Page 23 of Vanish

Lucien started in surprise at my last item. “But my letters were…” He paused. “I’m not a very good writer.”

I shrugged. “I don’t really remember their contents, but I have a vague memory of looking forward to them.” My words began to flow more easily.

Lucien smiled. “You sound better.”

I trembled as I sat up. “I think I’m alright now. Thank you for helping me.” I gave my head a rigid shake in an effort to dispel the lingering tendrils of temptation to succumb to the curse and allow it to erase my pain…and me along with it. Noticing a frown on Lucien’s face, I tilted my head. “What is it?”

He evenly met my gaze. “I need to speak with you. Are you alright to talk now, or should we wait until you can recover a little more?”

The hesitation present in our previous interactions was entirely absent, replaced with a forwardness that made it impossible to deny his wishes; after his bringing me safely back to shore from the tumultuous waves of nothingness I no longer desired to resist. My careful shield had faltered, allowing the fear I’d struggled to suppress to overcome me, leaving me breathless. I wrapped my arms around myself in a feeble attempt to still the tremors I imagined would be overcoming me if my body were tangible.

His eyes widened. “Are you alright? We can wait until later; I just don’t want to lose the opportunity to speak to you.”

I wanted to tell him how close I’d been to losing myself but words were impossible to form—for once not because my previous reservations about confiding in him were holding me bound, but because speaking them out loud would make what had nearly transpired all the more real.

“What did you wish to discuss?”

He was silent a moment, as if debating whether he should press my obvious evasion of his inquiry. He seemed to accurately surmise that attempting to unlock my unspoken words too soon would only cause them to withdraw further in their protective stronghold, for he eventually sighed.

“I wish to speak to you about a topic I’ve delayed for far too long.”

Dread replaced my previous apprehension. “I don’t wish to speak of the meeting, nor the visiting dignitaries.”

He seemed unsurprised I’d accurately guessed his intentions. “I know, but it was during the meeting that I realized—” His previous hesitation returned and he lowered his gaze. “Even though we’ve been engaged for several years, until listening to how the general from Thorndale spoke of you, I never understood the details regarding your home life.”

My recently returned memories assaulted me in a rush of hurt, only partially staved by his presence beside me. “I never confided in you before?”

I wondered how this could be the first time we’d spoken about such matters if we were truly in love. At first glance this fact seemed to cast doubt on his insistences that we’d successfully built a relationship before it had been lost to the curse, even as I didn’t need my full memories to remember how closely I’d guarded this particular secret. My earlier brush of recollection was enough to remind me how deeply I’d tried to suppress them; confiding in him would have only brought them to the surface, leaving me vulnerable.

What if he thinks I’m too broken and cancels our engagement? Isn’t it better to be in a loveless marriage than remain in my father’s control?I wasn’t yet ready to uncover the darkness of my past so instead switched to a different question that had been troubling me.

“Did our relationship actually begin with romance?”

He winced, as if I’d struck him. “This isn’t the place for such a conversation. Let’s go somewhere more private.” Since he couldn’t take my hand, he beckoned me to accompany him.

I numbly followed as Lucien led me purposefully through the corridors to his intended destination. I studied his profile as I floated alongside him—the hardened countenance he’d maintained throughout the meeting had faltered, replaced with a fierce determination and purpose that indicated I wouldn’t be able to escape whatever conversation he was determined to finally have.

His destination turned out to be the turret where he’d found me several days before, a place separate from the world below that already felt like ours. We looked down upon the vast kingdom with its scattered cursed patches faintly illuminated by the sun that hung in the sky, grey as an approaching storm yet absent of any clouds, as if the curse fed on them too.

Though any words I’d spoken en route would have gone unheard by anyone that passed except for him, it was only in this refuge that I found the bravery to repeat the question I’d held back during our journey. “Our relationship didn’t actually begin with romance, did it?”

I expected him to deny it, but he merely leaned against the railing with a weary sigh. “Does any union initially possess love when it begins as a political arrangement between strangers?”

I considered. “Perhaps not…though I would imagine that it would at least possess thehopeof love.”

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. “A lovely sentiment, yet one that is entirely elusive according to the dictates brought by my role.”

I was certain I’d experienced the same frustration due to the constraints of my own royal title, an emotion that undoubtedly created another obstacle preventing me from accessing the memories from our courtship that continuously felt out of reach.

“Perhaps I needed to love you because the emotion was absent from my life.” The confession escaped of its own accord, as if my heart had made a decision to open itself up to him before sense could persuade it.

His expression became grave as he angled his body towards mine. “Because of the king of Thorndale? Do you remember?”

Being forced to say the words out loud served to make my own father’s indifference all the more real; the bravery I’d managed to summon had withdrawn, leaving me unable to form an answer. Silence crowded the space between us, but he didn’t pressure me to fill it even after it’d extended for several endless minutes while I wrestled between my conflicting desires to confide in him and my inborn wish to continue protecting my secrets. I hesitated to impart my raw pain to a man that for all the recollections of closeness he insisted existed between us I didn’t yet feel close enough to confide in him, even as the burden had grown too heavy to continue to bear alone.

I finally gave up the fight and tentatively nodded; the motion seemed to free my tongue enough to explain. “I’ve always been nothing more than a pawn.” I’d often wondered what my role would have been if I hadn’t been born in disgrace as the child of the king’s common mistress, before concluding that even if I wasn’t an illegitimate child, my passive nature would still cause me to be unwanted and powerless to Father’s dictates.

His expression twisted, not in the disgust my insecurities had always imagined should he learn of my weakness in being unable to make my own family care for me, but in anger—the negative reaction I’d always feared directed not at me but my father…and himself.

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