Chapter 21 #2
I did not sit so very near but close enough, gazing up at the ever-optimistic stars that twinkled heedless to the suffering of the admirers below.
I wrapped my arms around my body, my wings pulled tight against my back, and shivered.
It could have been from cold because, as I had told the tsarina just that morning, I was cold almost all the time now.
But this time, it wasn’t. It was a mixture of grief and despair and hopelessness that crept into my spine and shook me like a child’s toy.
My view of the stars, however clear the sky, would always be framed by black feathers and a beak.
I pressed the tips of my talons into my ribs.
I scooted up so that my tail feathers splayed out against the ground behind me.
I breathed deeply the scent of some distant fire.
In. Out. In. Out.
Alaina shivered too.
“You need to start wearing heavier cloaks,” I scolded her. “How long have you been in Ilyichia? Even visiting foreigners are better prepared for the weather than you.”
She tore her gaze away from the sky to look at me and shrugged.
I didn’t know if it would be too forward, especially since our only point of physical contact had just occurred and that between fingertips and an arm, but I extended my wing closest to her in an offer of shelter.
“They aren’t good for anything,” I confessed, “but they’re warm.”
Her mouth opened and her eyes widened.
Her horror at my offer embarrassed me. Painfully. Like I was asking her to dance as a kindly gesture, and she reviled me for being in that chicken costume all over again. Except that this costume would never come off. I withdrew my wing, and I cast my eyes to the ground.
I couldn’t blame her. Not last time. Not this time. I was the tsarina’s pet, an ugly ridiculous thing. Faced by the day — the hour, the moment even — with the evidence of my degradation, how had I forgotten it?
“Was that an offer?” she asked.
“I thought—” I couldn’t tell her of the comparison I drew between now and months ago, but surely, she could understand my initial interpretation. “You looked horrified by the suggestion.”
“Not at all!” She scooted close beside me. “Just surprised. Does the offer still stand?”
I extended the wing out again, and she nestled herself within it. She stroked the feathers like the pelt of a fine fur.
“It’s very soft,” she said.
I didn’t thank her since I couldn’t be gracious about an anatomy I hated.
“You said that your wings aren’t good for anything?” she asked.
“I can’t fly.”
“Flying isn’t everything. If they’re warm, then they are of great good, especially here in Ilyichia.”
She shifted again, sitting slightly more to face me, but so very near. I had complained of being cold and had taken exception to how little Alaina wore in the night chill, but right now, I heated to a degree I could not attribute to feathers alone.
“You’re warm,” she said. “What need have I of a heavier cloak if I visit you?”
“Feathers will do that.”
“I thought you’d be scratchier,” she teased.
“I thought you would be too.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re so prickly in every other way.”
“At court,” she said, “that’s called survival.”
“Most survive by being false to their core.”
“I see that you’ve spent more than enough time inside to see the truth of it.”
I couldn’t tell her that I spent the bulk of my life trying to escape it.
“I like that you’re honest,” she said after a moment. “You don’t feel the need to flatter me just because I’m a princess. And the heir to Altania’s throne.” Then she added, a smile in her voice, “Although I might think a great deal more of you if you weren’t always quite so honest.”
“And if you weren’t so haughty, I might think a great deal more of you too.”
She laughed, no ulterior motives hidden behind it. No agendas or schemes or plans. Because I couldn’t do anything for her but give her my company.
“Mikalay?”
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid that, if I tell you, you’ll think me foolish.”
“Not at all,” I assured her. “I already think you foolish. Nothing you can say will change that.”
“You’re awful!”
“So you’ve said, many a time.”
“That’s true," she agreed. She twisted her hands in her lap and then, reaching out, set her hand on top of mine. “All teasing aside though....”
My breath caught with the gesture. This wasn’t a stray or absent touch. This wasn’t accidental or impulsive. She took a moment and decided, even with the hideous strangeness of my hands, to touch me.
“Yes?” I choked out.
She whispered, “I like this.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“I am very alone in Ilyichia,” she admitted, “but even if I were not, I would prefer your company to anyone else’s.”
“You like to suffer, it seems,” I teased.
“You simply give what you get. You match me with whatever orneriness I have to offer, and yet, somehow, you’re still so gracious about... nearly everything! It’s almost sickening, you know.”
“My graciousness?”
“It still shames me to think of how cruel I was to you before you told me that you understood. How dare you be so tolerant!”
Alaina and Klessa probably would have made good friends if a world of titles did not separate them.
I didn’t know how I could arrange that introduction now.
I didn’t even know Klessa’s public name, beyond “Pietrodillo’s wife.
” I admired them both for their navigation of treacherous court life, and in a place where everyone could be an enemy, I trusted them both.
The idea of them joining forces was a formidable one though that Drook or any other they opposed might regret.
“I will try not to be so gracious in the future.”
“And,” she continued with her list of troublesome virtues, “although everyone is afraid of you, you’re kind.”
“I am not.”
“You’re currently keeping me warm.”
“Purely selfish! Who else would visit me if you caught ill?”
“Pish. You’re kind. Princess Alaina of Altania and Ilyichia decrees it. I could go on,” she threatened when I groaned. “You’re clever. And funny. And you put up with me. And you’re comforting.”
“You made those up,” I grumbled.
“I wish. It’s annoying how much I like you.”
“It’s annoying how much I enjoy your company as well.”
“We’re friends, right?” She put her other hand on top of mine too. “Can we be friends? Is that strange?”
“Strange, yes,” I agreed, “but fitting for a princess who likes spending time with a bird whose existence is disbelieved by elephants.”
“But we can be friends then, even if it is strange?”
“Yes,” I said. “We can be friends.”
“Good. Because I like this. I really like this.”
I didn’t tell her, but I really liked this too.