Chapter Three
I cry until I fall asleep. The burst of emotion is unexpected. I’ve been powering through everything, every hardship, every thwarted and delayed dream for so many years, and it’s as if I’ve finally hit a breaking point.
I see his blue eyes in my mind. His great and terrible beauty.
He himself is a breaking point.
When I wake up, I look out the window and see stars. I rub my eyes, and my stomach growls. I’m sure that I’ve missed my window to get food.
I sit up in bed, and then, before I even realize what I’m reacting to, I startle and begin to prepare myself to run.
Because there’s someone in the corner of my room. Sitting.
And then my brain catches up and I realize it must be him.
The king.
He is in the same posture that he sat in when I first arrived in the throne room. Hands planted on his knees, legs spread wide. I can feel him looking at me. I already know, even with his face obscured in shadow, that he is tilting his head, evaluating me in that way of his.
I am fully clothed, but I pull the covers up higher as if they might protect me from his gaze. That he’s been sitting there watching me sleep makes me feel exposed, and I don’t like it.
“What are you doing in my room?”
“I asked in the kitchen if you had ordered dinner. They said no. I began to worry that you had thrown yourself out the window.”
“Well, you did say there was a service elevator. I’m much more likely to take that than I am to fling myself to the rocks below.”
He shrugs. “You would be surprised.”
His words send a chill down my spine. “Well, I’m fine. I just fell asleep.”
“You must be hungry.”
“I’m not,” I say. But my stomach growls, calling me a liar. I can tell by the way he shifts that he’s heard it.
He leans forward, a shaft of moonlight falling over his face. “Don’t be foolish. You will come downstairs and eat.”
“I will not,” I say. Refusing him just to establish some form of independence.
“Enough,” he says.
He stands and makes his way over to the bed, holding his hand out to me. “Do not engage in foolishness with me, sparrow.”
“My name is Lilith.”
“I know,” he says. “But you are Lilith to everyone. To me, you are sparrow.” I look at his extended hand. Ignore it, and I get out of bed. My body feels heavy. So does my soul.
“There is no need to be difficult,” he says, his words a sharp reproach. “Remember, I did not force you to come here.”
“No. You were only going to force my sister.”
He makes a noise that I assume is agreement.
“I did,” he says. “But it has all worked out in the end.”
I grind my back teeth together, deciding that there is no point in continuing to fight with him.
I gave in to despair earlier, and I won’t do that again.
My lifetime of careful planning has crumbled.
I made an impulsive decision. Something I’ve never done before in my life.
And now I’m dealing with the consequences.
“Why are we taking the stairs?” I complain as I realize he’s leading us back down that tight, steep spiral.
“I prefer it,” he says.
“And is everything about your preference?”
“Yes.”
I ponder this. He’s the king, so I suppose that’s true. Nothing has ever been about my preference. I can’t even access that. The level of selfishness.
“I guess that’s what it’s like when you have endless resources so no one ever has to compromise or share.”
“I also have no family,” he says. “Tell me about yours.”
“Surely you’ve read about my family in whatever dossier you received about Eve.”
“And you’ve heard about me. The great and terrible Sea Serpent of the Mediterranean, yet you don’t know me. Speak to me, sparrow.”
He breezes past that remark so quickly that I can’t get a foothold in it. Can’t read his emotion.
If there is any at all.
“It’s my mother, myself and Eve. For most of my life, we also lived with my grandmother. But she…” My words catch in my throat. “She died. Three years ago.”
“I see. People have a distressing habit of doing that. Dying.”
“Well, yes. It’s sort of the way things work.”
“True.”
“My mom is a hairdresser. My sister… She does nails right now. Though, she’s the kind of person who gets bored very quickly with certain things, so I imagine that she’ll learn a new skill, and quickly figure out a way to make money doing that.
She used to bake. Before that she did little miniature paintings of people’s pets. ”
“Well, that sounds extremely enterprising.”
“It is,” I say.
“But you like science.”
“Yes.”
“An odd sparrow in the nest.”
I think of my mother and my sister. Both so pretty and colorful.
“Yes,” I say. It’s honest, anyway. I’m not sure that he deserves my honesty, but there’s also no point in me not admitting it.
“But you love your sister so much that you took her place? Or do you secretly yearn to be the one in the spotlight?”
The question feels like a spotlight. And he makes me question myself. I do yearn to be someone who makes an impact. Does that mean I crave attention more than I realize? I don’t want to be insignificant. I know that much.
But there is much to do first before I earn any sort of attention.
“I don’t yearn for the spotlight,” I say. “I…yearn for university.”
“To study biology.”
“Well. Yes. Medical research, that’s what I ultimately want to do.”
“Interesting. I will take that under advisement.”
Finally, we exit the endless spiral staircase, and are back in the big empty antechamber. I follow him to another corridor, and down a long hallway all the way to the end until we arrive at a large dining room with a table that could easily seat a hundred people.
He gestures to his seat at the end. “Take your seat. I will ensure that your food is brought directly.”
I think about arguing, but I don’t, partly because my legs hurt after running the stair gauntlet again.
He vanishes for a moment, then reappears, taking his spot at the head of the table.
I realize that I am at his right hand. I can’t tell if that’s significant or not.
I’m having a difficult time figuring him out at all.
If he’s a madman, then there is no figuring him out.
That is something that must be taken into consideration.
But I certainly didn’t expect for him to be trying to spend any time with me. I figured that I would appear, and he would either wave a hand and send me to the dungeon, or he would kill me. He’s done neither, and I don’t know what to do with that as a development.
Now he’s sitting there, staring at me like I’m a puzzle that he wants to solve.
I’m probably looking at him in much the same way.
Only a moment later, a heaping plate of food is brought in. There is roasted chicken and beef. Mashed potatoes, vegetables. I haven’t seen a meal like that…maybe ever. My mom isn’t much of a cook. Well, none of us are. We take turns, because that’s only fair.
But that means that our meals are cheap and simple. This is nothing like that.
And there’s so much butter. On everything.
I try to hide my delight, because I don’t want him to know that this is one of the more exciting things to ever happen to me.
Obviously, I fail at that, because when I take a bite of the mashed potatoes, something appears in his eyes, and he leans in. “You like that?”
“Yes,” I say. “What’s not to like? Obviously your chef is very good.”
“What is your favorite thing to eat?”
“I…” I don’t want to tell him that I don’t know. But the truth is, I am right at this moment eating the best thing that I’ve ever had in my entire life, and I would not have said that mashed potatoes were my favorite food. But these mashed potatoes are.
“I don’t know,” I say finally.
“You don’t know?” He’s looking at me like that again. That keen, serpentlike examining. “We shall have to find out what it is.”
“Shall we?” I bite back the question as to whether or not it’s so he knows what to make for my last meal.
I probably shouldn’t bring death up every time I’m with him. If it’s on his to-do list and it slipped his mind for a moment, I shouldn’t remind him.
I take another bite of the food, and I am tempted to tell him that right now, whatever all this is, is the very best thing I have ever eaten. I don’t. I feel that it is a bit much to act grateful.
“What sorts of things do you wish to do as queen?”
The subject changes abruptly, and I have to chew and swallow my food before I can answer. “Well, as I’ve mentioned, I wish to study.”
“Yes. But as queen, the scope of your duties will encompass overseeing certain programs for the nation.”
“Well. I’ve lived among your people for all of my life. So I have a lot of opinions about the way the country is run.”
“Do you?” he asks. “Excellent. Tell me.”
“Do you really want me to…point out the flaws in your present system?”
“Yes,” he says. “This is all about improving things for our people.”
I’m surprised by this. But then, I’ve been completely surprised by him from the moment I first met him. There are ways in which he’s just like the stories. But also…he isn’t.
The myth of King Lucian is just that. A myth.
Though, I’m not entirely sure if the version that is sitting in front of me right now is better than those myths or worse. I can’t tell if I’m being played with. Like a mouse rather than a sparrow. Or if he’s being somewhat sincere.
“I would really like to see increased funding for education. The public school system as well as the universities here. The public universities in Alabria lag behind the rest of the world. I was going to go to university in England. Most likely. I was looking at a few places around the world, but the idea of going here was never one I took seriously. The investment in research simply isn’t there. ”
“Then we will invest in research,” he says.
“You… Just like that?”
“You have the ear of the crown, sparrow.”
“And will I be able to study?”
“Perhaps in a fashion. We will see. There is the matter of heirs.”
My stomach clenches tight. “Yes. I am aware of that… But surely we can delay. I’m only twenty-two.”
He makes a regretful sound in the back of his throat. “So young.”
“You could have chosen someone older. My sister is only twenty-four.”
“Alas, it is impractical when one must see to the production of heirs.”
“That feels a bit unfair.” It is a function of science, and I know well that science doesn’t care about feelings. Even so.
“It is,” he says. “Life is often unfair.”
I know that, and I’m not generally bothered by it. I’ve worked to make my life the best that I can in spite of the modest circumstances I was born into. I’m well aware that life isn’t fair. That we aren’t all given the same tools, the same resources, the same starting point.
Hearing it from a king—the man who owns this palace, and who now owns me—is grating.
“I’ve noticed,” I say. “Especially when some have all the money and power and others have to scrape the crumbs of it from the floor.”
“Is this how you feel about your own life?”
“It’s how so many people feel about their own lives.”
“Are you anti-monarchy?” he asks, studying me intently.
“I’m too practical for that. The abolition of government is unlikely as long as men want power—and spoiler, I don’t think men will ever not want power.
A monarchy is just one of the many imperfect and corruptible styles of government.
You rid yourself of one, you only get another. Ask the Romanovs.”
“A philosopher, then, if not an anti-monarchist.”
I blink. “I don’t think so. I’m only practical.”
“Only practical?” he asks. “Is that all you are, little sparrow?”
I think about my life. All the years I’ve spent studying and working hard to get where I wanted to go. Then how I demolished it all when my sister wept.
“No,” I say. “I’m not only practical.”
Sacrificing myself for my sister wasn’t practical.
He moves nearer to me and my breath catches. Then there are footsteps at the threshold of the room, servants appear and clear our plates, and he has not moved away from me, but he doesn’t move forward anymore.
He is frozen and my breath is caught in my chest as my heart tries to burrow its way straight through the front of my chest cavity.
New plates are placed before us, with decadent-looking cakes on them. My mouth waters in spite of myself. I look up at him and my heart begins to race.
No, I’m not always practical. This isn’t practical at all.
I take a bit of my cake, and he doesn’t move toward his.
He’s watching me. He keeps his eyes trained on me the whole time.
In defiance of that, I don’t stop what I’m doing.
I eat every last bite without asking what his problem is or why he’s watching me.
I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing I find him perplexing.
As soon as I take that last bite he moves. He leans in and presses his thumb against the corner of my mouth and wipes away a bit of frosting. Then, without looking away, he draws back and brings his thumb to his lips, licking the traces of sweetness away.
My stomach hollows out and drops into my feet.
“You know,” he says. “I am not a fan of overly sweet things. But this may have changed my mind.”
My brain synapses are firing, sparking, trying to come to some conclusion about what he’s just said. Trying to make it about something other than…sex.
I have no experience with men or sex. Really none at all with attraction that exists outside the secret places in my mind. Fantasy is one thing, but to have a real man looking at me like this, so close, so in control of me, so dangerous to me, is beyond the scope of my ability to fathom.
I say nothing, and then he takes hold of my chin, his thumb and forefinger squeezing tight. “I might be King of Alabria. But I am also your king, sparrow.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?” I ask, my voice trembling.
He releases his hold on me and I feel the impact of his ice-cold eyes all the way down to my toes. “No.”
Then he stands, his impossible height dwarfing me as I sit still, my empty cake plate in front of me.
“Can you find your way back to your room?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I will see tomorrow.”
He gives no indication of what tomorrow will bring.