Chapter Fifteen
He was holding his breath, he realized two days later. Waiting for something to happen. Something awful. Something unexpected.
Because he didn’t trust anything. How could he?
When life had proved repeatedly to be cruel.
He’d found this passion with Birdie, they were having a child together and he would never be able to keep her safe.
He would never be able to keep their child safe.
Life could always have dominion over them, the power to crush them at any moment.
He was a king. With all the power in the world, and he lived his life in abject fear.
For his parents had been stolen from him. He’d had to rearrange all his life to be the man the country needed him to be. He’d married Circe, and then she had died too.
There was no magic key. There was no loving enough or too little or just right. People died. They were stolen away with no notice, and there was no throne, no title, no money, nothing, that could change it.
If he was not safe, if the people in his life were not safe, no one was.
It ate at him. Threatened to tear him apart from the inside out.
Yet Birdie had lost. So much. Her parents, just as he had. Her freedom. Her autonomy. She wasn’t afraid. How?
He thought of what she had said to him, about her mother.
Her mother, who had known she was dying, and who loved anyway. But then what good was she? Because she had died, and her daughter had been subjected to a terrible life. A miserable upbringing.
She was loved. And that love had made her who she was.
It was astonishing. Miraculous.
And she had said that she loved him. He’d turned her away.
He was filled with regret.
He was no stranger to the harsh cruelty of life, but…he didn’t know what to do when he was caught between his fear of the cruelty, and being the cruelty.
Little Birdie, the maid he’d taken no notice of for so long, was braver than a king. She knew how difficult life could be and yet she didn’t flinch.
From the moment she’d found herself pregnant with his baby, she’d been braver, more honest, more forthright, than he’d ever been.
Birdie was miraculous. If there was a key to living, then she had it.
If there was a way for him to heal, it might be through her.
And he’d pushed her away.
He was filled with regret. Loathing. Despair.
How could he fix it?
How?
How could he…?
Could he risk himself? His heart? His hope?
What was the point of being a king? She was right; he had snobbery in his soul. He had treated her appallingly because she was a servant and he was royal, and yet she was the one who was so much higher than he was.
She was the one who put him to shame.
Driven by that realization, he went to unlock the door that adjoined their rooms, and found that the knob was already turning.
He freed the lock, and took a step back, and the door opened wide. There she was, a determined look on her face.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her brows knitted together in angry defiance.
“I was coming to get you,” he said.
“You were coming to get me?”
“Yes.”
“Why? You don’t want me. You don’t… Just go away and leave me be.”
She was shutting him out again, and she had every right to do it. He’d been awful to her when he’d first taken her from her stepmother’s house and she’d turned away from him then—which he’d rightly deserved—and he deserved it now.
But he needed her to give him another chance. He needed it.
And the only way to get one was to risk himself. His heart. His soul.
The only way to have her was to cut himself open, to stop protecting himself from the dangers of life.
The only way to have her was for a king to lower himself before his servant.
And so he would.
“Birdie,” he said. “You terrify me.”
She frowned. “I do?”
“Yes. In ways that I can’t explain. That night when you came to me, it was the most passionate, incredible night of my life.
It shouldn’t have been. It was a reminder to me of how unwieldy being human is, and I find that terrifying.
But I couldn’t forget you. I had that ball because I had to find you.
Because I knew that you were special. Because I knew that I needed you.
And then, when I discovered who you were, I used it as an excuse.
Because it was too intense. Because I’m afraid.
I’m afraid that the sword that is dangling above my throne room will drop at any moment.
I’m afraid that everything I love will be lost to me.
Because life is so brutal. It is so cruel.
But you aren’t. In spite of everything, you aren’t. ”
“There are so many things that we don’t get to choose,” she said.
“But I would choose to love you every time. What a gift that we get to have this. What a gift that we can be together. I don’t know for how long.
Because I don’t understand life. I can’t see the future.
But I know that we are nothing short of miraculous.
I know that we can choose to be together, choose to smile, for every day that we are blessed with. ”
“And our child will learn the same,” he said. He shook his head. “I never understood. Our first duty does have to be to our child. Because it’s love, not duty that teaches you how to live. Truly. I made so many mistakes in the name of duty. But I have never made a single one in the name of love.”
She smiled. “No. You haven’t. I love you.”
“I love you,” he said. “I have since that first night.”
“But you didn’t even know who I was.”
“My soul knew yours. The rest didn’t matter. But now that I do know you, now that I know all of you, I am beyond grateful for everything we are.”
“I think this is actually how you break generational curses. By choosing to live anyway. By choosing to love anyway.”
“Then let me say this one true thing. We will live happily ever after.”