The mud had all but vanished from her hair. Only asmall patch remained near her temple, but it had been covered up by an array of pearl pins. Demelza wore a velvet burgundy dress that seemed almost ridiculous considering the balmy late spring evening. But it made her look all the more startling, as if she were a defiant winter rose. Beside her, Edmea clucked and fussed with Demelza’s sleeves.
“Honestly, Demelza, the idea is to feed yourself, not your gown,” said Edmea. “Goodness, if I ever have daughters…”
Arris stole a moment to look at the beautiful girls seated around him. Edmea wore a blush pink dress, and feathers gently fanned out behind her elaborate updo. Zoraya wore a golden kaftan with a matching diadem. Cordelia appeared to have risen out of the lagoon itself, and her dress of deep green complemented the glossy blue of her skin and deep purple of her hair. Talvi wore a confection of frothing snowflakes and Ursula wore what appeared to be a pelt of some kind…
By the end of the week, any of them could become his bride. Thanks to Demelza, he felt reasonably certain that none of them would kill him. Or at least, not outright. Perhaps they’d give him enough time to finish reading those volumes he had collected on the history of tapping dream trees for sugared nightmares, the syrup of which could create both a potent weapon on the battlefield and a delicious aperitif for any meal. He should have felt relieved going into the third trial, but Arris was dismayed.
He wanted to live, but if he had the chance to live a long life, then who would he spend it with? With nearly all ofthem, Arris could perfectly picture the terrain of an unlived life and it was… fine?
A bit boring, honestly. Beggars cannot be choosers, said the rational corner of his mind.Beggars can still have preferences!Arris thought.
At the table, there was one person he could not envision a future with… one person who had proposed to him a few hours ago even as she admitted that she would not be a safe choice. Arris told himself not to think of her in such a way, but once she had put the thought in his head, he was finding it hard to remove. When he imagined a life with Demelza he felt none of the world-weariness he envisioned with the others… he felt wonder. It left him unbalanced. So much so that he almost didn’t realize that he was being spoken to…
“—quite all right, Your Highness?”
Arris blinked and saw Talvi staring up at him with her frosty-blue eyes.
“Apologies, I was… well, it doesn’t matter,” said Arris. “What were you saying?”
Belatedly, he realized that Cordelia was now opposite him. At some magical interval, the cushions—and the contestants—migrated about the table. Arris did not.
“We were just discussing the third trial,” said Zoraya. Her voice was plaintive as she clasped his hand on the table. She whispered: “Only one more obstacle lies between us and eternal love.”
“A contest of power, is it not?” asked Cordelia. She traced the rim of her wineglass.
“Yes,” said Arris.
Though what that meant, he could not be sure. His mother was, as usual, cryptic. He had tried a different tactic by approaching his father, but that was an utter waste. After nearly an hour of Arris pestering him, King Eustis held his son’s face between his hands, looked him deep in the eyes and said:
“My darling child, even if I knew, I would not tell you. I have escaped death from your mother’s hands enough times that I worry good fortune is growing weary of me.”
“But don’t you want to help me?” Arris had insisted.
“Of course I do,” said his father. “But trust me, knowing what she plans will not help you. It will merely unnerve you.”
“What is power to you, Prince Arris?”
Arris looked up to see that it was Demelza who had posed the question. She fixed him with an unblinking stare. A tendril of red hair escaped from her braided coil and fell against the pale skin of her neck.
Arris’s second fiancée, Calantha, had told him that it was the height of romance to tuck a strand of hair behind a girl’s ear. Later, Arris realized this advice had been a ploy to kill him, since she regularly combed venom through her locks. But he thought of it now… that gesture of romance. He had no desire to tuck away Demelza’s hair. He wished, rather, to watch it come undone in his hands. He wondered whether Demelza had caught a glimpse of his thoughts, for a blush suddenly crept up her neck.
“I think it depends on who you ask,” he said.
“I think the truest power is observation,” said Cordelia. “What is it that one can see that no one else does?”
Arris noticed that her gaze lingered on Demelza when she spoke.
“I think it’s strength,” said Ursula, before adding: “All forms of it. Though someone could stand to tell that to my mother… she thinks if you can beat it to a pulp, you’ve bested it, but that doesn’t apply to cooking down a perfect zaza mandarin, you know? If you haven’t the strength of will to peel it and know that your eyes will weep a torrent, then you don’t deserve the unparalleled complexities of its nectar! The strength to withstand a zaza mandarin. That is power.”
“Uh… yes,” said Arris. “Well reasoned.”
Ursula toasted herself and drank deeply.
“Power is knowledge,” said Talvi.
“Power is beauty,” said Edmea, winking at Arris.
“Well, I think…” started Zoraya, before her voice broke. “Power is love. Only love.”
