I’d never imagined a romantic marriage–never really allowed myself to think of it anyway… because I was the spare. I’d do whatever Tavo ordered me to do when he became king.
Cressida let go of my arm to pull something from her dress.
A golden ball?It glinted like sunlight trapped in metal, a perfect orb that didn’t belong here. I frowned. “That’s new.” The first words spoken between us.
She turned it in her palm, her expression unreadable. “I bought it from a woman in Windmere. She said the person who retrieves it for me is a true prince.”
I raised an eyebrow. Was she going to throw it and expect me to chase after it like a dog? The idea was quite offensive.
“Can I see?” I asked, and she handed it to me. I read the writing around the center band of the ball. “A kiss from a true princess will break any spell.” I frowned. What was she implying? Was she suggesting that her kiss might break some "spell?" Then my stomach tightened. Was the “spell” her feelings for Tavo?
I turned it around, finding more writing. “Beware. True magic always takes something in return.”
Magic. I handed it back to her. “There’s no magic in Kaiora,” I said. It wasn’t illegal to use magic, as there were some who practiced kahunaism and witchcraft. But magic just wasn’t at work here.
“That’s interesting,” I said. “Why’d you get it?”
Her fingers tightened slightly on the orb and I felt a strange pressure in the air, like a charged, quiet moment before a lightning storm. Nervousness flooded me as she glanced at my lips.
Did she want to kiss me? Is that why she got the ball? To instigate a kiss?
I hadn’t ever kissed a girl, and I wasn’t quite in the mood to kiss Cressida. She was agreeable, but I had never viewed her as, well… my companion. My wife.
Might as well start now,I told myself, but I couldn’t do it. Not when I’d seen her and Tavo all over each other in the past. I suppose marriage, to me, was going to be nothing romantic. Justa duty for my people. This whole situation was making me rather nauseated.
“I know this wasn’t what either of us expected,” she said, avoiding eye contact. “Tavo was supposed to marry me. We had so many plans together, and now…” She shook her head. “He…” She paused and I thought she would say, “Die” or “was killed.”
Instead, she said, “He never came back.” She sounded more angry at the fact he never returned than that he had died, which was strange. “You were supposed to do your own thing, Ezra. You weren’t ever supposed to be the heir.”
My fist clenched, and my jaw tightened. What was she getting at? Did she see me as inferior to Tavo too?
Probably.
We reached the side of the garden, which connected it to the terrace garden. Ponds glistened in the sunlight, and blossoms floated across their surface. Cressida’s reflection hovered in the water.
“I’m not Tavo,” I said. “Though I’ll try to be more like him.”
“No.” Cressida finally looked at me. “You’re not Tavo. But I don’t think you could ever be like him either.” For the first time, I wondered if there might be some truth to her words.
Father said it.
Cressida said it.
Was I putting too much pressure on myself to be like him, when that could never be a reality? It made me sick with worry.
But Cressida watched me with curiosity, and I wondered, maybe even allowed myself to entertain the idea of becoming friends. She’d always been obsessed with Tavo, but now that he was gone, could I put myself in that position? The position that was once his?
“I’m sorry you and Tavo couldn’t be together,” I said.
“Me too.” She pursed her lips, then added. “But I can carry on his legacy in my own way.”
People grieved in their own way and I figured this was her way of grieving Tavo. But what legacy of his did she mean? Tavo hadn’t even been king yet. Had never made any laws or decrees. He often seemed indifferent to the whereabouts of the kingdom. So what legacy of his was there to carry on, besides his dominating and powerful personality?
Cressida held up the ball, but instead of handing it to me, it slipped from her fingers and fell into the pond. Her eyes flicked towards it, then to me.
“What a loss,” she said, the golden ball invisible in the deep pond. Did she expect me to get it? I wasn’t afraid of getting wet, but… something seemed off.
“I can get it,” I finally decided before I changed my mind. Before things got too awkward. I took my shoes off, and as soon as my foot touched the water, something happened. I could see the ball from here, at the bottom of the pond, with bright orange and white koi fish swimming back and forth.
