Page 66 of The Tsarina's Favorite
She tore her gaze away from the sky to look at me and shrugged.
I didn’t know if it would be too forward, especially since our only point of physical contact had just occurred and that between fingertips and an arm, but I extended my wing closest to her in an offer of shelter.
“They aren’t good for anything,” I confessed, “but they’re warm.”
Her mouth opened and her eyes widened.
Her horror at my offer embarrassed me.Painfully.Like I was asking her to dance as a kindly gesture, and she reviled me for being in that chicken costume all over again.Except that this costume would never come off.I withdrew my wing, and I cast my eyes to the ground.
I couldn’t blame her.Not last time.Not this time.I was the tsarina’s pet, an ugly ridiculous thing.Faced by the day — the hour, the moment even — with the evidence of my degradation, how had I forgotten it?
“Was that an offer?”she asked.
“I thought—” I couldn’t tell her of the comparison I drew between now and months ago, but surely, she could understand my initial interpretation.“You looked horrified by the suggestion.”
“Not at all!”She scooted close beside me.“Just surprised.Does the offer still stand?”
I extended the wing out again, and she nestled herself within it.She stroked the feathers like the pelt of a fine fur.
“It’s very soft,” she said.
I didn’t thank her since I couldn’t be gracious about an anatomy I hated.
“You said that your wings aren’t good for anything?”she asked.
“I can’t fly.”
“Flying isn’t everything.If they’re warm, then they are of great good, especially here in Ilyichia.”
She shifted again, sitting slightly more to face me, but so very near.I had complained of being cold and had taken exception to how little Alaina wore in the night chill, but right now, I heated to a degree I could not attribute to feathers alone.
“You’re warm,” she said.“What need have I of a heavier cloak if I visit you?”
“Feathers will do that.”
“I thought you’d be scratchier,” she teased.
“I thought you would be too.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re so prickly in every other way.”
“At court,” she said, “that’s called survival.”
“Most survive by being false to their core.”
“I see that you’ve spent more than enough time inside to see the truth of it.”
I couldn’t tell her that I spent the bulk of my life trying to escape it.
“I like that you’re honest,” she said after a moment.“You don’t feel the need to flatter me just because I’m a princess.And the heir to Altania’s throne.”Then she added, a smile in her voice, “Although I might think a great deal more of you if you weren’t always quite so honest.”
“And if you weren’t so haughty, I might think a great deal more of you too.”
She laughed, no ulterior motives hidden behind it.No agendas or schemes or plans.Because I couldn’t do anything for her but give her my company.
“Mikalay?”
