“Tell me about your sister,” he says.
Trying a different tactic. I have, perhaps, earned some level of respect from him.
“She’s lovely. Beautiful, I assume you knew that.”
He nods. “I have a dossier about her. Your name is in it, but I confess that I know precious little about you. I did not ask for your information.”
“If you have information about my sister then surely you know she’s engaged to be married.”
He considers this. “Yes.”
“And yet, you were going to force her to marry you? You’re doing a very good impersonation of the vile dictator that everybody thinks you are. If you want to rehabilitate your image, perhaps forcing a woman isn’t the way to go about it.”
He lifts a hand. “I am the king,” he says.
As if it is a great honor. As if no one could possibly want anything other than to be in his presence, to be his wife. Not even to marry the man that they love. The man they are already engaged to.
“Not everyone wants power.”
He leans forward. “You do.”
The words are soft, and yet they reverberate through me as a threat. A threat of recognition. Like he sees something inside of me that maybe I’ve never seen in myself. It scares me. Because it feels true, but I would say that it’s not. I don’t care about power. I care about education. I care about discovery. I care about being able to change my position in life, and change things for other people. Though, I suppose what is wanting control over your life but the pursuit of power?
I would have said it was just a quest for agency.
Funnily enough, I’m standing here offering to trade a substantial amount of mine away.
And yet, it is a choice that I made.
“What I want is for my sister to be able to marry the man she loves.”
“A martyr. How delightful. I’ve heard the blood of martyrs is particularly invigorating.”
“You’ll only find out if you marry me,” I say.
“I could always go back to the drawing board. Find a different family. A different woman.”
That he’s open to finding someone new, without threats, makes me feel slightly dizzy.
“You could,” I say.
I hold my breath for a beat. Perhaps I’m about to get my freedom.
Then I see that fire in his eyes again.
“I don’t think I will, though.” He snaps his fingers, and the guards move forward. “Take Lilith to her new quarters in the north tower.”
“I’m not a prisoner,” I say.
“No,” he says. “But you’re not free either.”
This, likely, comes from his previous bride fleeing the wedding.
His words send a shock through my body. And suddenly I’m flanked by guards. “I can go on my own.”
“No,” he says. Then he tilts his head again. I can’t quite figure out what it means when he does that. He’s assessing something. Evaluating it. Me.
Then he stands, and begins to walk down the steps of the throne. His cape billows behind him as he approaches me, and if I felt small before, I have never felt more insubstantial than I do right now.
