He'd released my hand to go fetch the candelabra, and since he'd been back, even after pulling the chair up close to my bed again, he had not reclaimed it.
I kept both hands folded on my lap. The blankets were drawn up to my shoulders. It was still cold. "What was this extraordinary thing?" I asked.
"Two things," he said, holding up two fingers. "One, you're seven years of age, and your older sister comes to you in the dead of night and proclaims that you're the new Alpha of your tribe, because the old prince is dead."
"Your ... sister?"
"She was the bride of the former Alpha. Technically, even after his death, she had no power to rule, but she held on to it anyway. She passed that on to me."
"The hut," I said, understanding. "You were born in a hut, not a castle. I saw it."
"Did you?"
"Not the, er, process itself. I saw you as a baby. I'd been trying to Weave back to you after our conversation in your library, but I ended up there instead. You were with your mother."
Alexandru glanced downward and then back up, regarded me broodingly.
"I was only there a minute," I said, and paused. "She looked happy."
"Yes." He sighed, leaning back. "So now you are the new prince, and you do live in a castle. And for a while you have guidance, you have family who are there with you to aid you, and despite all the folk of your tribe who stare at you and judge you and find you lacking, you feel ... as if it might work. As if it might indeed be destiny. When the Turn comes to you at fourteen, you're beyond relieved. It means your position is just a little, a little, more secure. But one by one your family either succumbs to death or departs your realm, and you end up alone."
"How old were you then?" I wondered.
"Fifteen."
I'd been taken from my parents at nearly the same age. I remembered how that felt, to be young and solitary, a stranger amid strangers. Even with all the excitement filling my days, the cacophony of astonishing new places and things, there remained that seed of fear—of rejection, suffering, pain—lodged in my heart that never withered.
I didn't wait for Sandu to take my hand again. I reached for his. "I'm sorry."
"No, don't be. I don't tell you this to gain pity. I'm telling you so you'll understand. Two great things happened to me. Two." His lips made that dry smile. "Would you care to guess the other?"
Me, I wanted to say, and bit my tongue.
"It might have been you," he agreed, reading my face, and his smile softened. "But I wasn't counting Honor Carlisle. Not for this tale. The second unexpected event that came upon me was a new Gift, one I'd never heard of anyone else having before, not human or drakon."
"Really?" I pushed myself up higher on the pillows. "What?"
He picked up the battered note I'd brought back from the meadow, which had been resting upon my legs.
"I Read," he said.
"Well, so do I, honestly, but—"
"No, Honor. I can Read, the way you can Weave. An utterly unique dragon trait. I Read the true lettering behind any words. I Read the true intent of the scribe behind the ink. Fresh words, invisible to everyone else."
One of the Roma below us in the atrium had begun to practice a song on his guitar. Someone else joined in with the harmony. I realized without an ounce of surprise it was the same tune I'd heard drifting through the dark green crystal forest.
"You Read true hearts," I guessed, and the prince inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Then—you must know mine. You had me write out all those things. That was why, wasn't it?" "That, and I wanted to see if one of us belonged in an asylum. It seemed like it might actually be me." I shook my head.
"Think," he said. "A comely maiden, a dragon-maiden, magically appearing and disappearing throughout the hours of my life. No name, no fixed age, just a face and blue eyes and not even smoke to reveal her. What might you have thought, were you me?"
"That I would have damned well asked her to write me out something sooner."
He laughed, his face sharp as a hawk's in the gold-and-gray light. "You're wiser than I, no doubt, senyoreta. I cannot be surprised at that."
I flicked the edge of the note he held between his fingers. "Did you write this? What does it truly say?"
"I did write it. And it says ." His lips curved in an expression that might have been cynicism or might have been doubt, or a mixture of both. "Between the words, it says,She belongs to you. Claim her. The ending no longer matters."
We stared at each other as the song below us lifted into its rippling chorus.
"That ." I rubbed my palms along my thighs. "Is that good?"
"I don't know. I was hoping you might be so gracious as to consent to tell me."
The Gypsies broke off their playing. Their voices reached my chamber in echoing spurts and laughter, a good-natured argument punctuated with plucked notes.
The infinite Alexandrus in the mirror all leaned closer to the woman in the bed; every endless fall of black hair a sift of dark along their shoulders.
"What happened next, Honor? Now the story returns to you. What happens in our future, the one you just touched?"
There seemed no better answer than the truth.
"I live with you," I said candidly. "At Zaharen Yce. We're a couple, engaged. And when I found you, we made love. It didn't feel like the end."
"I—I took advantage of you? Just now, in the future?"
"No, my prince," I replied. "I would say there was no advantage. We were on near equal footing, although you had the comfort of already knowing the outcome. And it was lovely, that outcome. I'm not sorry in the least," I finished, taking in his affronted air. "I'd do it again if I could."
He stood and pushed a hand through his hair. He paced to the mirror but didn't look into it, staring down instead at his hands, at the note he still held.
"You kissed me," I said, unmoving, watching him, "and you held me and you made me feel like I was cherished. Like I was adored. I'd never known that depth of kindness or attention. You're the most astonishing being I've ever encountered. I wish only that you could have been there.You, Sandu of right now. Because the person you're going to be, Alexandru of the Zaharen ... there was no shame. I'm your mate. You knew it, and you were brave enough then to claim me, despite all my flaws. I've never in my life felt so safe."
His fingers crushed the note as if it were afire. "I did that?"
"You did. And thank you. Thank you yet again."
"Perhaps I only fooled you. Perhaps I made you feel the way I thought you needed to feel to ... give me what I wanted." He glanced up, and through the mirrored glass his eyes held mine. "I'm not a kind man, Honor. Never believe it. There's no real place for that in my world. A kind man would have been slain as soon as he'd been left vulnerable at Zaharen Yce. An Alpha, however—an Alpha manipulates every situation to win. That's what I do. I've grown extremely skilled at it. Perhaps it's even a Gift."
"Do you suppose you've won?" I inquired, curious.
He dropped his gaze; a corner of his mouth curved. "Apparently."
"I'd say we both have."
With a sudden rousing "hep!" of encouragement, the men below took up the song again. It echoed the rain now, threaded back and forth through the pattern of the storm.
"There's something else I must tell you," I said. "Some other time I Wove to accidentally, that you need to know."
"Yes?"
"I think it was the future. It must have been. But I don't know how far ahead I went. I was trying to find you again, and I was there at your castle, but it was empty. No one lived there. I think there had been an attack. Things were broken. Everyone was gone."