“And handsome,” he interjected.
“No,” she replied, “not handsome.”
His eyes flew open. “He wasn’t handsome?”
“He was not. But his dearest friend was. They had grown up together as boys, and the little prince thought of the boy as a brother. He knew he could always rely on him for wise counsel. He was so beloved that when he grew up to be a man, he was knighted by the king and queen.”
Rocco narrowed his eyes. “What is the name of this knight?”
Nico had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. “Dario.”
Rocco made a face. “Okay, so he was a pretty knight.”
“Indeed.”
He sighed and closed his eyes.
“As I said, Knight Dario was very handsome. All the ladies of the court pined for him, longing for him to cast even one glance their way. He was known far and wide as the handsomest, prettiest knight who had ever lived.”
Rocco’s eyes flew open. “Is this going to be a story about the pretty knight or the little prince?”
Nico folded her arms and waited. Finally, he huffed and shut his eyes.
“But an astute eye might get tired of looking at handsome Knight Dario because his face was always the same, unlike the little prince’s, which was always changing. One could never grow tired of looking at his face. Though not pretty like Knight Dario’s, it was far more interesting.”
She looked down to see him with one eye open, grinning. He quickly shut it when she caught him.
“All the women of the court fawned over the little prince. They were eager to bathe him and feed him when he was a baby; they combed his hair and dressed him. Even when he grew up to be a young man, that never changed.”
“Even as a man?” Rocco said, grabbing a pillow. “This story is getting interesting.”
Nico chuckled.
“They never tired in their efforts to make the little prince happy. They cooked him whatever he fancied, always trying to make the baby, the boy, and finally the young man happy. For they had never seen a boy more wonderful than he. Even though the king was generally known to be wonderful himself, they thought his son, the little prince, had surpassed him.”
“It’s good to be the prince,” Rocco said.
“Indeed. Everyone who looked upon him thought he had sprung from the mountain itself. For in his face and body and character he carried the mountain with him.
“He had a face that looked as though it had been carved from stone. His cheekbones formed a bold precipice on which to hang his flesh. The descent from there to the hard rock that was his jaw was a perilous one. There was nothing subtle about him except for his eyes.”
Nico’s eyes drifted from the window down to Rocco’s face.
Her breath shuddered in her rib cage as she saw him looking up at her. But he quickly shut his eyes when her gaze met his.
She waited a moment before she continued.
“While his face and body told the story of the mountain, his eyes told another story, a secret he kept hidden: his desire to see what lay beyond it. It would have pained the king and queen as well as the people of the kingdom to know this, so he kept it to himself. And because it was a secret”—Nico cast a sidelong glance at Rocco—“whenever he spoke of it, it was always in a whisper and only to himself.
“No one had ever ventured outside the kingdom. Why would they? They had everything they’d ever need and want. They were ruled by a magnanimous king and queen, and when they were gone, they knew the little prince would be as generous and kind to them as his father and mother had been.
“But the little prince had this restless desire. It was a mystery to him where it had come from, and because no one ever spoke of such a thing, he thought this desire must be a sin. The desire made him anxious. It weighed upon him. It was as though he had shackles around his ankles, and with every passing day those shackles became heavier because with every passing hour another massive link had been bound to the chain and thus to him—so that the chain of that desire became a heavy burden indeed.
“He discovered that the only way to release those shackles—even if only for a moment—was to race. And so he did. And no matter with whom he raced, he was always the fastest. Even pretty Knight Dario couldn’t beat him. For Dario was too pretty for his own good. Many a lady would faint at the sight of him as he ran past them, and being the gallant knight he was, he could not help but stop to revive them. And since reviving them required a kiss, it was not unusual for the lady to require much kissing before she came to.”
Rocco laughed.
“But after a while, the little prince began to slow down. He was still the fastest in all the land, but not as fast as he once was. They soon discovered it was because of his head, which had begun to grow in size and become quite heavy. At first, the queen thought it was because of his diet, then they thought perhaps it was the heat that was making his head swell.”
