AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What is it?”
“Cake,” she said.
“I don’t know that I want it.”
“I think you should try it,” she said. He was looking at her like she had done something strange, and it suddenly made her feel very silly. She took the opportunity to spin it into a lesson, because then it wouldn’t feel quite so...personal. “I think that you should try it because it would be good for you to try something new. I think that you should try it because you might enjoy it. Why are you so afraid of enjoying things?”
His lip curled. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Of course not. You’re a warrior. A mighty king.”
“I wasn’tafraid. In the library. I thought I needed to fight, and I was ready. I am always ready to fight.”
“I believe you. I didn’t say that you were afraid.”
She thought he might be afraid of living life without the parameters of the dungeon. That maybe he was reluctant to believe that he was truly free.
“This is where you... Sit? Or... I guess I don’t fully understand the concept of throne rooms. What did your father do in here?”
He looked around the room. “This is where my father would entertain dignitaries. Listen to the plights of our people. Decide on new laws. It was ceremonial, mostly. He enjoyed spending more of his time in the library. He was different than the kings that came before him. More modern. Sometimes I wonder if that is why he was killed.”
“In what way?”
“He believed in women’s rights. He taught Cairo and I that women were equal. He changed many laws allowing them freedoms. He was ahead of much of the world in human rights in general, as it happens. There was pushback against that. People... People the world over are inherently set in their ways. And they do not like things to change. Yes, there are always agitators looking to progress, but that kind of progress scares the masses.”
“And yet, he was happy to make a deal with a man to choose a wife for you.”
“Yes. There were still political marriages. My parents’ marriage was a political one. But they came to care for each other very much. I think my father saw that as diplomacy, rather than treating a woman as if she were an object.”
“Good of him.”
“My father was a good man. But he was also a man of his particular station. And that is going to be different to your experience.”
“My father was not a good man.”
“I have some sense of that.”
“My prison was very different from yours. In fact, I didn’t fully realize that it was one. I lived in a beautiful house. An estate, really. There were so many beautiful places to play on the grounds. In the gardens. I didn’t find it strange that we didn’t have children over. That I didn’t go to school, rather I had a tutor at home.”
“You said my brother rescued you. Sent you to school.”
“Yes. He did. He sent me to boarding school. Which was a different experience entirely. I had to learn...”
“Was it difficult to learn?”
“Yes and no. I was immersed in it. Thrown into the deep end of society. As far as a teenage girl went. I was happy in many ways, but intimidated in others. I didn’t know how to interact with large groups of children my own age. And we weren’t children. So there were politics. I learned to navigate those. Through trial and error. I became very popular.”
“Why do you think that is?” he asked.
“Because I’m delightful?”
He pushed away from the wall and began to walk toward her. Caged panther. “No. Why do you think that was?Really.Because many people wish they were popular. Many people would love to be. And they spend their entire lives in society observing other human beings, and yet can’t fit in. But you did.”
“I suppose it’s because when you live in a home with a man who has a vile temper, reading the room, the situation, can be a matter of survival.”
His expression turned fierce. “Did your father hurt you?”
“Not routinely. But occasionally, I would take a backhand blow to the face. Or just get yelled at. Screamed at. Neither was fun. I learned. I learned because I had to. I learned because it is imperative to learn when you’re in those sorts of situations. And so, I guess I transferred that need to read the room into my school experience. And from that, I learned to help other people. People like you and me.”
