Chapter 19
XIX.
“You’re back!”
I recalled myself from distant thoughts and looked up at my companion.
Alaina took a step backward and clutched her books to her chest.
We stared at each other.
“You’re not wearing the hood today,” she stated.
“I am aware.”
“Yes. Of course.” She took a deep breath and regained her step toward me. “You are just as ugly as I expected,” she announced to cover up her initial fear.
I could have been gracious and let it slide, but this was supposed to be my first time seeing her too, so I sized her up visibly, wanting her to squirm a little under my assessment.
Her looks had been much maligned in my, mostly for her dark complexion and the larger nose associated with traditional Altanian features.
Although not a beauty in Ilyichia, and probably not in Altania either, I could not bring myself to further insult her on something she had likely heard from everyone else many times.
“And you are scrawnier than I imagined,” I said. “I have perched on twigs more substantial than you.”
Her mouth fell open, and her hold on the books relaxed. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You look little more than a child,” I teased. “I am surprised that such a little body can contain such a huge opinion of itself.”
“And you’re still a contrary creature,” she said.
A small grin played at the corners of her mouth. Mischief twinkled in her eyes. All this time we had been talking, I had apparently missed much by not being able to see her. How often had she smiled while we talked?
“I fail to see why I should behave any differently, in or out of a hood.”
“Not that you would ever know it, considering you thought me a serf the other day,” she said haughtily, “but I am a princess.”
“A princess,” I repeated, a degree of patronization tinting my words as I played ignorance. “It sounds important. What is that?”
“It’s like a tsarina.” A fallen smile and reddened cheeks betrayed her fluster at having to explain a concept so fundamental to court life. “It means I am superior to you.”
And I had been a prince once. Titles meant nothing.
“I am in captivity. That makes everyone superior to me.”
“It means I am influential and powerful,” she tried again.
“And yet, you come to me to give you the things you most wish for.” She completely deflated at that observation. “If you’re so powerful, can you undo my bonds and release me?”
Her cheeks flamed. “No.”
“Then what does your power or influence matter to me?”
“You are sharp today!”
“And you are sharp every time you visit me,” I reminded her. “I do not start or end every conversation with a criticism of your appearance.”
“Fair,” she conceded. “Should I not visit you?”
“It depends on your intent. If your design is to add to the derision and mistreatment I must suffer at the hands of others, then I can well do without you.”
“I’m sorry. I meant to tease, not to hurt.”
“I suppose I will forgive you.”
The corner of her mouth quirked up. “You’re still ugly though.”
“So I keep being told.” And I didn’t disagree, but I didn’t have to accept it outright. “No one has specified though — compared to what?”
“Compared to....” She furrowed her brows in thought. She set her books down on the ground and then took a seat on top of them. “That’s a good question. I don’t know. I suppose compared to a man.”
“But I am not a man, so how can I be compared to one?”
“You are also ugly compared to a regular bird too.”
“Which regular bird? If a sparrow, then yes, I must seem quite monstrous to a sparrow.”
“Another firebird then?”
“Firebirds are not regular birds.” I puffed out my feathers a little. “And, in the world of firebirds, I am considered an attractive specimen. Next time you are so inclined to call me ugly, I would caution you to remember your frame of reference.”
“So you truly are an Otherland creature?”
I could lie to her. But I already had to lie about so much.
I longed for truth since the palace and the court that surrounded me thrived on lies and manipulation.
But I couldn’t just tell her that I was simply the same disgraced prince in a different kind of costume.
Even if the tsarina lied to me about there being a way out, I didn’t want to wear the name Mikhail and bear the burden of his shame anymore.
And if she knew any of that, if anyone knew any of that, I would again have no company and no respite from the mockery that would again come my way.
“I am not an immortal Kind and Fair creature, if that’s what you think. But I am touched by the Otherlands,” touched by its magic at least, “so I doubt you will find another of my kind easily.”
“I knew it.”
“So you believe in The Kind and Fair despite having invoked the Great Holy... twice, I think, in my company?”
“Is that offensive to you?”
“Not at all. I am just curious how you can believe in both.”
“Politically?” She laughed. “I don’t. In Ilyichia, I do as the Ilyichians and give offerings only to The Kind and Fair.
” She lowered her voice. “In my homeland, I give offerings to both, The Kind and Fair as a supernatural intermediary on earth, and the Great Holy as a deity above all of us, The Kind and Fair included.”
Varnasia, like Ilyichia, only acknowledged one while condemning the other. What might have been different if I didn’t have to choose? I didn’t know much about Altania, but I liked the sound of its open-mindedness and spiritual inclusivity.
“I have never seen a Kind and Fair though,” she confessed. “Have you?”
“No.”
“Even though you're an Otherland creature?”
“Currently, I am baser than the worm that freely wriggles through the dirt. No Kind and Fair would find me worthy enough to appear to me.”
“They are supposedly capricious. You must always give them a great amount of respect and a healthy dose of wariness. And if you leave the proper offerings, they will decide what is worthy.”
“The proper offerings?”
“It’s not much different than honoring the Great Holy, truly. Food is customary, but blood is supposedly best, although I never offer blood. Maybe that’s why I haven’t gone home yet. But it doesn’t feel right giving pieces of me away.”
The tsarina used blood with the roses when she issued our game.
She had invoked The Kind and Fair, and if roses were linked to magic.
... Someday, I would have to go to her private rose garden and see what I could do.
The Kind and Fair would probably not listen to me, but it might be worth a try. After everything else, could it hurt?
“Perhaps,” I began, “when next you give The Kind and Fair an offering or you speak to the Great Holy in private, you might mention me in your prayers?”
“What is it you would have me ask?” Her face twisted in confusion. “Better food? Less attention from the tsarina? The Great Holy does not listen to prayers from animals, but—”
Her confusion over what I could possibly desire and the dismissal as an animal struck me as cruel, a testament to her casual, self-absorbed lack of empathy for anything beyond her own wish to be free.
“Nevermind,” I said, turning away from her. “I’m sure no one would listen to prayers on my behalf anyway. No one ever has before.”
I lay silent and still while the tsarina finished, my contributions, pitiful and unenthusiastic though they were, having long been spent, and the sound of bells long muted.
I couldn’t find the will to pray during the midst of my trials, so I examined the ceiling painting as I had years before when the tsarina kept me on her bed instead of the floor.
My own home — former home — had paintings on almost every ceiling too.
Different themes, of course. Many of them legends of Ilyichia instead of the more commonplace pastoral allegories popular throughout the continent.
And there was the Karilitsyn crest over every major doorway.
I didn’t miss the family seat. In my heart, it was still my forefathers’ house, as any possible son of mine might have considered it more mine than his.
I would never have children now. The tsarina would not be fool enough to become pregnant.
Even if the tsarina could be trusted about the Alfinian baby, that child would never know me.
There would be no other life for me beyond the tsarina’s menagerie, and no one else would share the tsarina’s unique proclivities to bed me, even if I were amenable.
Which I never thought I would be again. Not after this.
The mere idea of lying beside anyone in such intimacy inspired intense nausea.
“You might at least pretend to enjoy it,” the tsarina said as she rose from me. “I don’t waste my time with just anyone.”
“Do you not have your Allemandian lover?” I pushed myself onto my elbows. At least she had kept her word about leaving my wrists unbound when I visited her. “Why do you have need of me?”
“Why should I eat pork every night when I can have fowl on occasion?” She wandered out of the bed enclosure to begin her morning ablutions. “You are going to join me today. My ministers are going to bore me to tears if I don’t have more pleasant distraction.”
“They aren’t going to want me in your meetings.”
“What they want doesn’t concern me.” She wiped her hands and face on a cloth. She came over to the railing that wrapped around the bed and stared at me. “Do I need to muzzle you, or will you stay silent?”
I didn’t want to be muzzled, but I also didn’t know how I might be tempted to break the illusion of tsarina’s pet. I had a proven record of not being able to keep my mouth shut and opening it at the worst times.
“I’ll feed you from my plate today if you behave,” she added as she disappeared into her dressing room.
The offer of food from her selection caused a primal betrayal from my stomach. I had lost a significant amount of weight and my muscles had wasted, both with disuse and malnourishment. I hated the physical weakness that so easily abandoned any high-minded principles I wanted to uphold.