It’s the look of someone enduring one final, crushing indignity after enduring oceans of hardship. It’s the death of hope, and I have witnessed its like far too often in the past year.
She’s wrong, though, about this. I can’t spare her the truth of what Lorcan has become, but I can disabuse her of the notion that he and I are together.
“Zosia. You’re so thin! What are you doing here?” I rush at her. Try to, anyway. I’m not as agile as I was a few months ago. “I missed you. I was soworriedabout you. We all were.”
“I’m fine,” she says quickly, in that way that means the opposite, but she won’t talk about it. I throw my arms around her waist and squeeze. She’s so physically diminished that even with my rounded front, my forearms overlap at the small of her back. It’s terrifying, how close we came to losing her. Zosia strokes my long hair. “You are not thin. Quite the opposite. Tell me everything.”
Her voice is heartbreakingly brittle, yet steady.Oh, no, she thinks it’s for the best.No, no—anything but that. “I’m due sometime after the Autumn Harvest, not that there will be much of one this year,” I said quickly, releasing her. “Tovian is over the moon.”
Zosia’s confusion knits her brows together over the bridge of her nose. “Tovian, who?”
“The man responsible for this,” I rub my stomach. “It wasn’t exactly planned.” Then, rambling because I can’t stand the thought of her asking about Lorcan and me, I say, “Ansi Tribe. Believe it or not, they exist. Without them, Auralia would have fallen during the initial invasion. Tovi and Lorcan are out rounding up the last of the pirates and giving them a suitably violent goodbye.”
As long as he stays gone, and lets Zosia believe he’s forgotten her, I’ll stay silent on the matter of my onetime friend’s less-than-noble behavior. I owe him that much. She’ll find out soon enough, anyway. Rumors about the Hero of Auralia run from the Timberlands to Oceanside. She’s probably heard whispers already.
Tovian thinks he regrets the way he’s been living. He says Lorcan’s been on a tear ever since leaving Covari Village while Zosia was still unconscious and fighting for her life. Taking stupid risks, like he’s trying to get himself killed.
It might be a mercy if he did.
A small part of me thinks I’m being too harsh. But then I recall the maid’s guilty expression, and remember his total lack of feeling or respect for his partner, and I know he’s gone. Really gone. Never coming back. Nothing but the killer remains.
Zosia doesnotneed what he’s become.
I stay quiet the next day when Zosia outlines her plan to marry an outsider to get money to begin rebuilding, even when my father attempts to suggest she consider a suitor closer to home. Hinting broadly that an alliance with the Hero of Auralia would be a politically astute match.
He’s right, theoretically. But Lorcan threw away his chance to have everything he ever dreamed of. I’m not sure how much my father knows.
Lorcan, you stupid ass. You should have gone after her sooner.You should have had a queen, and Zosia should have had you to help her through this.
This sham marriage is her sacrifice. It’s like she accepts her father’s belief that the only value she has is the baby she’ll eventually have to produce. King Rohan was a good man. Not a great king, but a decent one. But he was a shitty father to Zosia, in retrospect.
Pushing his grieving daughter into the role of High Priestess at such a young age, wholly untrained. She’s never talked about the trips to Mount Astreia, but I’ve known Zosia since we were little. The first time she went, she was excited. Sad about her mother, but ready to fill Queen Ilíana’s shoes as best her ten-year-old feet could. After that first visit, though…
Zosia, the bright, curious little princess everyone adored? Her light began to dim. Outwardly, she tried to keep up appearances, but the more Rohan sent the message that she had nothing individually valuable to offer the world—her interests were inappropriate, her talents useless, her ideas unwanted—the more she quietly rebelled. My father commiserated with Rohan about headstrong daughters, never seeing that his friend wasn’t handling single parenthood well.
Until that night in Beijing, when it became clear she wasdonepretending to be a replica of her mother.
All I knew was that my friend had gotten more reserved, sulkier, and more stubborn with each passing year. I didn’t understand why Lorcan was so obsessed with her. It made no sense to me. But he remembered the bubbly, pretty girl he’d seen once as a boy. He was sure she was still there. Hiding.
He was right.
I mull the events that brought us to this juncture of thin hope and despair as Zosia outlines her plan to me and my father. She barely touches the food. Instead of putting it in her mouth, she shreds it into tiny pieces. Later, when I search for severe malnourishment symptoms, I learn that it’s a common trait of people who’ve been to the brink of starvation, however they got there.
So, as much as I hate hearing Zosia dispassionately explain her plan to play The Bachelorette—it wasn’t even a good TV show, much less worth imitating in real life—I say nothing to dissuade her from the idea. I can’t. Not in good conscience. The wheat fields that once stretched for days up the Central Valley are overgrown with weeds and prairie grass. Most of the sheep that once fed and clothed our population have been devoured by predators. Our horses run wild. We need money. The only one with a plan to get it is Zosia.
And then,heburst in, ruining it.
Lorcan, wild-eyed and silent, stares her down as though Zosia is the one foe who can strike terror into his heart. I’ve never seen that wild look before. But the determination is familiar. I knew, then, that if she didn’t make good on her plan to marry elsewhere soon, he was going to try and win her back. Nothing has ever stopped him from pursuing her—except Zosia’s own resistance. All I can do is close my eyes and pray she never discovered what he’d become since waking up.
#
I catch Lorcan heading out the next morning. Zosia needs to stay put. She needs time to rest and recover, but the country can’t give her that. Anger spikes in my heart. All this damn country does is take and take and take from her, until she has nothing left to give. Still, we demand ever greater sacrifices. Everything she has. We’ve all sacrificed. Her more than anyone. Her dreams and aspirations, her heart, her mind, her body—she’s given it all, and gotten damn little in return.
Let her be happy. Reila above, give this woman something to live for.
I don’t think she’d take her own life. But there’s no question Zosia thinks about it. Has for years.
Perhaps Hallie, the princess we met when we were at university in Scotland, will help Zosia find someone who can appreciate her for who and what she is. A man who will be gentle and understanding while she figures out how to run her country. One who will treat her with dignity and respect, while pouring millions of dollars into making this island habitable again.
