The gnome set down the gardening can and strolled off, whistling. Demelza moved to allow the gnome to pass. When they were alone again, she looked up at him. Arris couldn’t help but grin. And it seemed to summon a smile in her as well. The next moment, they were laughing. But it did not last very long.
One moment, Arris was laughing on the darkened balcony. Beyond, the wilderness of Rathe Castle was nothing but a puzzle of shadows. The next moment, light burst all around him. Light and something else…
Feathers. Each plume looked as if it had been embroidered with dawn and silver. Radiance engulfed Arris; the waxen silk of wings brushed against his cheeks. He threw out his hand to shield himself and that was when he saw something dangling from his wrist—
A necklace.
The necklace had a pulse. Its pendant was not a jewel, but a pair of wings no larger than the span of his thumb. They were beating frantically. A blink later, the cascade offeathers and light had winnowed into the silhouette of a glorious swan, her wings edged in scarlet.
Demelza was gone.
All her life, Demelza had felt unfinished.
And now… now… it was as if the very contours of her soul were filling in. This was what love could unlock. Laughing with Arris was like guzzling sunlight. She could fight the pull of him no longer. In an instant, all that was dark and hidden within her turned radiant. When her wings sprouted, at first all Demelza could think wasfinally. Finally, she possessed all of herself. Her wings drank up the night sky and for one stolen moment of blitheness, she knew how it felt for starlight to glaze her feathers. She felt the world within her grasp…
And then her swan gaze sharpened. The key. It dangled from Arris’s clenched fist like an exquisite death sentence.
Demelza’s elation melted to panic. Now she would be made a fool. Now all her love would turn against her. Every warning delivered by Araminta and Prava blazed through Demelza’s thoughts as Arris’s grip tightened on the necklace. He stared up at it in wonder. Demelza’s world shrank—
And then Arris stepped forward, gesturing to her. She hovered before him, confused, her wings beating in tandem with the frantic locket of her heart key. Arris’s arms went around her long neck. The key settled against her snowy plumage and she felt herself glowing, extending. Wings lengthening to limbs. Feathers snarling into familiar redcoils. The key was hers. He had given it back. Arris stared at her, his eyes wide with wonder. And this time, Demelza did not wait for Arris to reach for her. When his arms opened hopefully, Demelza knew that she would fly to him wherever he was.
Whether or not she had wings.
34The Queen and the Clattersnake
The night before her wedding, Demelza snuck into the kitchens of Rathe Castle. She couldn’t sleep and she was hoping to find some warmed milk. Instead, she found her future mother-in-law milking a venomous scarlet-banded clattersnake over a bowl of porridge. Demelza paused by the door, hoping the queen would not notice her. She could not remember the last time she had stood so still. Ever since she had flown into Arris’s arms, she felt as though she had not touched the ground.
Within hours of Arris announcing her before the assembled ballroom as his betrothed, Demelza’s belongings had been moved into a palatial wing perfectly appointed to her tastes and comforts. There was even a small turret, a miniature of the tower where she and her sisters had slept, where the Castle had constructed a nest-like bed canopied by billow lilies and fog violets.
“It’s perfect,” Demelza had said, and the floors glowed in delight.
The wedding date had been set for the following week,which had driven Edmea into a fit because she “needed time to construct a gown so startling even the dead would rise to glimpse it.” Ursula, whose mother had brought her the idea of opening a canteen on Ulva Wyld’s famed training grounds, had accepted—well, demanded—the task of planning a wedding banquet and a cake and thus would remain on the grounds until then. Talvi also stayed back, though it had nothing to do with the wedding and everything to do with her research. To that end, Arris had granted her special access to the archives of Rathe Castle.
“Research on what?” Demelza had asked.
But Talvi remained cryptic. “You’ll see.”
Invitations had been sent out the same evening of the ball, and though Demelza had been worried about her family’s responses, so far they had been nothing but gracious. Excited, even. Her sisters would be flying in to celebrate her from every corner of the world. The only trace of disgruntledness had come from her mother, who had written her a note with a single line:
Clipped wings are harder to bear once you have had a taste of flight.
She understood Araminta’s hesitation, but she was certain that once she met Arris, things would change. She would see the warmth in his eyes. She would learn that he had not hesitated to restore her winged necklace. She would be as happy for Demelza as she was for herself.
By dawn, Araminta and all of Demelza’s sisters would arrive. And despite his position as the kingdom’s permanent persona non grata on the grounds of repeated treasonand attempted murder, special allowances had even been made for Prava so that he could at least see and speak with Demelza. According to her mother’s letter, this “generosity” displayed by the royal family was about as welcome to him as “a knife to the back.” He had refused to write a note to Demelza. In the space where her mother had allowed Prava to inscribe a message, there were only a few dried tears, some of which had burned a hole in the parchment. Demelza sighed when she saw it. She had imagined Prava would be delighted and scheming about her influence in Rathe Castle, but the news had turned him maudlin instead. Sometimes when he got in these moods, Demelza would find him curled up in the brooding nest, bemoaning how all his daughters had grown up and what if they forgot his birthday?
Perhaps Demelza would have fretted more about her father, but her new routine left little time for reflection. In the mornings, Arris and Demelza breakfasted with courtiers. In the afternoons, Arris met with his secretary and Demelza familiarized herself with the various guilds and departments. Already, she had sat in on meetings with the Guild of Imported and Exported Enchanted Fabrics, the Alliance of Medicinal, Magical and Morbid Botanicals, the Underwater Consortium for the Protection of Cannibalistic Sea Beings and at least several sessions where spies shared gossip from around the Isle. In the evenings, Arris introduced her to his arboreal relatives in the Grove of Ancestors—Argento had even offered her one of his apples—and they wandered through the dusk, stealing whatever privacy might be hadfrom the indulgent, ancient aunts now turned to flowering black oaks or spindly spruces. With the wedding so close, Rathe Castle had become zealous in maintaining a sense of propriety. The other evening, Arris had tried to surprise her with tea and cake as he had done so many times throughout the tournament. The moment he snuck out of his bedroom, the Castle rug seized him, rolled him up and delivered him outside the door to his parents’ bedroom, where he remained until morning.
“It could’ve been worse,” Arris had said. “It could’ve been the itchy rug, and then my night would have truly been intolerable.”
Demelza was happy. She saw her friends—friends! Even now, her heart rejoiced in this. Every time Arris reached for her hand and brushed a kiss across her knuckles, she felt as though she had turned to candlelight. Whatever had grown between them was still sweet and new. Demelza thought she’d be frightened, but all she felt was excitement. She was safe. She was luminous with love, though she did not know that of herself. She found King Eustis charming. Yvlle reminded her of her sisters and seemed to have made room for Demelza almost immediately. Arris was… well, everything.
The only person Demelza felt uncomfortable around was the queen. Queen Yzara was not unkind. But she was not particularly welcoming either. With this in mind, Demelza quietly backed away from the kitchen entrance… but she was not as stealthy as she had hoped.
“I see you, child,” said Queen Yzara, not looking up from her task.
Demelza bristled. If she were to retort, “I am no child,” then she would most certainly sound like one. But she didn’t want to wave off the insult either.
“Waging a war in your head of how to sound poised rather than petulant?” asked the queen. Her back was to Demelza, but she seemed to know when she nodded because she laughed. “Let me clarify, then. I call you ‘child’ not because I consider you one but because I am reminding myself that this is how someone else sees you. Your mother and father, perhaps. Or a grandparent. I call you that to remind myself that you have been loved and cherished and nurtured to this first flush of adulthood.”
