Chapter 21 A Very Peculiar Kind of Hope
A Very Peculiar Kind of Hope
Demelza had never in her life said no to an offer of pie and she wasn’t about to start now. But the prince had not come to her room to bring her a pastry. He wanted information and was merely being polite.
“Why not,” said Demelza, slumping into the chair across from him. “As far as reports go—”
“I never see you in the dining hall with the other contestants,” said Arris. “Why is that?”
Demelza shrugged. “I’m not hungry at this hour. Whatever Ursula makes is a thousand times better anyway and she spends the dinner hour foraging. I’d sit with Talvi, but she only drinks snow tea in the evenings and reads alone.”
Her stomach growled. Traitor, thought Demelza. Arris glanced at her belly, but he said nothing. Instead, he continued to regard her with those wide, brown eyes that seemed to perceive far more than Demelza would like.
Unnerved, Demelza added: “Plus my dinner manners are, I am told, appalling. Edmea announced that she nearly retched watching me eat and as I have no desire to ruin anyone’s appetite, I thought it would be best to spare them.”
Demelza waited for him to ask her what she had learned, but he only quietly pushed the plate forward. Demelza could fight it no longer. She seized the plate of pie as Arris began to say:
“It’s made with a custard of firebird eggs and soaked in morning violets, which I’m hoping will bring a balance of spicy and—”
Within three bites, the pie was demolished.
“—sweet,” said Arris.
He looked alarmed. Demelza belched a puff of hot steam. Then she coughed.
Arris winced. “Too spicy?”
“I liked it,” said Demelza, even though her eyes were watering. Aware that he was staring at her, she frowned. “What? Has my method of eating offended your refined appetite?”
“Yes,” said Arris.
Demelza refused to be embarrassed. “Well—”
“You don’t take the time to enjoy yourself,” he said.
“And waste my life extolling the virtues of a single berry?” Demelza sneered.
She hated being told she was lacking and she felt all the more foolishly cornered because deep in her heart, she wanted to eat and walk as beautifully as her sisters.
As elegantly as Edmea. But the act of even trying seemed a recipe for more shame, and so she continued to scoff: “Is this the part where you take pity on me and hand-feed me as if I am a chick and tell me how to eat and what to taste and then look at me pityingly since I imagine you’ll just assume I’m as in love with you as everyone else? Is that what this is?”
Arris grinned. “You really think they’re all in love with me?”
Demelza threw her hands in the air. Again, Arris spoke. This time his voice was softer.
“An abundance of time is a luxury that most assume only the richest may afford, but that is not true,” said Arris.
“When one is impoverished of hours, days and years, the art of savoring becomes an act of defiance. I take the time to enjoy things not because I have the time but because I don’t.
And you don’t have to do the same, but if it’s awkwardness you feel when you eat around others, then I assure you nothing is more off-putting to them than your own joy. ”
He had not scolded her … but Demelza felt chastened all the same.
“For what it’s worth, I would never hand-feed you,” said Arris.
“Good,” said Demelza.
“You seem liable to bite and I’d like to keep my hand.”
Demelza laughed. Afterward, they spoke of the contestants and Arris left and Demelza figured that was that.
There were more efficient ways he could get his reports from her and it was probably just coincidence that he had been experimenting in the kitchens and wished to have someone sample his concoction.
But the next evening when Demelza went into her room, there he was again. This time he had brought something savory: “Rock quail in a sauce of almonds and snow cherries!” Arris paled. “Wrate above, do you even eat quail … I mean … you are a bit of a…”
“Bird?” answered Demelza.
Arris nodded.
“Well, only on my mother’s side,” said Demelza.
“Would this be considered cannibalism?”
“Hope not,” said Demelza, helping herself to the quail.
It wasn’t the first time she had eaten poultry.
Her sister, Evadne, even enjoyed hunting game on the moors, which Prava happily encouraged, accompanying her in stalking about the property during the season.
Though it had to be said that Araminta abstained from any entrée that had previously possessed feathers.
“I feel as though I have committed some awful sin in preparing this for you,” said Arris.
“It’s delicious,” said Demelza, not bothering to look up from her plate.
“Ah! Good!” said Arris. “Well, in that case … I suppose I feel absolved…”
“Thank you for this,” said Demelza. She was trying to make herself slow down as she ate, but it only served to anger her stomach.
“I am in the company of a mythical being who is helping me survive—I am the one who is thankful,” said Arris. He reached for a glass on the table and raised it in her direction.
Demelza decided not to inform him that he was holding a candle.
“Mythical,” echoed Demelza, laughing.
“If I may … how did your parents meet?”
“My father plucked out the eyes of a blue-eyed prince so he would look more innocent, then he courted my mother until she fell in love with him, thus trapping her to his side forever,” said Demelza.
Arris blinked. “What?”
“As far as these things go, they’re reasonably happy,” said Demelza.
“Is that bit about the necklace true?” asked Arris.
“That when we fall in love a necklace appears in the hands of our beloved?”
Arris nodded.
“It is,” said Demelza. She touched her bare throat.
“Does it hurt?”
“I wouldn’t know and I hope I never do.”
“Really?” asked Arris.
“I have no desire to be trapped,” said Demelza.
“And I have no desire to be killed, but you have to admit that love is dazzling,” said Arris. “Can you imagine it? To be entrusted with someone’s heart … to be all the radiance in their world? To be the only shelter in which they know both safety and bliss?”
Against her will, Demelza found that every word pulled on her like an enchanted tether. She was leaning toward him. The firelight splashed over his face and his brown eyes turned luminous. What would it be like to make room for someone in her very soul?
A log snapped in the fireplace and Demelza drew back. Once more, her hand went to her neck. She busied herself with the rest of the dish, ignoring the frantic cadence of her heartbeat.
“And what would it be like to know that your safety is not guaranteed?” she asked. “What would it be like to live as prey, your very soul in the hands of someone who could change their mind and devastate you?”
“Not one for trust, are you?”
“A veritas swan’s love is the end of her life,” said Demelza.
“Once she loves, her life and limb are tethered to her beloved. Once they have the key to her heart, they can change her form. And even if she tried to be free … even if she tried to kill them to get away, there’s no point.
The loss of a veritas swan’s beloved is the loss of her life. ”
“That’s terrifying,” said Arris, but he did not seem too bothered.
“And you?” asked Demelza. “How can you possibly hold any trust in love?”
“I am in possession of a very peculiar kind of hope,” said Arris. “It’s a strong variety, of the kind one usually only finds when approaching the hangman’s noose.” He raised the empty candle again in a toast. “That said, I trust my instincts. I know what I’m doing.”
“You have been raising toasts with a jar that used to hold a candle. In fact, it does not even remotely resemble a goblet.”
Arris glanced at the jar, momentarily bemused.
“To imagination, then!” he said. “And to love! May the existential panic of such a devastating emotion be worth it!”
Demelza huffed out a laugh. She reached for a candle that was actually lit and clinked it to his, and though earlier she had imagined the room felt a touch cold, when Arris smiled, all she felt was warmth.
Somehow, this pattern of visits continued. The next time, Arris brought blown sugar baubles that tasted of wild roses, followed by a roasted fish with mirror-bright scales, and then a tea of steeped blood grass and then an edible bouquet of spicy, stinging lilies.
Each time, Demelza told him she wasn’t hungry.
Each time, she ate whatever he offered, and more often than naught, she enjoyed herself.
Demelza noticed she sometimes ate slowly just to put off the hour at which Arris would leave.
But this didn’t alarm her. It was for the sake of her own research, for how could she ask questions about a person she did not know?
But when their conversations concerning the contestants were finished, they spoke of books they had read and books they had not.
They talked of music, and while Demelza found his taste astonishing, bordering on the abysmal, she liked how animated he was when he spoke.
So it was that the days bled into a week or two, and now, with two days to go until the second trial, Demelza fell into a pattern that left her comfortable. That night, she slept easily, for she knew what the morning held and she felt inexplicably safe.
In this, she was wrong.