Page 63 of Sonnets and Serpents
Eliza frowned. “Love isn’t difficult. It’s just something you feel.”
Yvette raised her eyebrows, the same pitying look she gave to students spouting off in lecture hall.
“Love is not an emotion,” she said. “It is a choice built on emotion. Attraction, appreciation, admiration.The Advent Moonmay be worth another look from you.”
“But they did it wrong,” Eliza protested. “You said that yourself.”
“They gave poor responses to very real difficulties, my dear. Indulging vices, acting without thinking, performing tiny acorn-cupfuls of betrayal—these are all inevitable in a relationship, and what we see in the story is a love that could not last because it was built on the shallow ground of attraction without full appreciation.
“Had the wife fully appreciated her husband, his strengths and his weaknesses, she could have forgiven his error, she could have loved him even when he was not in his best form, and she could have helped him back to his best. But she preferred the ghost of the image she’d crafted for herself, a handsome representation without the depth of a real person.”
Yvette leaned forward, the ends of her red scarf trailing in her lap. “Real love is difficult, because it requires the most vulnerability two people can ever give, and the most forgiveness.”
Silas rolled his empty cup back and forth in his hand. He thought of one of the last conversations he’d had with Gill, when his best friend had told him he was in love with the future queen.
If she cares enough to change an entire kingdom for you,Silas had said,then take my blessing. It’s just an awfully big gamble to make, Gilly.
And for what? Silas had never seen any evidence that love was worth the risk. Yvette and Baris seemed happy, but they were both good people, and he couldn’t imagine them being any different if they were just a merchant and a professor in separate worlds.
One thing was certain: Silas was happy on his own. A relationship was an invitation for pain, and he already bore the scar of one betrayal.
Never again.
The evening came to an inevitable end, no matter how Eliza wished otherwise. It had been so long since she’d laughed freely, relishing the company of other people. It was also surprising to see how Yvette and Baris both doted on Silas—they really loved him. She’d never seen Silas as happy as he was around them. Smiling easily, listening without lecturing. Like he was a different person.
Or maybe, a little voice within her said,he’s finally himself.
But even in this setting, he was still the academic, and as soon as thebalimavhad been eaten and the drinks drained, he had questions for Yvette. The two of them stood next to her desk, discussing scholarly whatsits, while Eliza fiddled with her sonnet book and wished she could have made the dinner conversation last forever.
“Good book?” Baris asked in a booming voice.
He dropped heavily onto the cushion beside her and plucked her red book from her hands, turning the pages with his eyes sparkling. “Ha! All Loegrian. I cannot read a word.” He squinted closer. “No, this is Pravish here. You write Pravish in your books?”
Eliza had started keeping a list of Pravish words on folded parchment, but she’d gotten tired of the sheet slipping out whenever she opened her book, so she’d been writing new vocabulary words directly on the pages. Wherever possible, she matched them to a Loegrian counterpart in a sonnet.
“I’m learning,” she stammered out in Pravish.
“Very good!” Baris thumped her on the back with his three-fingered hand, and what it was missing in digits, it certainly made up for in power. Eliza had to catch herself before she overbalanced on her cushion. “Learning is very good. That is why I married a university professor. Here, practice your Pravish with me.”
Haltingly, she asked, “How you ... meet your ... Iyl Yvette?”
“Wife,” he supplied for her.Hana. Eliza repeated it a few times in her mind to write down later. Then he went on, “The best story! Even better thanThe Advent Moon.”
He launched into a tale about a beautiful Stone Caster who loved papayas, and before long, Eliza found herself smiling and laughing along with him—though she was certain it had not actually takenten yearsof asking before Yvette agreed to meet his parents.
A corner of her heart ached, because she’d always imagined telling her own story like this. The story of meeting Henry.
“Do you know . . . about . . . kuveti?”
Baris waited patiently for her to piece the question. When she finished, his expression turned grim.
“Know what of them?” he asked. “Beyond their greedy, brutal ways.”
“My friend . . . maybe prison . . . person.”
He gave her the word forprisoner, then nodded toward Yvette. “My wife helped build their prison. Ask. If she can find out, she will.”
Hope lifted Eliza’s chest, and just then, Yvette spoke from behind her.
