Chapter Two #2
“Not everyone wants power.”
He leans forward. “You do.”
The words are soft, and yet they reverberate through me as a threat.
A threat of recognition. Like he sees something inside of me that maybe I’ve never seen in myself.
It scares me. Because it feels true, but I would say that it’s not.
I don’t care about power. I care about education.
I care about discovery. I care about being able to change my position in life, and change things for other people.
Though, I suppose what is wanting control over your life but the pursuit of power?
I would have said it was just a quest for agency.
Funnily enough, I’m standing here offering to trade a substantial amount of mine away.
And yet, it is a choice that I made.
“What I want is for my sister to be able to marry the man she loves.”
“A martyr. How delightful. I’ve heard the blood of martyrs is particularly invigorating.”
“You’ll only find out if you marry me,” I say.
“I could always go back to the drawing board. Find a different family. A different woman.”
That he’s open to finding someone new, without threats, makes me feel slightly dizzy.
“You could,” I say.
I hold my breath for a beat. Perhaps I’m about to get my freedom.
Then I see that fire in his eyes again.
“I don’t think I will, though.” He snaps his fingers, and the guards move forward. “Take Lilith to her new quarters in the north tower.”
“I’m not a prisoner,” I say.
“No,” he says. “But you’re not free either.”
This, likely, comes from his previous bride fleeing the wedding.
His words send a shock through my body. And suddenly I’m flanked by guards. “I can go on my own.”
“No,” he says. Then he tilts his head again. I can’t quite figure out what it means when he does that. He’s assessing something. Evaluating it. Me.
Then he stands, and begins to walk down the steps of the throne. His cape billows behind him as he approaches me, and if I felt small before, I have never felt more insubstantial than I do right now.
I know a lot about the physiology of the human body. Necessary for medical research. But I can’t explain the way that the air seems to exit my lungs in a gust, uncontrolled, and without my bidding.
“I will walk with you.”
I have to tilt my head upward to actually look at his face. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“I’m going to be your husband,” he says. “You shouldn’t be afraid of me.”
I feel as if ropes are tightening around my body. I’m trapped now and it’s official. I am going to be his bride.
I’ve succeeded.
In ending my life as I know it.
“I think in your case a lack of fear will have to be earned,” I say, craning my neck upward and looking at him as directly as I can.
Those ice-colored eyes glitter. “I don’t think you’re afraid of very much.”
“No.”
He steps down off the last step, and walks around me in a slow circle, like he’s evaluating a horse. “You’re very small,” he says. “You remind me of a sparrow. The way you move your head, looking like you want to hop off. Or perhaps fly away.”
I don’t like the characterization. My sister would have been some glorious tropical bird. Of course I’m a sparrow. Small and plain. I don’t know why it bothers me. It shouldn’t.
“And you’re a dragon,” I say. Because for all that I am intimidated, for all that I feel unequal to this moment, shamed by it, even, I have pride.
Had he been a dragon in truth, I would’ve seen smoke curl out of his nostrils then. He smiles, the slow satisfaction spreading on his face filling me with a strange sort of terror.
There is something villainous about that smile. It isn’t a show of happiness or warmth.
“Come with me, sparrow.”
He begins to walk away from me, leaving me to run to catch up with him. “You can’t walk that quickly,” I say, my legs working as quickly as they can. “You’re too much taller than me.”
“You seem to be keeping up just fine.”
I am overcome by a sense of surreality. This can’t be happening. I cannot be chasing after the king of my country, on the verge of becoming his wife.
His wife.
I am not meant to be someone’s wife. I’m going to be a scientist.
Except no. I’m going to be a queen.
There are so many girls who dream of things like this. Of finding out that they’re royalty. That they were always destined to be. Not me.
But I think again of poor Eve, and how much she wants to marry Marcus.
And I think maybe I’m actually wrong. I’m not sure that most women dream of marrying strangers.
I think they dream of being safe and happy, of knowing that their problems will be taken care of, and sometimes that fantasy takes the shape of becoming a princess.
But when given the choice between royalty and love, Eve chose love.
And I chose love too. The love of my sister.
I chose it over my own dreams.
Not for the first time, I wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake.
We exit the throne room, and cross a great antechamber, heading to a spiral staircase, tight and narrow, that winds up and up and up.
“Are the stairs the only way of getting there?”
“Yes,” he says.
“And my room is up there?”
“As is mine,” he says.
“Oh.” There’s no way that we are going to share a room. Royalty doesn’t do that. And I don’t know him.
“You have a separate room,” I say.
He chuckles. “Yes. Of course. As is fitting.”
I feel mollified by this.
But my thighs are burning, and the backs of my calves are weeping for relief. There must be five hundred stairs. And I’m dizzy from the tight spiral.
“This is medieval.”
“You are such a small thing. I would think carrying yourself up the stairs would be easy.”
“I’m more of a…reader. Than a person who climbs.”
“I see. And what do you like to read?”
“Science textbooks.”
He makes a noise in the back of his throat. It sounds disappointed.
“I don’t like nonfiction very much. I prefer the classics. Romantic literature.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” he says. “Why is that a surprise?”
“Because. You’re…”
“I’m kidding,” he says. “I know exactly why it’s a surprise. But don’t believe everything that you’ve heard about me, sparrow. Most of it isn’t true.”
“Why would people lie about you?”
“They aren’t lying on purpose. I’m like God, in many ways. People invent stories about me to feel closer to me, to demystify me. To know me. But they don’t know me. No one does.”
“No one?”
“No one,” he repeats.
And just then, we reach the top of the stairs. “Our rooms are the only rooms here.”
“Does your poor staff have to climb all those stairs to bring things to you?”
He laughed. “There is a service elevator. I lied to you.”
“You… You…”
“Come,” he says, taking me down the short hallway, and to an ornate gold door.
There is a tree embossed on the door, apples hanging from the branches. Beneath it is a serpent, and a woman.
“Well, that is a bit on the nose,” I say.
“You see, when I found your sister I thought it was amusing. I think this is better.”
I don’t ask why. Instead, I wrap my hand around the doorknob and push the door open.
The room inside is beyond opulent. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
It is itself a whole fairy tale. The bed is gold, like the door, the four posters fashioned to be like tree branches.
Winding and spiraling up toward the ceiling, and then arcing toward one another to meet and twine around each other in the middle.
There is soft pink fabric draped over the gold.
The blankets and pillows on the bed are sumptuous and lovely.
I have never even fantasized about luxury on this level. I dreamed of other things.
But I can’t deny that this is…
“Is it to your liking?”
“What’s not to like?”
“You like science, and I wasn’t expecting you. Had I known perhaps I would have made a room more to your taste.”
“Does me liking science mean I can’t also like pretty things?”
“Yes,” he says.
I laugh at him. I can’t help it. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say. Science is beautiful. My study focus is going to be biology. The study of life. Of the building blocks that make up everything around us. What’s more beautiful than that?”
I realize then that I have made assumptions. Because I spoke about my studies like they might still be possible. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know anything.
My life is no longer guaranteed, in any capacity.
“Interesting,” he says. “I suppose I’ve never seen it that way. It was simply a subject that used to put me to sleep in school. I would much rather read. The images that words paint are sometimes the only things strong enough to blot out ugly memories.”
It’s a profound statement. And one that makes me curious, but I can see that I’ve lost him.
“I believe you,” he says. “When you need food, simply pick up the phone and order. And it will be brought to you. Using the service elevator.”
“Can I use the service elevator?” I ask.
“You are going to be queen, sparrow. You can do whatever you like.”
But much in the same way that I am not a prisoner, but not quite free, I know that I cannot actually do whatever I like. It’s only that I do not know exactly what is forbidden to me.
He leaves, closing the door firmly behind him, and I am struck by the scene on that side of the door. A naked man and woman, standing together. It’s not the same woman with the snake.
I move closer, and begin to extend my hand, and then I drop it.
I shake my head.
Then I walk over to the bed and sit down. I replay the last hour in my mind. My hands begin to shake uncontrollably, and I look down at them, trying to regain control.
I can’t.
Then I burst into tears.