Chapter Eleven – Izzy
Izzy found Remy after the court session for the day, reading a book under one of the peach trees in the fruit garden. Izzy watched for quite some time, out of fear he would pack up and leave without a moment’s notice.
The past few days had been even more tense between them. Remy seemed to have settled quickly into his position as a studied outsider. He had already proposed a new change to turn order for discussions, and had set up a general plan for the imperial line to oversee each committee and reassess their purpose over the coming year. While Laurentino had met most of this with the general apathy that he usually gave to new ideas, he had grown to enjoy Remy’s company outside of court matters.
But as much as he had warmed to the Laurentine Triumvirate, the relationship between herself and Remy had frozen.
Finally she worked up the nerve, holding her head high, her chin raised as she strode towards the peach tree.
“Good morning, Vicomte,” she said.
Remy didn’t look up from his book, tail flicking once as a form of greeting. How irritating. She knew he had every reason to be cross, but he should still be paying attention to her. Instead, he was pretending like she didn’t exist. She felt a deep longing well up within her, gnaw at her stomach. She hadn’t realized how much she’d enjoyed his attention until she’d lost it.
“Princess,” he said finally.
“I was surprised that you did not want an audience with me, considering the mess we got into during the branch meeting.”
Remy closed his book, setting it down next to him. “I am a student. I absorb the knowledge that was presented to me, and then I extrapolate. Your brother means well. I hope I can be in his counsel when they start reaching out to the Koving mountains. Prior to that meeting, I didn’t even take into consideration the different dialectic variations there may be. Definitely something worth further research. What do the texts within the Aurelian archives have on that?” he asked.
“Oh, lots, I’m sure. Or nothing at all. I’ll have to put in some formal requests to obtain some information from there. It’ll probably be within our central archives within Lutven—we’ve tried to get it moved to Yaventown but enchanted or divine tomes rarely travel well, which would mean transporting every magical tome to Yaventown on horseback. That is a cost that even the Empire is currently unwilling to pay, so I will continue with the standard protocol,” Izzy said.
“Send a courier and get a doddering old fool to tell you he’ll have to look after six weeks. Then wait six more weeks to twelve years to obtain whatever information they feel like providing?” Remy asked.
“Quite.” Izzy gave a teasing smile. It stung when he did not return it.“It’s wildly inconvenient, but the archivists of Lutven have never been particularly known for their punctuality.”
Remy rolled his eyes as he packed up his books. “I see. I don’t understand, but I definitely see. We will have to discuss. Perhaps that will be one of the first miracles that Branch Caillan performs.”
Izzy moved closer, intent on stopping him. “May I ask you a question that seems out of pocket, Remy?” she said after a moment.
“You’ve never asked for permission before. I’m not sure why you would start now.”
“I don’t understand you sometimes,” she huffed.
“What is there not to understand? I like to think that my beliefs are relatively straightforward. I think ‘forthcoming’ is one of the adjectives most people would seek to put on me.”
“You’ve been acting so closed off. You’ve barely looked at me since we got fully settled here.”
Remy snorted. “I look at you every day, Isabella.”
“That’s different. You look through me. At my arm, at my shoulder. At the crown of my head.”
Remy hesitated, looking away for a moment, clearing his throat. “Ah, I see.”
Isabella turned to stand in front of him, knowing the answer. If she had to goad it out of him then so be it. She took a deep breath. “I understand that I may have given offense. Please know that there was no harm meant. I simply wanted to clear the air between us,” she said.
Remy laughed at that, getting to his feet. “You are truly incredible. You feel as if I haven’t given you enough attention?”
“You won’t even look at me!”
“Am I even allowed to?” Remy spat back. She had seen this same defensiveness before, while they were on the road. It happened when she pushed a bit too hard, tried to pull information out of him about his background, or why a courtier of his station did not have a cluster of his own, why he was able to travel with her for a month across the continent.
Isabella frowned, looking him over. “This is what I don’t understand. What I meant earlier—I know you can feel it, the same as me.”
“The only thing I can feel at this moment, Princess, is the chill. You said that we were not courting. You made me well aware of my place here.”
Isabella started to follow him, but then she felt her sense of obligation come to shackle her before she could follow. If her last partner hadn’t been a suitable match, she shuddered to think of just what the branch would think of whatever came out of… whatever she’d attempted to pressure Remy into.
She waited until he slipped back into the doors of the manor to turn the other way, striding out to the ocean. She felt her body surge with frustration as she moved towards the cliff side. “Is that it? Do I just stay alone forever in service to the crown?” she murmured to herself, kneeling down and looking out into the ocean.
No. She couldn’t give into despair that easily. She was the Caller. She had always had a head for numbers, a head for working through problems and coming up with a solution.This was just like any other problem. Underneath Remy’s hard exterior, she saw the way that he stared at her, how he would always let his eyes linger a little too long when he didn’t think that she was looking. There was something there.
And didn’t they both deserve a bit of companionship with each other?
~*~
“It is a mess in here!”
Isabella turned around to see Patricia in the doorway. To see most of her, anyway.
“Oh Patricia, I really don’t have time for this,” Izzy said, running a hand over her forehead as she stared into her paperwork.
“Too bad, I’m here anyway,” Patricia said, sidestepping the clutter of papers. “You’ve been home for two weeks and your room is even worse than its usual chaos. We’re going to lose staff if this gets much worse. This is not like you.”
“Apologies, sister, I’ve just been out of sorts.”
“And what, pray tell, has made you out of sorts?”
Izzy hesitated. The better question that her sister could ask her is what was still in sorts. That list would be remarkably smaller. “It’s complicated.”
“I have time,” Patricia said, sitting down on the footstool in front of her bed. “We’ve only been having branch meetings. You can normally perform your duties half asleep. Why is it so different now?”
“Because Remy is there,” Isabella said before she could stop herself.
Patricia grinned widely, hopping once in her skirts as she closed on Isabella. “I knew it. I knew that you two were making eyes at each other!”
“Was it that obvious?”
“Yes, absolutely.” Patricia shook her head and started to go through the gowns strewn around the room.
Isabella sat down, burying her head in her hands. “None of this makes any sense. It’s so preposterous.”
“Why is it preposterous?”
“I mean, he’s so—” Isabella made a strangled sound before gathering her thoughts. “He’s so unlike anyone else I’ve met. It’s not that we don’t have other beings in the Aurelian Courts. We have the orcs from Frigya, and the gnomes from Dexmaro. There are a few elves here and there, but they’re all shaped like us, if a bit bigger or smaller or what have you. Remy is…”
Patricia waited patiently, settling on a deep sapphire dress with an ornate gold paneling down the front.“Remy is?”
“He’s a dragon! I mean he’s not really, but he has claws, and a tail, and he’s covered in copper scales, and there are more claws, and teeth—fangs I suppose. But not really, just—anyway. He can breathe lightning, and he has spines, and his legs are the wrong way around. And, I suppose I’ve always liked men who are broader and larger, but he’s quite a bit taller and bigger. And stronger.”
Patricia waited again, and grabbed a nearby cap to set on her vanity. “So you think he’s handsome? And? You’ve never cared much about that before.”
Izzy shook her head, deflecting. “There’s just a way that he moves. The way his eyes narrow their focus on me. The way he stands. I just... It’s appealing,” Isabella murmured, toying with her skirts. “I think he’s appealing.”
Patricia smiled. “Just appealing?”
“Attractive. Distracting. Promise to keep a secret?”
“Of course, sister,” Patricia said, sitting down on the bed next to her.
“I didn’t tell Laurentino about Remy, about him wooing me, courting me. Because I was scared. Scared of being turned down again, scared of falling out of favor with him when he saw the way our court operates. So, I cut it off. A clean break. But it has made things rather frosty between us.”
Patricia ruminated in the way that only her younger sister could, before she said something outlandish. “And that’s why you’re in here being an isolated shut-in?”
Izzy groaned, flopping onto her bed and grabbing a pillow to potentially scream into.
“A dramatic isolated shut-in, my apologies,” Patricia added.
“I think I messed everything up. He came all this way, across the continent. And there was a real connection, a true connection. But the Crown. This is just like Giorgio all over again.”
“So, instead of even broaching the subject with Laurentino, who you can bend to your whims with enough blunt logic, you’ve decided to destroy the burgeoning relationship between you and Remy?”
Izzy nodded, the pieces settling into place. “Yes and no. I told him I couldn’t now, not with how tense Laurentino and Remy have been. It didn’t seem right to add this into the calculations as well. And now it doesn’t matter. Since I rebuffed his advances, he’s been a perfect gentleman. Too perfect. He barely looks at me. But he’s genial and amiable, so I know he’s not cross.”
“Perhaps you could use some sisterly advice?” Patricia wagered. Izzy looked at her for a moment. She was so unlike Izzy in so many ways. She had always been the bolder of the two of them. Izzy was sure that if it was Patricia in her situation, she would have spoken her mind to Laurentino and run off with Remy already.
“I would love that,” Izzy said.
“Well. I think this is all rather daft.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. Daft. Are you going to let our brother control your life forever? Or are you going to stand up for yourself? Apparently Remy has had an effect on you. So apologize. Tell him how much you’ve been pining after him. And make sure that, once you’ve cleared the air between the two of you, that he won’t be able to look at anyone or anything else.” With that, Patricia entered Izzy’s closets. “We’ll need something bolder than this. It won’t do.”
“Bolder?” Isabella squeaked.
“Yes, bolder,” Patricia said, pulling out a lush dress the color of red grapes on the vine in the sunset. “If he’s being too perfect a gentleman, then you need to give him a reason to misbehave.”
“I’ve been fairly imperfect with him, to be honest,” she said, worrying at her signet ring. There was a night where we had only one bed. And we had to… make do.”
“Make do?” Patricia said, and then recognition dawned on her. “You shared a bed with him?”
Isabella felt like she could sink through the floor. She turned beet red as she buried her face in her hands again. “Please, don’t tell Laurentino. I think he’ll challenge Remy to some sort of duel and I honestly don’t think he could win.”
“I shan’t tell a soul,” Patricia said, rubbing her back gently. “What was it like?”
What had it felt like? She’d spent most of the rest of the journey trying not to think about it. And when she did, her thoughts would be scattered like the pages across her desk. She’d start in a cool sweat and would require quite a few glasses of wine to relax.
“Well?” Patricia insisted.
“He let me get into bed first, and then he joined me. A pillow, here,” she gestured to her lap. “For privacy. But, as the night wore on, he wrapped an arm around me, and his tail sort of, wrapped around my thigh to keep me from falling out of the bed. He took up so much of it, so it was steadying. But in hindsight, perhaps I got too ahead of myself. It’s improper, isn’t it? Even if I wasn’t attracted at the time. Perhaps this was never going to work.”
Patricia thought to herself. “Izzy, I know you, inside and out. We grew up together, running around the castle, causing havoc. I know you remember how to cause trouble. And everyone else has gotten a chance to.” With that, her sister stood, giving her a kiss on the forehead. “You’re going to have to learn how to stand up for yourself, and to take what you want. Otherwise you will end up alone.”
Izzy nodded, looking up at the ceiling, gilded and ornate, as Patricia started talking about the ball to come. All Izzy could think about was that she should be planning her dress around Remy’s outfit. Perhaps there was something she could do to reverse course. She only hoped that Remy had not given up on her.