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This time, I couldn’t stop the laughter from escaping. “I think that’s the most honest answer I’ve heard from you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t believe me?”
“Oh, I believe you,” I said. “I just find it refreshing to hear you admit you don’t have all the answers.” I stood up and walked to the balcony. “But let me propose another perspective to you.”
Prince Maedras followed me. His body lingered close to mine, so close that I felt the warmth emanating from him.
“Enlighten me.”
My face turned to the harbor. I saw only specks of light in the distance. “What if Midar agreed to this marriage because you are our liege lord? We had little choice in the matter.”
The waves crashing against the rocks below were the only sound that filled the air.
“That’s not true.” His face turned hard. “You could have said no.”
“And what would that have accomplished?” I leaned on the railway and looked at him. Truly looked at him. “Imagine that you were us. Would you have said no if your liege lord ordered you to marry someone?”
His body tensed and I knew that my words had hit home. “We didn’t order you,” he said softly. “We asked.”
“And that’s the keyword, isn’t it? Asked. As in, made a request that couldn’t be refused without dire consequences.”
He was quiet for a long moment, as if the very idea was foreign to him. His hair caught the light of the moon and, for a moment, he looked like a statue. A beautiful, unyielding statue.
“Elves don’t marry for political reasons. They marry for love and affection. Nowadays, so do we. But we’ve not always done so.” I smiled softly at him as I saw him looking forward. “Keeping that in mind, how could we refuse such a request from our liege lord?”
“You’re wrong.” He turned his head. “There’s always a choice.”
A naïve statement if I ever heard one.
“And what would the consequences be if we had refused?” I asked him. “Punishment? Banishment? Death?”
He was taken aback by my words. “No. Of course not.”
“And yet, here we are.” I gestured between the two of us. “An example of what happens when one side doesn’t feel like they have a choice. Don’t fool yourself. When it’s your liege lord making the request, it doesn’t feel like a choice. It feels like an order. We owe you our allegiance, our very lives. What do you think would have happened if we had said no?”
“You’re wrong,” he repeated firmly. “I would never force someone to marry me against their will.”
“And I believe you,” I said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that, in this case, we didn’t have a choice. You are our liege lord and we are your subjects. That’s the way it is. And that’s the way it will always be. Even if you don’t visit us or acknowledge our existence for centuries, we will always be here. Standing by your side.”
Our blood will always be on your hands.
The words rang through my head, spoken by an unknown poet right before the Rebellion of The Golden Swan age. I hadn’t thought of the words in a long time. But they came back to me now with new meaning. The Elves were the ones with the power. They could have chosen another path. But they didn’t and now we were all paying the price.
“You are right.” The prince’s voice was guarded. “I didn’t consider your perspective.”
His answer surprised me. There was no anger or dismissiveness, but honesty and a willingness to listen.
“I see now that you’re right,” he finally said. “I hadn’t considered it from your perspective before. But you’re right. We did not give you a choice in this matter. But that doesn’t explain why you volunteered. You were not chosen. You could have said no.”
“I could,” I agreed. “But I didn’t because, like you, I saw an opportunity.”
His eyes burned, and he took a step forward. “An opportunity to do what?”
The scent of salt and sea filled my nose as I leaned forward. “An opportunity to save a person most precious to me. A person who would never say no. A person who wouldn’t be able to handle this. A person in love.”
Love. The word impacted him like a physical blow, and he staggered back.
“I didn’t volunteer because I was in love with the idea of being a princess or because I wanted to be your wife.” I took another step forward and looked him straight in his eyes. “I did it for her. My cousin. My sister. I did it so she wouldn’t have to.”
