Page 38 of The Tsarina's Favorite
At her party, I had teased about being an enchanted prince under a spell.It framed my experience in a way that would win the ladies.How could I have guessed that the tsarina might have the power to make it come true?
If Irena were alive, none of this would have ever happened.If Irena were alive, I would be with her in Varnasia, and Ilyichia would be but a distant nightmare consigned to my past.If Irena were alive....
But she wasn’t.
When we first met, she did not know I was a prince.Her uncle, who made our introduction, told me later that she asked him to introduce her to the handsome Ilyichian idiot whose attempts at speaking Varnasian could only be described as comical.I would have given up everything for her.I tossed my religion to the wayside.I kept my titles quiet.We rented a villa in a remote village.We had been happy.Life had been simple and easy.Would that it could have always been.But I did not know if Irena’s devotion could have outlasted this new phase, even if it was the truest love I had ever known.I didn’t think anyone's could.Not now.Not like this.Not Alexei.Not Irena.Not Klessa or Drook or Agara or Grigga.They had loved a man.Granted, a foolish, flawed man, but still a man despite the humiliation.
What was I now?
I staggered to my feet.I tested my footing, unsure with the talons but finding balance.I avoided the drying vomit as I staggered over to the water pail.I lifted it from the ground and held it for several prolonged moments during which I debated the wisdom of this.And then I looked down into it.Something hideous stared back at me with its black scaled and feathered face.The beak, sharp-edged and rigid, suggested something carnivorous.But the monster had my green eyes, and those eyes filled with tears.
I bent my head and set the beak within the water.It drank.I drank.The monster and I drank together.And when we were done, I set the pail down and breathed.
In.Out.
I was so tired.I had lost so much and endured even more.And I couldn’t fight against magic.
In.Out.
I turned and looked at the pathetic cell to which I had been relegated as the newest member of the tsarina’s menagerie.I couldn’t live like this.
In.
The former Prince Mikhail had been executed anyway.No one would miss me.
Out.
I stared at my hands again, the hooked razor talons offering me a new sense of hope.I tested one against the toughened skin of my wrist and broke through the surface with only a little trouble.
In.
It was time to give up.
Out.
XIII.
