Chapter 6 #3
I frowned. “Yes, you were,” I argued. “Perhaps not perversely, but you were watching my behavior. You with Ser Willoughby, and His Highness with Cyrus. God forbid I invite my only true comrade to level the board.”
“Ah, now I see you’ve purposely excluded me as your friend,” he said.
“Oh, have I? Hmm.”
“Svana,” he said.
“Who’s to say where your true loyalty lies these days?” I asked.
Elías frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“The letter,” I replied, plain and intent with every consonant. He didn’t move at first. “You thought I wouldn’t realize. You thought you’d get away with it.”
“No.”
“Then you did not care to be caught?” I asked. “You have so little respect for me?”
He craned deeper into the sill.
“He told me, you know? Mr. Evergreen.” I sighed. “Not that the mystery was very difficult to solve. There is only one person, in all the land, brazen enough to step in and defy his Princess like that. You.”
“And what did you say?” Elías asked, “What came of your Blade’s confession?”
“This came of it,” I said. “Cyrus told me that he sent me a letter to me and that it was returned to him unopened. Seeing as I did not receive it, I knew you were at work. What should’ve come from it?
” I asked. “Anger? Is that what you want from me? You want me to reprimand you? You want me to dress you down? Why? To see if I have the gall to do it? Well, I do! But I also want-” I hesitated; my hands shook.
“I also want to consider this a minor blemish upon our otherwise flawless closeness. Don’t you? ”
He didn’t reply.
“We’ve been together for so long. I cannot remember a time without you there. I don’t want to imagine one. Do you?”
“There hasn’t ever been a time,” he told me. “And there won’t ever be a time. That is fact.”
“Good,” I said.
“Good? Good? Before you were even a thought in your father’s head, I was your mother’s confidant. I swore to her that I would be yours. Do you think you even have the power to sway me from that promise?”
“I-”
“One day, should I be so honored to live as long, I’ll be your child’s most trusted companion, too. I will not allow you to sever this connection, no matter how angry you are. You’re hurt? Fine. Get over it.”
“G-Get over it?” I asked.
“Aye. You think you’ve caught me in some scheme, here?
Oh, brava, but it is not impressive to anticipate what is obvious, Svana.
It is my job to protect you. It is my job as Lord Commander to deploy someone I trust in my place when I cannot see to something.
I did not lie to you; I could not make the detail.
Thus, I sent Ser Willoughby to see to the strictness of your safety, and to clearly define the outcome of his choices to Mr. Evergreen, should he make a bad decision. ”
“You threatened him?” I said.
“There is no one I would not threaten for you,” he said. “Your cousin is in possession of very valuable skills. I will use him as I see is required.”
“You will deliver my mail, Eli,” I said.
He was quiet.
“Please,” I told him. “...Please,” I said more politely. “Too many of my own letters have been discarded or lost. Just… Just let me read what comes to me. If I must trust you blindly, then you must trust that I might remain rational, and trust me to make my own decisions and replies.”
“You don’t need to reply to letters from rakes,” he said.
“Cyrus is not a rake.”
“And you know that?” he asked. “Or you hope it? Did he tell you he was engaged?”
“I—” I flexed my jaw. “Yes, he told me. They have since parted.”
“Convenient,” Elías said.
“I hope for nothing, Ser. Hope is a luxury that I have never had. And what? You think that because a man sends me a letter, something might grow between us? We’re friends!”
“A moment ago, you said Josie was your only friend.”
“You pick apart everything!” I cried.
“That is because I know you. And I know that you are only upset about the boy because you have feelings for him. So yes, I think that if letters are exchanged, something will grow.”
“Feelings,” I spat, humored. “Feelings!”
I dismissed the memory of Evergreen suggesting his.
“You are a young woman, in a foreign land, and he is handsome and silver-tongued, and Oreian, and he has already proven that he will take advantage of you if given the chance.”
“It sounds more like you have feelings for him,” I said.
“Mature.”
I knit my arms. “And he did have an opportunity to take advantage of me. He didn’t.”
“Taking you out to an abandoned house for a picnic, where he is your only chariot back to safety, is advantage,” he said.
“He-”
“Perhaps you should reassess this blemish and appreciate how very vigilant I am in protecting your reputation. How loyal and understanding I have always been in spite of your attempts to defy me with what you think you should get away with.”
“Again with my reputation? Why are you so obsessed with preserving something that’s never actually been in jeopardy?”
“Oh, it’s in jeopardy, young lady!”
“Is it?” I cried. “How? I ask! How? Between my father locking me away in the castle, keeping me from every season, and assigning the world’s most noble knight, and the knight himself, and how he deploys his underlings, how could it be in jeopardy?
You never let me do anything! I’m shocked that I can go to the bathroom alone!
You’ll remember on the way here, I couldn’t! ”
“It doesn’t matter! Because of who you are, who your father is, it is always in jeopardy. There are so many eyes upon you, Princess. If you were even barely aware of that, you would see it!”
I growled, unladylike and enraged; he softened his face.
“Svana, you are lucky it was I who discovered you holding hands with the boy, and not the Prince. Or God forbid his father.”
“I wasn't holding his hand! He was leading me to the door. And what would the King be doing out so late?” I huffed.
“Looking for the missing Princess?” he asked. His jaw tightened. “Your na?vety knows no bounds, does it? Look around you. All of these people are waiting for an excuse to get rid of you.”
“You think I haven’t noticed?” I begged. “Every corner holds another snide remark about my hair or my mother’s untimely death.” The mention of it incited his expression to adjust. “How dare you lecture me, Knight! How dare you think you have the right!”
“Somebody must!”
I paused. “...Do you think that is your place?” I asked. “To rein in the wild Princess?”
“My place is by your side, as it has always been.” Elías cooled his composure.
He lowered his voice. “I wish only to protect you, Your Highness, as is my vow to God and to Eliza. I have never, and I will never falter from that oath. I would die a thousand deaths, a thousand ways, a thousand years before I failed her.”
“You think you’re protecting me?” I commented. “From an ostler?”
Elías crooked his head, allowing me to catch the mistake. I shuffled awkwardly.
“Swordsman,” I said. “You know what I meant.”
“...There is no happy ending here for you and your swordsman,” he said.
“This, from an optimist,” I said, gesturing. “From the man who told me I might find love again.”
“In the Prince,” he said.
“Oh, what do you know?” I whined. “Where is your wife? Where is your struggle with it?” I asked.
“I have seen the true face of what life offers us under the Crown. Do you want my optimism, Svana? Alright. As you command it. At best, your Blade loves you back-”
“No one said anything about love!” I hissed.
“And you destroy him when you marry the Prince.”
His words struck me, and something, something dark I’d never seen in him waited behind his eyes. There was an unkept anger to his breath.
“Elías…” I said softly.
“At worst, you destroy yourself the moment you realize that even if you keep him, he can never truly have you.”
I was embarrassed. “I am your Princess,” I managed. “My word is your law.”
“The King’s word is my law. God’s word is my law. Your word means nothing.”
“Is that so?” I asked. “This? From a friend?”
“It cannot fester,” he said.
I blackened my face. “When I receive correspondence, you will deliver it to me. Is that clear?” I asked.
“Svana-”
“You must allow me to make choices for myself!” I shrieked.
We both hated the sound, but I could not confine it any longer.
“How…How can I be expected to rule an empire, two empires, if even my closest companion treats me like a child?” I asked.
“You are setting me up for failure by not allowing me the chance to fail!”
After a second, he nodded, “Fine,” and went toward the door.
“Elías…” I said. “Wait.”
He stopped and turned on the heel of his boot, slowly. “What?”
“I-I’m sorry,” I said. “I just-”
“You may be eighteen now, Your Highness, but a month ago you were not. You were a child in the eyes of marriage.”
“In marriage, but not war! Does that make sense to you?” I asked.
“A child nonetheless, and you may not be mine, my flesh and my blood, but I have always loved you as if you wer,e and from the moment you came into existence. When you have wept, I have held you. When you have hid, I have scoured the halls for phantoms. And when this goes badly for you, and it will go very badly for you, I will be right here, by your side, where I have always stood, and the threat of your trauma will not be enough to save him!”
“Deliver my mail!” I yelled, reignited.
He made a sharp noise of disagreement, then slammed the door as he went, perhaps for the first time in our lives.
I shuddered at the realization—the realization that he had left—and I debated whether I should give chase or not.
But then lighthearted laughter and neighs sang from outside my window pane, and the chance at an easy reconciliation fell away.
By the time I’d found the courage to enter the hall, it was dead silent.
Ser Elías was gone, swallowed into duty, vanished within the corridors of the Palace. I stood for several minutes, hollow. Like I had fractured something important. Something I could not repair.
“Elías?” I asked anyway.
Nothing.