“I don’t have practice trying to understand other people.”
“Did you even have friends growing up?”
“No. I was a servant, for all intents and purposes.”
She turned around and looked at him, her gaze landing at the center of his chest, and then quickly moving to his eyes. “A servant who was meant to be king?”
“It wasn’t so bad as that. It was lonely. But then I had a lot of time to decide who I was going to be.”
“Did you have a mentor? Somebody who…came alongside you and told you that you were the chosen one?”
“No. I decided to be the chosen one. I decided that nobody was going to fix the mess. And that it was my blood that made it my responsibility.”
“You never thought about running away and leaving this place?”
“No. Because these are my people. I owe them my best attempt. Even if it isn’t perfect.”
He had never shared any of this with anyone before. It was strange. To talk about something so personal.
He had been a symbol of revolution. And he had found people who agreed with him. When he wanted them to fight alongside of him, and form a coalition to oust the government, he had no longer been lonely, but what they had spoken of was not personal. They had spoken of ideals. They had spoken of government. Of war. They had been prepared to die if need be. But then they had managed to get the military onto their side. And it hadn’t been necessary.
They had taken everything down from the inside; by the time he had walked into the throne room, it had been reclaimed.
A bloodless revolution, even though he had been prepared for violence.
This woman… She challenged him. Danced with him. Got him to talk to her.
It was such a strange thing.
And he found that the more he spoke to her, the more he wanted to speak to her.
It was like one of those little cakes. He had tried one, and it only made him want another.
He was studied in self-denial. Much less so in the craving of things.
“And what about you? You grew up entirely in a palace. And yet you were not treated like royalty.”
“No,” she said. “I told you I have five brothers. And my father could only use me one way.
“My mother was just… I don’t know why she married him. It was just because she had aspirations to be queen. If it was political, if her hand was forced the way that my father intended to force mine… I don’t know, and I don’t know that I ever will. Because I don’t know how to talk to her. It’s like she’s withdrawn from her own life. All she cares about is fashion and manicures. I like those things too, but I also like to speak about other things. I judged her harshly for a very long time. But now I wonder if that’s simply how she survives it. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hollow myself out to be a vehicle for a man’s plans.”
“You were going to do what he wanted,” he said.
“I didn’t especially have a choice. You would think that I would’ve missed the opulence of the palace when I went to the convent. I think my father thought that I would. I think he found it somewhat amusing. Like it would be lowering for me to be sent there, like I would maybe learn a lesson, and be more grateful. But I wept in relief when he left me on the Isle of Skye.”
Her eyes filled with tears even speaking of it.
“All I wanted was to be left to my own devices there. And I did find the divine. I did find a connection to myself that I didn’t know I could have. I found thoughts that I’d never had before. And strength, much more strength. I thought a few times about running away when I was in the palace, but I really didn’t know how to survive away from my family. Or what it would look like. But one of the reasons I ran from you so easily was that by then I knew what independence felt like. I didn’t want to go back.”
“You don’t like being royalty?” Guilt lanced him. It was so unfamiliar he almost had a difficult time identifying it.
“No. I don’t. I find it to be…” She stopped speaking. “I don’t actually know what it is to be royal. For me it has always meant existing to do the bidding of someone else. Not even for the good of my people. Maybe I would feel differently if I was the one in charge. But for me, it has meant living a life of gilded subjugation.”
“Your father’s foolish for not respecting your mind. I understand why you’re angry at me, but I fear that you are clever and insightful.”
“You fear it?Well.” There was some satisfaction in that word.
“A brilliant mind is a fearsome thing.”
