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“What?” I turned to him, not understanding what he meant.
“Your eyes, there are so many stars in them now,” he said casually as he checked over the arrow in his hand as we were supposed to be shooting.
I paused as I realized this might have been another addition of my past coming back to haunt me. “You heard my comments back then.”
“It was not as if you tried to hide them,” he said, glancing up and looking at me, a small smile on his lips.
“Now, I apparently have joined you.”
“As I hoped you would,” he said, lifting his bow. He released the arrow with one swift ease motion, sending it across the garden directly into the center of the target.
When I heard the claps, I glanced back over to where our wives sat at the table, apparently pausing their nearly endless conversation to watch me get my ass kicked in archery. I wasn’t bad, but the Bhutanese were master archers. It was their national sport. Meanwhile, ours was skiing and football.
“You hoped I would?” I asked as I stepped up and in place.
“Who doesn’t hope for all people to find their true love?” he asked.
I looked at him, eyebrow raised as I grinned. “True love? Is that what I have?”
“Are you denying it?”
I fired my arrow, watching as it at least hit the target…but was not close to the center. Nevertheless, there was a loud clap for me. And when I looked, Odette’s eyes were wide as she watched in awe of me coming in second place in a two-man event. She even gave me a thumbs-up. I couldn’t help but grin, shaking my head at her.
“So you do not deny it,” King Arjun stated as he lifted his next arrow. “I don’t think your face will let you.”
“I don’t know how I ended up here,” I replied, lifting my next arrow as well. “Over the last few months, I’ve looked back a hundred times and said this isn’t the me I remember. The old me would have mocked myself, would have thought I had lost all sense of fun and adventure. That it was a boring life.”
“And yet you find yourself so much happier with this so-called boring life,” he replied, releasing his next arrow, which once again hit the center right next to the first arrow.
“Exactly,” I replied.
“As I am a little older, I will explain this to you,” he said as he turned back. “It is a phenomenon called growth. Sometimes it happens naturally, and other times it is pushed upon us. Either way, so long as we get to a place of happiness, it is good for us to grow.”
“Do you ever feel like you don’t deserve all the happiness?” I asked, lifting my arrow and shooting it, this time hitting closer to the center. And again, she clapped loudly for me. “Or worry that there will be a price to pay for happiness?”
“I do not.” He was so serious with his answer; I was forced to turn and look at him. “If I don’t believe I deserve happiness, then I must believe I deserve misery. And I have not done anything horrible enough to deserve that.”
I thought back on all the people I’d hurt. The ones I had blown off and never listened to. Those I had mocked. Those I had used…to Sabina…. All the people under my feet now. “What if I’ve done enough horrible things?”
“The press would have found them by now, and you would not be King,” he replied as he released another arrow.
When he hit the target perfectly, I sighed heavily. “I started the match to be polite; you do not have to mercilessly defeat me.”
“My wife is watching, too. I must be…cool. You already have me on the height.”
I laughed. “So, at the end of the day, we are two kings simply competing for the admiration of our wives?”
“King or no king, who does not like to be seen as mighty in their wife’s eyes?” he asked back. “Even your aim improved the moment you realized she was really watching.”
“And now you are teasing me,” I replied, stepping up and looking over to where Odette was now speaking and laughing with his wife. “What do you think they are talking about?”
“I like to think of myself as a wise person…but not that wise,” he said, looking over to them as well. “But I am happy they get along.”
Lifting the arrow back right under my chin, I focused on his arrow. Releasing it, I watched as it landed right…underneath his, but at least I’d managed to hit the center.
“I’m glad about it, too.” With Iskandar gone, I realized how small our circle really was. It also reminded me why she wanted to hold on to everyone as hard as she could. It was rare for us to find people we could speak with outside of the family.
“I’m very tempted to shoot you.” I frowned as he came up the path. He came four times a week, and each time he did, he seemed more ready to tough it out here. Which was a problem as he shouldn’t have been here at all.
