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“Elsewhere in the mountains.” Vague thought it was, that was the most specific thing he’d yet told me about himself.
“I thought I’d heard all the mountain languages.”
Devon laughed. “The deeper you go, the more divided the communities become. The mountains are so hard to traverse in places, that people in one valley don’t know the people in the next valley even exist. Every village grows up in isolation and they all develop their own customs and songs and, yes, even languages.”
“I suppose.” It wasn’t impossible, I just didn’t think it was true. But I did think he’d been telling me the truth about coming from the mountains. The way he’d said as much made me believe it.
“They’re very beautiful. The songs.”
Devon smiled. “I’ve always thought so.”
We stopped for lunch, and as Uther ran off chasing a bumble bee, Devon and I talked more.
“I had wanted to ask,” he sounded uncharacteristically tentative, “about you going to the mountains.”
“Ask what?”
“Why? Why did you go there five years ago?”
“My aunt lives there.”
“Yes, yes, I know that. Everyone knows that. It was quite the story for a bit. And that’s what I mean; everyone knows the rebellious Princess Selena ran out on her father over the succession but no one knows the details. Which means people make up their own stories. I always heard you were angry that your sisters got a share of Wincham and you didn’t. But now that I’ve met you, I’m not sure I believe it. Though I suppose you might have changed in the last five years.”
“I’m sure I have changed quite a lot,” I nodded. “I’ve been leading a very different life. But no, that’s not why I fell out with my father. The opposite in many ways. He wanted to give me Wincham.”
“And that drove you away?”
I smiled, wanly. “Not exactly. Although it could have.”
“I don’t understand.”
I breathed in deeply. “Can you imagine my sisters calmly standing by while I became Queen of Wincham and they had to make do with Latran and Gaunt?”
Devon shook his head. “People say the herders have a hard life and then you hear about princesses who don’t get the country they want.”
“I’m sure you can imagine how they’d react.”
“I can guess.”
“So there was that.” I paused.
“And?” suggested Devon.
“And being Queen of Wincham—even if I’d wanted it—came with a caveat. My father certainly doesn’t believe in a lone Queen of Wincham. She has to be attached to a king who can do the actual ruling.”
“While you stay home and clean the palace?”
“Something like that.” I sighed. “Uther had a husband picked out for me. Maybe it all sounds petty now. He was a good man. I’d probably have made do and been happy enough. I’d have had more than most people get in their lifetimes.”
“But not love.” Devon’s words landed with a solemn gravity.
“No. Not love.”
Devon shrugged. “It always amuses me that the people who rule, who can have anything and everything they want, so often deny themselves the one thing that really matters. They turn marriage into a game of treaties and genealogical chess.”
I looked down at the ground a moment then up at him again. “You think love is the only thing that matters?”
Suddenly Devon’s face changed, as it sometimes did when I touched inadvertently on some subject that related to his purpose here.
