoke to her, he recognized a bit more of himself.
Arris possessed a rare appetite for existence that he thought no one else had understood until he met her. Demelza always seemed on the verge of furious, and it made him feel vivid in her presence. He suspected he had offended her this afternoon when he had rejected her proposal. Not wishing to offend her again by commenting on how she looked breathtaking that afternoon, he had done his best to avoid her ire, but that only seemed to make her more angry.
Clearly that anger lingered, for she did not meet his gaze at the table. When it came to girls, Arris had inspired lust and curiosity, pity and murder… but never grouchy irritation. It was refreshing. The realization made him grin, which was the exact moment when Demelza looked up at him… and frowned.
