Lydia Benton
The walls hum with the music from the revel raging deep in the castle, nearly loud enough to drown out the knocking at my
door.
I open it to find a sorry-looking Bram. His hair hangs in loose waves around his face and his full bottom lip is stuck out
in a pout.
I exhale.
I skipped tonight’s revel because I didn’t feel strong enough to face him, but here he is, at my door anyway.
Like a phantom limb, my heart gives a little beat, pleased that he’s chosen to seek me out. I don’t think I’ll ever stop chasing
his approval, no matter how I loathe myself for it.
Emmett often chastises me about the way I follow Bram around the castle like a lost dog, but I can’t help myself. I’ve been
here, in the Otherworld, for years, but I only see Bram once every few months. His attention still feels precious, his approval
like oxygen. My lungs sting and I get the sense I’m drowning without it.
He leans against my doorframe. “Are you cross with me?”
“No,” I answer honestly. It’s so much more complicated than that.
I wish I could be like Ivy, who is brave enough to simply be angry with people.
All my emotions are tangled up into a ball so dense, I have no hope of making sense of it.
Love and hate and longing and resentment are all starting to feel the same.
“Then why did you skip the revel? It makes you look like a bad queen, like you’re not even trying. Maybe I should just pick
Ivy.” He’s loose-limbed but not quite drunk.
I flinch as if he’s slapped me.
His face crumples and he steps into the room, shutting the door behind him. He reaches up and cups my cheek with one of his
hands. I press into it and close my eyes.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” he says softly.
I blink up at him. “I know you didn’t.” He didn’t. He has to love me, at least a little, right?
He flops down into the worn armchair by the fire—Emmett’s chair—and looks so unnatural there that I pause, but then he pulls
me onto his lap.
“If you’re not cross, what are you?”
“I’m sad.” My chest aches as I remember all too vividly what it felt like as the unicorn’s horn sank into its flesh. I’m disgusted
with myself too, but that doesn’t feel worth explaining.
“Sad about what? Everything is fine.”
Emmett and Bram are so different. Emmett comes to my room when he’s hurting and wants to feel his pain in private. Bram doesn’t
want to feel his at all, so he makes the rest of us do it for him.
“Just because it’s immortal doesn’t mean it didn’t suffer!
” I snap at him unintentionally, and his eyes darken.
All unicorns are ageless creatures, but infants like the one we encountered in the woods today are rare.
It was probably around one hundred years old.
Its silver blood will clot, its wound will knit itself back together, but the horn will take centuries to grow back.
I shouldn’t have snapped it off like I did, but it was the only sure way to make its heart stop beating temporarily.
I didn’t want Ivy to have to do it and I knew Bram would never let us rest until the game was finished.
I’ve learned, in my time here, that the Otherworld is a living thing. The land and the creatures alike remember actions like
the ones I took today, and I know they will not look kindly on them. I didn’t want Ivy’s first act in the Otherworld to be
one of violence; the land would never have forgiven her. I have some goodwill here, but I’ve no doubt burned most of it today.
“Oh, so you’re offended by a game? We can’t have any fun around here?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“You don’t get to style yourself as queen and then act all high and mighty, like you’re above us,” Bram says, petulant. “This
is what we do.”
“I know, I know.” I soothe him even as his words sting. I don’t understand how someone I love this much can be so cruel.
“Just because you hold your little visiting hours and sit on a throne doesn’t mean you hold any real power here, Lydia,” Bram
says harshly.
Emmett and I reinstated the open hours in the throne room once a week a few months into his time as regent. They existed when
Mor and Bram’s father ruled the Otherworld, and it seemed practical for us to have a place to hear from the citizens we’re
supposed to be ruling over. We’ve solved petty disputes between Redcaps, taxation among river sprites, property spats for
a family of selkies. Bram believes the small folk aren’t worthy of his attention, but listening to them—helping them, if I’m
able—is the best part of being queen.
I suspect Bram’s games aren’t just to pit Ivy and me against each other, but to publicly humiliate me in front of the subjects who have grown to respect me.
I don’t even really understand why I care for him the way I do. Sometimes before I drift off to sleep, I lie in the dark and
search through my memories, trying to find the one that could have inspired such illogical devotion. Again and again, I come
up empty. I’ve settled on only one answer: that Bram has a glow about him, and when he turned that glow on me, I felt special
too. I fear I’ll spend forever chasing that feeling.
I grew up thinking boys were dull creatures, but Bram isn’t dull at all. I know there are hidden depths to him. I see glimpses
of charity, cleverness, warmth, and some part of me believes he’ll let me see all of him if only I’m good enough. But what
if I dig deeper and the only thing there is more cruelty? Emmett has said he fears there’s nothing good left in Bram, but
I don’t know if he believes himself.
“How did you even find it so quickly? The party was supposed to last much longer. You ruined it.” He’s pouting again.
“The flowers showed me the way.” They bent and bowed the moment I walked into the forest, as if on a phantom breeze. The soft
green grass flattened itself into a winding path until I found the unicorn lying in a spot of sun in that meadow. Even the
unicorn seemed to expect my arrival.
Bram huffs out a frustrated breath. “They like you so much better than me.”
I reach up and brush a lock of hair from his forehead. His eyes gently close. “No, darling, that’s impossible. You’re the
king.”
I still don’t completely understand the link between the Otherworld and the Crown, but the bond is inexorable.
The plants have a sentience about them, animated by magic itself.
It’s true the gardens seem to bloom more brightly for me than anyone else, but as I’m constantly soothing Bram, it doesn’t mean much.
His power to rule is derived from the land; it’s impossible it favors me over him.
His eyes flit to my half-finished painting in the corner and I sense he’s eager to change the subject.
“Weren’t you working on that the last time I was here?”
It was three months ago. I’d just begun the underpainting. “Yes.” I look up at him, smiling, waiting for a compliment. It’s
the most detailed landscape I’ve ever attempted and I’m quite proud of how it’s turning out. There are still muddy sections
where I’ve painted, covered up, and repainted, but it’s my best work so far.
Bram glances to me, then back to the painting. He raises his hand, the one that isn’t around my shoulder, and with a lazy
wave, the painting changes. Color crawls across the canvas until every unfinished spot is filled in.
“Oh.” I deflate, my shoulders drop, my eyes sting. I can’t cry in front of him. He hates it when I cry.
“Look, it’s finished,” he says with an air of pride.
“Yes,” I croak out. The places where Bram’s magic has completed the painting are flat and wrong.
Bram tips my face toward his and sees the devastation there. “I can’t do anything right, can I?” he says softly.
“I love it,” I lie.
“It’s better than you could have managed on your own. I was only trying to help. You’re so ungrateful sometimes.”
“I love it,” I say once more.
Bram sighs like he’ll never understand me and rises from the chair.
He sheds his beaded doublet and flops down onto my bed.
He spends most nights here with me on the rare occasion he’s in the Otherworld, and this is how I love him most. He looks so much younger in sleep and it’s easier to picture he’s the person I hope he is, deep down.
Now that I’m grown, I’m ashamed of the way I poked fun at Ivy when we were children for her obsession with faeries and magic,
because the truth is, I harbored my own fantasies. But my obsession wasn’t magic, it was romance. I spent hours in the garden,
weaving daisy chain crowns and dreaming of the boy I’d one day love. In a way, I’ve spent my whole life looking for Bram.
But I fear Bram isn’t a partner, he’s a sharp object stupid girls cut themselves on. Me, Ivy, even courtiers like Lady Thalia
have all been left in tatters by him.
I snuff out the lantern and climb into bed next to him, this boy I love.
It’s been a long while but I’m still staring at the ceiling. I think Bram is asleep, but then he rolls over and kisses me
long and slow.
He pulls back, and I look deep into his eyes as we breathe in sync. It’s easy to imagine he loves me too.
Featherlight, he trails his fingers over my knuckles under the covers. His careless fingers twirl my wedding ring, then he
shatters the silence. “Do you think Ivy’s having fun?”
I pull my hand away.
“Yes,” I answer quietly, and pull the quilt up under my chin.
Bram flops over on his back to stare at the ceiling. “Do you think she loves me?”
“Of course,” I answer flatly.
But she doesn’t.
And so, I’ll save her from him. But in doing so, I’ll also get to keep him for myself. Does that make me selfish or a martyr?
Bram has been sleeping for nearly an hour when I’m finally brave enough to slip out of bed and down the stairs.
The garden is navy-blue dark, speckled with starlight, and cold enough to make me shiver under my dressing gown.
I pad through the dark of the gardens, until I feel a certain tug toward a rosebush. As I approach, its leaves and flowers unfurl, revealing the unicorn resting in a hollow against the roots.
It whinnies and recoils as I approach. I extend my hand and wait for it to press its velvety nose into my palm. Its eyes drop
closed, forgiveness in the gesture that I don’t deserve.
Its silver fur is cool to the touch, but its heartbeat is strong.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and it bows its little head like it understands me.
On unsteady legs, it rises and trusts me enough to follow me through the dark to the gates of the castle.
I press them open and gesture for the little creature to leave the castle grounds, to run as far from this place as possible.
The trees ruffle their leaves: in approval or condemnation I do not know.
The unicorn presses its little head and the jagged nub of its horn against my leg, then disappears into the night.