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Who did this to you?
“Why are you friends with Eliot?” I asked.
’Twas the least invasive question on my list.
Still, Briar faltered. “That is none of your concern.”
“And that’s a paltry response.”
“You haven’t spoken to him yet,” she accused over her shoulder.
“Regrettably so. I haven’t been procrastinating, but I haven’t been in a hurry to crush Eliot, either. Plus, my sovereigns have kept me busy. There hasn’t been a free moment since the orchid garden, and that isn’t an answer to my question. You’re pitiful at this game.”
“Eliot expects nothing of me. When we’re alone, I can be anyone with him. I can confess anything, and he’ll understand me.”
“That sounds more hypothetical than factual. Do you confess everything?”
She shrugged. Waiting for her to continue took a monumental amount of effort, but I didn’t want to push it. More than I cared to admit, I wanted her to speak willingly.
“I just know he wouldn’t judge me,” she said. “We met when we were twelve, at a market in the lower town. My parents—” The princess hedged, her eyebrows slashing downward with suspicion
As I stared back, something in her eyes loosened. Shadows from the branches laced her pale features, the markings reminiscent of scars. According to common knowledge, the Princess of Autumn was twenty, and her father had died eight years ago. She lost him here in Spring, whilst at court.
That didn’t mean the public knew the whole story. A few middling details rarely amounted to that.
“They were here for the Peace Talks,” she said. “Anyway, at the market, I came upon this group of children making fun of Eliot because he was trying to strum a lute for passersby, but the instrument was too large for his body. So I defended him. I clapped, the first applause he ever got.”
A grin slanted through the princess’s face, causing her freckles to shift. “I praised him and admonished the children for not appreciating fine music. I requested more songs from Eliot until he drew a crowd, which got the king and queen to notice him. The lute was too big, but he played with charm, which earned him a Royal apprenticeship. His family was so proud.”
Eliot’s family lived in an outlying village. He wrote to them every week.
“We had a memorable time together, exploring the artists’ wares. It was astounding, keeping company with someone who didn’t see me as an heiress but just a girl. Because I was there, a merchant let us try on her best costumes, which excited Eliot to no end.
“At another stall, we admired the bird cages. I bought him a berry pie, and he taught me how to master a chord. We stole a quart of mead from one of the booths, but it tasted vile.”
When she laughed, the sound crept into me like a vine—a cord that could easily take root and germinate all over the forsaken place.
Without my realizing it, we’d drifted from the brook and veered east, a direction I’d been intending to avoid with her.
She halted when I did. “When my father died that night—”
I made damn sure to keep my expression blank. He died the same night?
“—Eliot found me in the ruins hours later. His apprenticeship would begin the next day, and the Crown had already supplied him with a room in the artist wing. I sent him a message, and when he came to me, I told him I was going to be a new person from then on, not the same one he met. And Eliot said that was okay, then he played me a song until I fell asleep in his lap. I’d saved him, and he saved me.
“For the next eight years, we wrote to each other—long letters every month. I would wear a disguise, sneak into Autumn’s lower town, and have them dispatched from there.”
The scent of apples and parchment wafted from her hair, soaking into my lungs. I moved nearer but paused when Briar tensed in response. I wasn’t used to feeling inadequate or unwanted. Worse, the vision of her curled up in the ruins—a child without a father—caught me by the throat.
“What do you mean, ‘a new person’?” I asked, because it didn’t sound okay to me. Matter of fact, it sounded all sorts of wrong.
“I am a princess,” she clipped. “I cannot afford to be myself.”
“In that case, you could have at least gotten creative and shapeshifted into a unicorn. Everyone likes a unicorn.”
“My turn,” she announced, wheeling to face me. “How old are you?”
“A profligate twenty-one tonight and a provocative twenty-two eventually. Which is more appealing? Take your pick.”
