“Yes. One thing that living for a cause gives you is the relief of the weight of your own humanity.”
She had to laugh about that, because it was true.
All she was left with now were her own petty fears and discomforts. Her desires, the things that she wanted, even if she shouldn’t or couldn’t.
It was exhausting. It was better, actually, to worry about things on a global scale, because her personal economy was far more troubling, and also, it felt even more out of her control.
“I’m picking berries for a cake, because that at least feels like something.”
“Can I join you?”
“I would like that.”
“We used to come out here all the time when I was a child. Pick berries.”
“You and who else?”
“There were often children. Of associates of my father. It was such a strange childhood. There were times when we were left to our own devices, left to run wild. And other times…”
She looked at him. “What?”
“I don’t want to spoil a beautiful day with things about my childhood.”
“Tell me.”
“My father saw it as his duty to prepare me to take over the family business. That meant that when there were people who needed to be… When violence had to be dealt out, he would ask that I watch. You get used to it. You learn to stop thinking about how much it must hurt the other person. Slowly, over time, it begins to kill your empathy. That’s the idea behind it. He didn’t want me to have empathy. He didn’t want me to care what happened to other people. He wanted me to care only about the mission. And so I am very good at that.”
It was such a strange thing to realize, that he had been shaped by something so dark and sinister, and yet it had turned him into a very similar person to her.
Her own parents had been sweet, lovely. Well-intentioned.
She wanted to honor them, and that was where all of her feelings came from.
His father had simply bent and twisted him into a vessel. One that could contain all the violence his family required.
And then he had transferred that, that loyalty, to her and Onyx.
“It must be really hard to be back here, actually.”
He shook his head. “I have some of the nicest times of my life here. I cared very much about all of my friends. I think that is actually the difficult part. It was not a miserable childhood entirely. I suppose children are resilient and they are determined to create fun no matter what. But there were things that… There were things that were quite miserable.”
“I wish I had known this about you.”
“Why? It wouldn’t have changed anything. You and I were always going to be bound by the rules we made for ourselves.”
He was right. Only in childhood had there ever been any lightness for either of them. When she was a little girl, she hadn’t thought about her legacy. It was only after her mother had died. Before that, she’d known what fun was. What dreams were. She had imagined a family like her own.
“If I’m honest,” she said, “I suppose I probably did romanticize the idea of marrying a stranger. Especially as I got older, because I did know that I would probably have to do a diplomatic union. Knowing that my parents had done it, it just made it seem like there was the possibility for it to be wonderful. Like there was the possibility for it to work out.”
His eyes burned into her. “And your feelings for me?”
She took a breath, looked away, tried to ignore the soreness in her chest. “I learned to ignore them. Sort of. It was a separate thing. I wanted you, but I knew that I could never have you, so it was sort of… Its own kind of beautiful tragedy, I guess. But please don’t call it lust. It isn’t. It isn’t just lust.”
He nodded slowly. “I won’t.”
“Good.”
They finished picking berries in silence, and then she was surprised when it turned out that the offer from Rebecca for cake meant that she had to bake it. She had never baked a cake in her life. “She tricked you,” Andrei said. “She’s done the same for me.”
