“Please meet Phillip—a distant cousin on my mother’s side,” he says, pointing to the shorter boy. “And Will, who I’ve known since boyhood, but, I don’t know—can I still call you friend, or is cousin now more appropriate?”
Alia’s slippered feet move just so as she curtsies for the boys.
“Oh, cousins. Don’t let formalities confuse you, my lady,” Will says. “Even though it won’t be official for two more days, who cares? We’ll be cousins for the rest of our lives.” Will laughs, and I hate that I like the sound of it. “Why not start now?”
“Fine, cousin, then,” Niklas agrees.
They laugh, once again too jovial as Alia looks from Niklas to Will and back, clearly confused. The joy crumbles from Niklas’s face, and suddenly my lungs stutter themselves shut as I comprehend what would make these boys cousins.
Blood. Or oh, no.
As it hits me, the boys must realize it too and excuse themselves on the pretense of wanting coffee. When they’re gone, Niklas removes Alia’s hand from his arm, clutching her fingers sweetly.
“Dearest,” he starts, taking a deep breath almost as if he cares, “I am to be married the day after tomorrow.”
Alia’s face falls. Her other hand grips his arm so tight, her fingers wrinkle the starched fabric of his tea jacket. My heart feels as if it’s in her vise grip, too.
“Though it’s only been a day, I … I feel like I know you. It’s strange, this kinship that we have—both of us lost as sea. Washing ashore on the same beach, some miracle, my little foundling.”
Alia nods, close to him, a look on her lovely face so pure that it says a thousand of the words she cannot. Willing him to see. Willing him to know that he does know her. That she saved him. That it wasn’t an act of his God that rescued him from the wreck that drowned his brothers and father; it was her.
I hold my breath as I feel it coming. He’s leaning into her and she’s still clutching him for dear life, looking up to him with eyes that contain whole oceans of blue, her lips and cheeks rosy from dancing.
Yes. Kiss her. Please, kiss her.
For the magic to work, she needs true love’s kiss—all the stories have been the same.
Their lips touch, and my arms give way as I slide down the pole from relief. It’s short, and sweet—but I realize before it’s over that it’s not enough.
There’s no magic to it. It’s not transformative in the least. Whatever spell Alia has found to give her legs, this kiss doesn’t have the power to keep her on two feet.
Too quickly they’re apart again, all of it rushing back to Niklas—the surroundings, the people just steps away in the dance hall, what he is bound to do in two days.
“I’m sorry. I’m king now, and a king’s duty is to his people. With my father and my brothers departed … it’s up to me to do what’s best. There are so many uncertain things about the world right now …” He trails off, and I can only imagine how the war would affect a kingdom like this. “But what is certain is that despite what’s going on, I need to make the right decisions for Havnestad. And the right decision for a new king is to ensure the continuation of the monarchy.”
Continuation of the monarchy. Anger singes my veins as my breath grows short. His monarchy would be dead if it weren’t for the girl right in front of him.
The king weaves his fingers tightly in Alia’s. “But please, please stay. Sofie will love you—I’m sure of it.”
Sofie. I hate her name already.
He smiles softly. “Perhaps you can be one of her ladies and stay here as long as you wish.”
Yes, yes, I was right—this boy just likes to collect things. His foundling on the beach. Now his dancing girl in the castle. There to entertain his wife as her own heart explodes from sorrow.
What a kind and generous king indeed.
“Your Highness,” comes a woman’s voice from within, “the queen mother has requested your presence in her chambers.”
Niklas squeezes Alia’s fingers. My sister’s hand drops from his arm, obliging, as if she hasn’t just weathered the biggest blow in all her life. The boy she’s in love with, the one she rescued, the one she gambled her life on, cannot love her because his heart is wrapped up in a contract signed by his father.
“I will see you soon, my sweet foundling.”
And then he’s gone.
My sister’s form slumps on the balcony, her head resting on the cross of her forearms against the railing, her shoulders heaving beneath her tumbling hair. I slip my fingers up through the slats in the balcony floor, thin ribbons of marble crosshatched beneath my sister’s feet. I touch the toe of her slipper, as light as rain. Alia’s eyes flash open, meeting mine. She immediately glances over her shoulder to the room off the balcony, clearing out from the breakfast entertainment. The guests are gone, and a few servants run about shutting the open doors.
When all the doors are closed, Alia sinks to sit on the woven floor pretending she’s just looking out past the cove into the tip of the sea.
My voice is low and rushed. I swing around the pole so that she can see the entirety of my face as I bark at her all the questions I can’t hold inside anymore.
“How? Did Father keep the books we thought were destroyed? The ones Annemette used? Or did you ask them—Mette’s daughters? Why didn’t you tell me? And what happened to your voice?”
Alia takes a deep breath and holds up her hands—watch this, her fingers spell. When we were younger, our oldest sister, Eydis, taught us hand signals she’d devised to communicate across the room during our daily lessons while our instructors’ tails were turned.
Alia signs a single word. Witch. We used this to describe our voice instructor, who had a habit of burying us up to our necks in the sand so that we’d learn to properly project without the crutch of movement.
But there’s only one real witch I know. Alia didn’t find the magic herself through books or rumors. She went straight to the creature who doesn’t need to know the old ways—the only one under the sea dangerous enough to try something like this.
“You went to the sea witch?” My tone is appalled and disgusted at once—if there’s a single being beyond humans that we’ve been consistently taught to fear, it’s her. I take a deep breath and I ask, though I know what she will tell me. “And she took your voice?”
She nods.
My disgust squirms and twists into blatant outrage. I’d never sacrifice a life, but this. It’s all I can do to keep my voice down. “So you really can’t tell him that you love him? Who you are? What you did?”
She shakes her head slowly, sadly.
“What about writing? Can you do that? Tell him the story that way?”
With
