In The Name of Love

Sunlight streams through the rippled, cloudy glass of the drawing room windows, splashing Fifi’s face and gown. She stands holding a single rose in one hand and resting the other on the back of a chair, looking in the general direction of the windows despite the bright light. Normally she would be going crazy from boredom while she poses to hav her portrait painted, but today she is still as a statue, her mind far away. Over and over she relives healing the dove with Kai and the feeling of his lips on hers afterward. Her lips curve in a soft smile as she remembers how gently he’d cupped her face. She always thought her first kiss would be at the altar on her wedding day, but she wouldn’t change anything about her kisses with Kai.

Except, perhaps, making their mutual attraction less dangerous, for him especially.

I wish we’d turned ourselves into birds and followed that dove into the sky, far away from here, she muses, stifling a sigh. The Royal Artist-in-Residence, a diminutive man called Peder who wears ridiculously long tapered shoes and a pointy grey goatee, hates it when she stirs even slightly from the pose he’s prescribed for her. He has often scolded her in past painting sessions for her inability to hold still, but today he has been quiet and focused on his work, leaving Fifi freedom to daydream. Although, I guess it’s better we didn’t try. I haven’t been able to transform myself yet.

It’s a skill she plans to practice at every future lesson until she can do it easily, if Kai agrees. No one tells a rat how to spend its days or dictates which birds must take each other for mates. Fifi envies their freedom. Before Minna’s Quest for Favor, before she met Kai and started learning Cybarein, she was content to be a princess who bent the rules when it suited her. Now, though, bending the rules isn’t enough. Imagining herself in Minna’s position, preparing for a royal marriage and set to be a wife and mother and perhaps even a queen in the near future, makes her feel like she’s in a carriage pulled by wildly galloping horses, careening towards the edge of a cliff.

As long as Kai competes, I can choose him, Fifi assures herself, but the words ring hollow against the memory of King Ansgar’s glare. Father will be furious. He’ll try to force me to choose some prince or other. She wants to believe she could hold her ground against him, but doubt tightens her chest and thickens the air around her.

Would it be the right thing to choose him? she finds herself wondering. She doesn’t want to give up their friendship or Cybarein. But what if Minna’s right, and I have to be a princess and not just a person? The idea makes her sick to her stomach. She’s not sure there’s anything in the world that would make her accept someone like Prince Casimiro as a husband.

A knock at the drawing room door breaks Fifi out of her reverie. Without moving her head, she slides her eyes towards the door to find Agda, one of hers and Minna’s maids, coming in. A piece of parchment with a green wax seal is in her right hand. Fifi’s stomach drops to the floor.

“Pardon the interruption, Your Lordship, Your Highness,” Agda says after standing there a few moments. “I have a message for Princess Josefina….”

Peder looks at Agda with surprise; Fifi guesses he was too intensely focused on painting her portrait to hear her come in.

“Oh!” Peder glances a few times between the maid and his canvas before continuing. “Well. Princess Josefina, I suppose, since you have been so still and silent today, you may have a break to read it, if you wish. I need to mix up some new paint….” He continues to mutter unintelligibly under his breath about hues and pigments.

Fifi crosses to Agda with reluctant steps. “A message for me?” she asks, hoping there’s some mistake. She only knows of one country whose royals use green sealing wax.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Agda bows and hands Fifi the parchment, which bears her name and title in sickeningly familiar, elegant script. She holds it as though she’s afraid it might bite her, frozen with indecision. What if I just throw it away? What can he possibly have to say to me? I made myself quite clear, when I replied to his note…. she thinks.

“Begging your pardon, Your Highness, but His Majesty the King insisted that I deliver this to you right away, that it was more important than…this….” Agda gestures to Peder and his easel.

Fifi nods and drifts to the nearest chair. Only once she has settled herself on the embroidered cushion and taken a few deep breaths does she break the green seal and open the parchment.

To Princess Josefina, Fifi, of Aethyrozia, may Chuezoh always bless her in every conceivable way,

I trust this message finds you in good health and in good spirits. I know how a household turns upside-down when a sister is preparing for marriage, and I hope that you have not suffered as a result. Close as you and your sister are, this must be difficult for you, and I apologize, from the bottom of my heart, for the impact my rash, ill-considered actions have had on you both. Truly, I meant no harm and no disrespect. I felt it would be better for everyone to remove myself from the competition once I realized that I would prefer another. I see now that I should have gone about doing so in a different, more considerate fashion. For that reason I have endeavored to make it up to you, although I have no delusions that either yours or your sister’s good graces can be bought. The wedding gift is merely a physical manifestation of the goodwill I bear towards you.

I hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive me for the harm I have caused, and that by and by we might start over, so to speak. I find you admirable in every respect, and it is my most ardent wish to get to know each other better through written correspondence before your Quest for Favor. A three day competition is not sufficient to get to know each other, I know, and so in this way I seek to remedy that deficiency. Should an alliance between our countries become mutually desirable, I should think it best that we not be forced together as near strangers, but rather that we establish some foundation for a lasting partnership.

Whether or not you agree, I eagerly anticipate your reply. No conflict can be resolved without communication.

With contrition and hope,

Prince Didier of Vyrunia

The parchment drops to the floor from Fifi’s hand as she reads the closing. All the color leaves her face and she closes her eyes, trying to remind herself how to breathe. I was right, she despairs silently. He sent the fabric because of me. He hasn’t given up. He’s going to come back. He’s trying to persuade Father, too, and I….

“Princess? Are you all right?” Agda inquires. “You look like you’ve taken ill—”

“I have to go. Please excuse me,” Fifi interrupts. She retrieves the offending note from the floor, then rises unsteadily to her feet. Her heart pounds erratically in her chest and blood rushes in her ears.

“Please, Princess, I can fetch the apothecary for you. Just sit back down…” Agda calls, but Fifi moves past her like a woman possessed, blind and deaf to the maid’s protests.

I have to get out of here, Fifi thinks, over and over again, drowning out everything else. Her feet carry her faster and faster down the corridor until she’s almost running, holding her skirts indecorously aloft to avoid tripping on them. Outside. A courtyard. I’ll keep trying to turn into a bird, with or without Kai’s help, and then—

“Goodness, Fifi, what’s gotten into you?” Queen Ingrid exclaims, coming around a corner into her distraught younger daughter’s path. Fifi stumbles and nearly falls, trying to avoid running into her mother. The queen grabs her arm, helping her steady herself. “I was just coming to see how the portrait is coming along. What’s the matter?”

Fifi looks into her mother’s green eyes and just shakes her head, then hands her Didier’s note. She swallows hard, trying not to cry, while the queen skims over the prince’s message.

“Let’s go to my chambers,” Ingrid invites Fifi. “No one will disturb us there. Then we can talk.”

Fifi nods and clings to her mother’s hand like she used to as a little girl. Neither of them speaks as they make their way to the queen’s suite. All the while, Fifi’s mind is racing. I can’t tell her about Kai. I can’t even hint that there might be someone else. Will it be enough to tell her that I can’t accept him, after Minna liked him so much and he hurt her that way and then tried to buy our forgiveness? She suspects that this reasoning will make perfect sense to her mother but will matter little to her father. One step at a time, Fifi.

“We can use my solar, here,” Ingrid says, leading Fifi into the room in her suite with the most windows. “Should I call for some tea or mulled wine?”

“No thank you,” Fifi whispers. She doesn’t think she can speak louder without bursting into tears, the way she did in the Royal Library the day the textiles came. The day Kai held me and, for a moment, I felt safe.

“All right.” The queen closes the door and locks it. She and Fifi settle next to each other on an elegant settee near the windows. For a few moments, neither one of them speaks. “Prince Didier seems to really like you.”

“I don’t know why,” Fifi blurts out. The rest comes out like an avalanche: how she’d only danced with him once and didn’t speak with him outside of that, how she never saw him as anything but Minna’s suitor, how she knew how much Minna liked him and would never betray her sister like that, and about his first note and how she’d replied.

Ingrid listens attentively, her expression grave. “I was afraid it was something like that,” she murmurs once Fifi runs out of words. “You and Minna haven’t been the same since her Quest for Favor, and I am sorry for it. You’ve always been so close….”

“I know.” Fifi’s voice cracks.

“And this…has not made anything easier for either one of you, I’m sure.”

Fifi nods. A tear slips down her cheek.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Ingrid wraps her arms around her younger daughter. “It’s not your fault. Not a single bit of it. You’ve always had such a good heart, and I know how much you love your sister. She knows, too. I’m sure she doesn’t blame you.”

“She doesn’t,” Fifi confirms, grateful that she and Minna were able to talk about it again.

“Of course not. She just wants you to be happy, the same way you wanted her to choose someone who would make her happy.”

“She made the right choice. I believe that now.”

Ingrid smiles. “I’m glad. But, as to Didier…. Do you believe he can be the right choice for you?”

Fifi shakes her head vehemently. “Never. I know he says he doesn’t think our favor can be bought, but to hurt her like that and then send…. I don’t believe him. I don’t trust him.”

Queen Ingrid sighs and nods. “I understand. But Fifi, dear…. We all make mistakes. And he seems to be sorry for this one.”

“And Father wants me to marry him,” Fifi guesses. The words taste bitter in her mouth.

“He is…certainly looking upon an alliance with Vyrunia in a more favorable light, since Didier’s wedding gift for Minna arrived.”

“Maybe, if he hadn’t been openly favoring the Syazonians during Minna’s Quest for Favor and had been more open-minded about letting her make her own choice from all the contestants—”

“Hush, Fifi. I know. But even here you can’t say that too loudly.” Queen Ingrid glances at the door. “He will want you to write back to Didier, and to be civil about it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“It’s a great opportunity, you know, to get to know a suitor before your Quest for Favor. Minna didn’t have that.”

“Maybe she should have. But it doesn’t matter. I already know I can’t marry him.”

“Fifi, sweetheart…. With your father, it’s wisest to choose your battles. Use the letters to find reasons why Didier and Vyrunia will not be good allies for Aethyrozia, and…perhaps you’ll prevail in the battle that matters.”

Fifi considers her mother’s words. Didier made a strong case for an alliance between Aethyrozia and Vyrunia in the Questioning, as she recalls. But he was putting on a show then. Maybe he’ll mention things in passing…. she muses. The letters might also be performances. How am I to know? But she might be right. Getting my way in my Quest for Favor matters more. And behaving for now means I’ll have more time to think of other options, and they won’t punish me by forcing me to stay inside….

“I’ll write him back. And be civil,” she mutters.

“Thank you, Fifi. In the next few days, please, if you can,” Queen Ingrid embraces her daughter again.

“Can I talk to Minna about it?”

“I see no reason why not.”