"So just think on that," said Zoraya in a final huff. "Think of how well you know him!" She took a deep breath. "Know that you have stolen my happiness, Demelza. For the rest of my days I shall see his face … that wave of chestnut hair, those dark eyes … the dimple on the right side of his face."
Finally, Demelza found her voice:
"His dimple is on the left."
Zoraya drew in a shuddering breath and stalked off.
Alone, Demelza had no choice but to face the storm of her own thoughts. Won. She had won. She had won the whole tournament.
She closed her eyes, replaying how it had felt to walk into the tent, to feel the glow of a thousand gazes lavishing her with not simply attention … but admiration. It was like gasping for air after years spent holding one's breath.
But now what? Now she would become queen? Now she would be a bride?
All her life, Demelza had been taught to fear love and marriage.
Her mother always spoke of love as a trap, for with love came the winged key that controlled a veritas swan for all eternity.
It had taken a while for Demelza to find Arris a danger to her, but even once she realized that danger, nothing had come of it.
No wings had shot out of her back. No feathers appeared on her sheets.
Maybe what she thought had been a wingless, cursed existence had in fact been a blessing.
Maybe alone of her sisters, Demelza could wed and love without fear …
Something rustled behind her. Demelza turned, full of foolish hope. She wondered if she had summoned him. The figure stepped into the light.
Cordelia.
"Hello little bird," said the Famishing maiden.
"Hello," said Demelza. Instinctively, she stepped backward.
Cordelia looked the same. Her skin was bright as a sapphire.
Her hair was held back by elaborate ropes of seashells no bigger than one's thumbnail.
Her dress looked like pearl nacre, with ballooning sleeves and a high waistline that made the whole effect sweet. Childish, even.
It did not match her face.
There was a red gleam in her eyes. Her lips looked rusted. And when she tilted her head to look at Demelza, it reminded her of an eel stalking prey.
"You have won. You have my congratulations," said Cordelia, her voice flat. "But that means I have lost … and I cannot return home empty-handed…"
Demelza swallowed. "What do you want from me? The assurance that I will give your father's kingdom favorable taxes? Some sort of palace recognition?"
Cordelia laughed. "No, no … I wouldn't resort to bribing. You would be treasure enough—"
"But I—"
"I figured out what you are … a veritas swan, yes?"
Demelza was too shocked to answer and Cordelia's grin widened.
"You'd be powerful alive … but dead? Well, then you'd be a treasure," said Cordelia.
Cordelia lunged at her. Demelza feinted left before darting beneath the girl's outstretched arm. Her amethyst gown was heavier than she expected and when Cordelia stamped on her hem, Demelza went sprawling.
"Out of deference to the kindness you've shown me, would you like your bones to be turned into a beautiful comb or a hand mirror?" asked Cordelia.
Demelza scuttled backward. She fumbled around on the floor, but there was nothing she could use to attack her assailant. She licked her lips and hummed, letting her truth magic stun the other girl:
"Your weakness," said Demelza. "Tell me what it is."
She thought Cordelia might reveal a weak ankle or a blind spot on her left … instead, Cordelia's gaze turned unfocused. Tears shone in her eyes as she said:
"I think I do not hold myself in the highest esteem and I imagine my difficulties with that have made me inordinately cruel … but I'm so frightened of rejection that I can't seem to make myself stop."
"Oh," said Demelza. "That's actually rather sad—"
Cordelia shook her head. Usually, Demelza's truth song would stun an individual for much longer, but now Demelza saw that Cordelia had stoppered her finned ears with wax. Cordelia glared as she reached into her huge sleeves and drew out a dagger.
"I applaud your efforts, but they are no—"
Whoosh!
Between one blink and the next, Arris stepped out of thin air. He wore a very strange cape that looked like liquid silver. Before Cordelia even noticed him, he threw it atop her head—
"WHAT—" she shrieked, before falling to the floor with a heavy thud.
Demelza scrambled to her feet as Arris drew back the cape. Cordelia was fast asleep, her knees tucked to her chest, her gills softly flapping. And then she started to snore. Arris snapped his fingers and the winged and bejeweled attendants swarmed to him from the corners of the tent.
"Remove her," he said.
A few of the attendants alighted on her hip. Others went to her feet. Two flew to her hair. Slowly, Cordelia was hoisted up and up and, finally, away. Demelza stared up at Arris. As she looked at him, the last of her restraint vanished.
"Demelza—" he said.
She did not want words to stain the moment.
Impulsively, she grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and kissed him.
It was nothing more than a press of lips, but she felt it rattle through her very bones.
She drew back nervously … startled by what a simple kiss had drawn out from her.
She would have moved away completely, but Arris caught her hand and pressed it to his chest. In the dimness of the tent, his brown eyes looked like burnt sugar.
They had lost none of their sweetness, but there was something searing in the way he stared at her.
As if he was reluctant to yield something precious, but had decided to do so anyway.
"I can still feel your truth magic in the air," said Arris.
Demelza looked around them, noticing how her own magic spangled like sparkling dust motes.
"I won't ask you anything—"
"No," said Arris. "Ask me. Ask me anything you wish, Demelza. Ask me now before I regret baring myself like this and you have time to doubt every word that comes out of my mouth."
Demelza had used her truth magic on many people. But never once had anyone invited it. It was an invasion of one's thoughts, and yet here was Arris, offering up the whole of himself.
Demelza thought of her sisters' letters …
the way they described intimacy as the movement and space between bodies.
They said it was a vulnerability unlike anything else …
this seemed like even more. This was a glimpse of someone's soul and it humbled her.
She did not want to stomp on such a gift.
Never had she imagined she would recoil from her powers.
But then again, she did not know how to imagine someone like Arris.
"Speak," she said.
A command, but a simple one … one that could be sidestepped if Arris wished. But the word seemed to act as permission and Arris exhaled as if his very breath had become a burden.
"I miss you," he said. "I miss our conversations. I miss laughing with you. I want to kiss you again, Demelza, and I don't know what that means.
I think what I'm trying to say is that I …
I could love you. I think I'm already halfway there and if you kissed me again I would be over the edge and full into the unknown.
I know I turned down your proposal, but at the time I was scared and now I …
I don't know. I suppose I'd rather be scared with you than safe without you. "
"Is this a proposal?" asked Demelza, shocked.
"If you want it to be," he said.
"What do you want me to say?"
"Yes," said Arris. "I want you to say yes."
The last of Demelza's truth magic dissipated. Arris stared at her intently, and Demelza looked away. Her gaze flew not to the ballroom entrance, but to the exit. To the world outside Rathe Castle. Back home. A place full of known things rather than the unknown that faced her.
"Arris, I—"
"If we were ever friends, which I think we were, then I ask only one thing of you, Demelza," said Arris, refusing to look at her. "Let me not see your face when I have no choice but to speak another's name. If you go through those doors and come to the ball tonight, then I will have my answer."