Page 41 of The Tsarina's Favorite
“You cannot tell anyone that you were ever human.If you do not savor living the rest of your life as a bird, I suggest you stay silent and play your role as my pet.”
“That’s not an objective.What great task must I accomplish?”
“No great task at all.Indeed, it’s like the children’s stories.Someone has to tell you that they love you.”
“Love me?”Dizziness struck me.“Like this?!”
“It’s always been so easy for you.After all, isn’t this what you told everyone at the party?All those ladies could not tear themselves away!”
Despite what the tsarina claimed, I wasn’t an easy man to love, never had been.I didn’t know my father.My mother tolerated me as her eldest, but no more.Alexei might have loved me once, but not now.Marfa respected me but did not love me, and I had never expected her to.State marriages rarely involved love, even if she and I had managed to make it work for all those years.There had been mistresses and women who wanted me, the tsarina among them, because I was wealthy, and handsome, and eligible.But it had never been about me.Irena alone had been the person who wanted me, loved me, took me for all that I was.But with only two scant years together, would she too have grown discontent when I did not live up to her idea of me?
Drook and Klessa and my unlikely friends alone had shown me that I wasn’t wholly without merit, for they had loved me even without the trappings that others had once desired me for.Even older, set in my ways, prickly and disillusioned by life, they had claimed me as a friend.But I did not think that would be enough.
There would never be another Irena.I wasn’t good enough or talented enough or kind enough or soft enough or tolerant enough or whatever it was that made people lovable.I could twist myself into knots trying to be something someone would want, and I would never be enough.Who I was, beyond wealth and titles, beyond feathers and a face, didn’t matter to anyone.And if it had, I would still be found wanting.
“I can help you,” she offered, “if you let me help you.”
“Help how?”I asked.“No one is going to want me.”
“That’s not true.”She abandoned the stool for the edge of my cot and took my hand, my clawed, feathered hand, in hers.“You forget, my dear.”She leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss on my cheek.“I have always wanted you.”
XIV.
“Do you want us to removethat thing from your room yet?"
“I don’t trust anyone to look after it properly,” she said.
I burrowed deeper into the blankets.I probably should have been listening to their plans for me, but no outcome could be anything but depressing in my present circumstances.
The guards wanted the strange, mythical animal in the menagerie where I could be viewed by all and do no harm.And the tsarina wanted me near to her so that I would not be viewed by anyone while I fulfilled my true purpose in her bed.
“It did not take capture well,” the tsarina said.“I would like it to be docile when I finally introduce it to court.”
I almost lost what little food I had in me.I wasn’t the fallen Prince Mikhail this time, but if I returned to court, I would be subject to a different kind of humiliation.I uncovered myself and sat, unable to pretend ignorance.
When she came in, she paused.“Oh, you’re awake.”
