Chapter 10 #2
Theo gave her a sideways look. “I’ve offended you,” he said. “I apologize.”
“I’d rather you didn’t apologize than do so without meaning it,” retorted Elowen.
“Who says I don’t mean it?” Theo demanded.
Elowen made an incredulous noise. “Everything in your manner.”
There was a moment of silence. “I can acknowledge that I’m not skilled in pleasant manners,” Theo said, surprising her with the honesty.
“But I didn’t intend to offend you, and my apology was sincere.
What you said is perfectly reasonable—our opinions didn’t factor into our betrothal, and I can understand your frustration over that. ”
Elowen was silent for a moment, softened by his straight speaking.
“It’s not that I resent our betrothal,” she said slowly. “But I wish I knew you better. I feel that I’m learning daily what you don’t like, but I wish I knew what you do like.”
“In a woman?” Theo seemed so taken aback that Elowen had to hold in a laugh. It seemed he would have no idea how to answer that particular question, and as his betrothed, she wasn’t sure whether that was depressing or heartening.
“No,” she said, still trying to curb her smile. “I meant in general. Your interests, your preferences.”
“My apologies.” Theo paused, collecting himself. “I enjoy reading. Riding, as we are now.”
She waited, but he said no more.
“That’s all?” she demanded, exasperated. “Don’t you want to get to know each other? Do you have no interest in deepening the connection between us?”
She knew she was speaking more frankly than a proper, decorous princess should, and perhaps that was why his voice was a little stiff when he replied.
“Of course I do. But we’ll have ample time to get to know one another.”
Elowen wasn’t at all satisfied by that answer, and she turned away to hide her irritation. He was so sure of her, and although her sense acknowledged he had reason, her heart didn’t appreciate his emotionless confidence.
She came to a stop near the water’s edge, dismounting smoothly and handing off her horse to one of her guards. Moving on foot, and aware of Theo following at a stately pace, she strolled over an arching footbridge that spanned this section of garden.
Elowen paused at the far end of the bridge, leaning over the railing to look down into the water.
She was delighted to see a small cluster of tadpoles darting through the shallows, and she moved around the side of the railing, disregarding her gown and kneeling down at the edge of the water.
She noticed Theo coming down the bridge behind her, and a foolish, fleeting thought flashed through her head as she tried to imagine his reaction if she were to push him in.
She put a hand to her mouth to keep back an almost hysterical giggle that suddenly threatened to emerge. The image defied imagination.
Elowen reached out over the water, trying to get hold of a beautiful water lily of a shockingly bright pink. She was so close, but she couldn’t quite reach it. Her arm simply wasn’t long enough.
She was gripped with an absurd defiance, suddenly unwilling to accept her limitations.
She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the movement of a large fish wending its way through the water, and trying to recall her training on accessing Dust stirred by animals.
Waving her scarf around would be a simpler means of harnessing magic, but it would be too conspicuous.
Elated, she felt the moment the steady trickle of magic entered a deeper layer of her awareness, and she focused her mind on shaping it into a movement enchantment.
It was a simple process—the magic had come from movement through the water, and she didn’t have to change its shape to direct it to do the same for a different object.
The lily pad on which the pink flower floated inched nearer to her outstretched fingers.
Encouraged, Elowen persisted with her efforts, needing only another moment before the lily pad had slid smoothly within her reach.
She snatched up the flower, standing up and turning around in triumph with it clutched in her hand. She was met with the sight of Theo, much closer than she’d realized, watching her with an expression that was uncomfortably piercing.
“It’s a nymphaea,” she said, clearing her throat in an attempt at nonchalance. “They’re imported from Pulau, and they’re my favorite. The color is so striking, don’t you think?”
“I’m less struck by the color than by your casual use of magic craft,” Theo said bluntly.
Elowen flushed, pulling the flower back toward her. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Theo frowned, and he went up in her estimation when he lowered his voice with a glance at her guards.
“Was I not supposed to see that? Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”
She sighed. “Yes, to be honest, that’s exactly what I thought. Didn’t you say you weren’t encouraged to study magic?”
“I did,” he said promptly. “And you said the same.”
“Yes.” Elowen looked down at her hands, fidgeting with the flower. “I…I have studied magic,” she said in a rush of honesty. “But it wasn’t with my tutor.”
“Who did you study with?” he asked, clearly confused. When she hesitated, he prompted her again. “Elowen?”
“It was Simeon who taught me,” Elowen confessed. “You’ve met him. He’s a servant in the household of the Duke of Nirocha, and he’s very skilled in magic craft.”
One of Theo’s straight eyebrows flew up at her words, and when he spoke, something in his tone made her uneasy.
“I see.”
“I suppose you’ll disapprove,” Elowen said, a defiant flush on her cheeks. “I know that in Siqual, as in Torrens, magic isn’t considered a proper pursuit for ladies of high birth.”
“Or men of high birth, either,” Theo confirmed. “I’m astonished this young man, Simeon, was willing to risk his position to teach you clandestinely.”
“So was I, to be frank,” Elowen said. “I have no idea how she convinced him. But she was confident he’d agree.”
Theo’s brow was furrowed. “She?”
“Oh, Sophia,” Elowen said quickly. “Didn’t I say? She’s the duke’s daughter, and it was her idea. Simeon taught us together, in weekly sessions over the last year or so. I’m by no means proficient, but I feel I’ve made excellent progress.”
Theo considered her thoughtfully, his manner altered by this new information for reasons she didn’t yet grasp.
“I don’t disapprove of your desire to learn to manipulate Dust,” he told her. “I see the sense in it. In fact, I was jealous of my sister when she was allowed to study magic at her academy here in Torrens. I believe the academy was unusual in that regard.”
“Yes,” said Elowen with a sigh. “I begged to be allowed to go to that academy, but my parents were adamant I be educated at the castle.” She snuck a look at him.
“It’s strange to think your sister and I may have been friends if I’d been allowed to attend.
So it’s true, then, that in Siqual, magic isn’t generally studied by members of the court? ”
“Not beyond a rudimentary level of understanding,” Theo confirmed.
“In fact, magic in general isn’t used much in my castle.
I’ve noticed it in use much more here. In my family, we’re taught that while it can be useful, we should take care not to become reliant on it, and that it ought not to be wasted on trivial matters like our comfort, but used for purposes that will benefit the whole kingdom. ”
“I can see how that’s a noble perspective,” Elowen commented.
“But we see it a little differently. Certainly the study of magic is a craft and isn’t considered a proper use of time for upper classes, as in your kingdom.
But I was never taught any reluctance to use it for everyday purposes.
We just do so through our servants. I was taught that as a princess, it’s appropriate that I let others serve me in that way, and focus my energies on my own role.
Such as it is.” The last phrase was added in a murmur, and she thought she caught a sympathetic hint in Theo’s answering smile.
“A cultural difference, I suppose,” he said. “I had understood from Miriam that magic was used much more commonly at her academy, but I thought it was perhaps a quirk of that institution rather than Torrens in general. Do you think it risks making people lazy?”
It was Elowen’s turn to smile. “Perhaps. But when we’re speaking of people whose every need is met by servants, I think that risk exists with or without magic.”
“An excellent point.”
Theo’s lips tugged up in one corner in a smile that brought a hint of warmth to Elowen’s cheeks. She liked how his features were softened when he was surprised into a genuine smile. She liked even more knowing that she was the one who’d drawn it out.
“Are you going to tell my father?” she asked him, an entreaty in her eyes. “I don’t wish to get either Sophia or Simeon in trouble. Or myself, for that matter,” she added with a rueful smile.
Theo looked surprised. “You can trust my confidence,” he assured her. “Naturally I respect your father and defer to his authority as king while I’m in Torrens. But on personal matters, I don’t answer to him now any more than I will once we’re married.”
Elowen brightened. “Does that mean I might be allowed to further study magic when we’re married and I live in Siqual?”
A hint of Theo’s smile was back. “I certainly wouldn’t object.”
Warmth rushed over Elowen as, for the first time, she felt genuine excitement about her future in Siqual with Theo. Impulsively, she laid her hand on his arm.
“Thank you.”
Theo’s muscles tightened under her touch, and for a moment, he held her gaze in charged silence. His eyes refused to release her, their scrutiny nothing like the perceptive but bloodless assessment she was used to from him. She’d never suspected so much intensity was hiding under his usual control.
Then he stepped back, and the moment was gone. She dropped her arm to her side as the contact was broken, struggling to understand the abruptness of the shift in Theo’s mood.
“I should return to the castle,” Theo said gruffly. “I need to prepare for this afternoon’s event.”
“Yes,” said Elowen, breathless from some combination of their charged moment and her subsequent embarrassment. “Of course, it’s the first round of the weapons combat, isn’t it?”
Theo acknowledged it, already turning away to cross back over the bridge. Elowen followed him, deflated when he mounted his horse at once instead of offering to help her. They rode back to the castle in silence, and parted ways as soon as they entered the courtyard.
Elowen completed her own preparations in confused distraction. What exactly had she done wrong to turn him from the warmer Theo she’d been so fascinated by to the polite prince of before?
If it wasn’t so wildly inconsistent with what she knew of him, she would have suspected Theo of trying to lure her by blowing hot and cold, as she’d seen some of the more skillful flirts in her father’s court do with such success.
Not that his manner could be called hot even at its warmest. In any event, Theo’s changing moods didn’t repel her.
If anything, they just increased her desperation to understand him, and she found herself impatient to get to the tournament field.
There was no opportunity for private speech with Theo during the weapons event, but Elowen didn’t mind.
She had enough to occupy her in watching him from the royal family’s section of the stands.
She could hardly take her eyes off him as he performed much better than she’d expected.
He was skilled and confident with a sword, and she felt her lips curl in a smile of girlish satisfaction as she watched him best his first opponent within minutes.
Cheering for one’s champion was part of a princess’s duty, after all.
And it was pleasant, especially if you didn’t actually get to choose your champion, to discover that he was worth cheering for.
She was relieved not to see Bertrand competing in that round, or even watching from the stands.
His absence was a welcome relief. She was vaguely aware of the favorites for this event, and she didn’t see any of those in Theo’s opponents.
But he capably beat every man he fought, his movements graceful and fluid in a way he rarely was in social interactions.
Confusion leaked in to complicate Elowen’s satisfaction as she watched his performance.
She felt like she was living a strange dual existence.
In face-to-face interactions with Theo, she was constantly frustrated by his coldness, the gulf between them seeming uncrossable.
And yet, at the same time, she was more and more fixated on him, watching him from afar with growing fascination.
As he emerged the winner of his pool in the first round, she was reminded of how she’d been on the edge of her seat following his efforts in the maze run.
With each passing day, she learned more of the man she was to marry.
He was intelligent, physically strong, had a powerful sense of honor, and wasn’t too proud to show care for vulnerable creatures like her horse.
If he was to be believed, he was even inclined to give her license as her husband to pursue magic in defiance of tradition.
There was just one fairly significant problem.
He was completely uninterested in her. Any time they seemed to get closer, he would pull back.
The more she tried to draw him out, the colder and stiffer he became.
She wanted him to chase her, at least a little.
But instead it felt like she was chasing him.
And even though they were betrothed for all intents and purposes, she still couldn’t seem to get his interest.
She suddenly understood her flare of emotion at the floating gardens, when she’d been unable to reach the nymphaea.
It was the same with Theo, she realized.
He was so close, and sometimes she felt she was almost there.
But try as she might, she couldn’t quite reach him.
Just as her arm, while perfectly functional, wasn’t long enough to get to that flower, it seemed she simply didn’t possess the ability to captivate her future husband.
And she didn’t think she’d ever be able to accept that.