A Royal Ruse

Chapter 36

Side by Side

Princess Zita's body lay so still. Nothing stirred besides the balmy wind.

Nothing, that is, until the sound of someone gruffly clearing their throat disturbed the afternoon peace.

She opened her eyes with a start.

"I didn't mean to interrupt."

Zita propped herself up. One eye scrunched shut, the other looking up at the prince being backlit by an aggressive halo of sunlight.

Prince Adair stood before her, an unmoving awkward shadow.

"Are you going to sit?" Princess Zita didn't care for company but if he had plans of staying, which he clearly did, she would prefer it if she didn't have to crane her neck and squint to see him.

He made his descent to the ground, with movements that looked clunkier than usual. He sat with a thud and a wince.

Zita clutched her face in realization. "Oh I feel horrible," the princess said, suddenly remembering the prince's injuries, "I didn't mean - you can stand if you want to."

Prince Adair waved his hand dismissively.

His face, although much less swollen, was still bruised around the nose. There were also some grey-looking rings around his eyes which Zita was pretty sure didn't come from the fight with Gadrian. She knew those rings well because the same ones cradled hers.

They sat in silence. Neither of them addressed the fate that loomed over them like a proud elm.

"Have you eaten?"

Zita's brows lifted. "I have." She lied.

Her eating habits had turned sporadic lately. Hence the late-night foraging that led to her conversation with the king.

"Oh, I only ask because I thought maybe - well I was looking for you. I wondered if you would want to have lunch....together. With me."

Zita remained silent. She very much didn't want to have lunch with him. She didn't want to have lunch with anyone. She wanted to dissolve into the air like the morning dew.

"I asked Sahali where I might find you and she said you have been spending most of your time right here, by the rosebushes. You get up before sunrise, and walk over here?"

"I haven't been sleeping well of late. I don't feel like my sadness is an inconvenience here."

Adair nodded slowly. He pinched his brows together as he looked out into the distance.

"I almost drowned in the lake over there." He pointed past the hulking greens behind the palace, to a sliver of shimmering blue. "I dived under trying to grab Oziakel's feet to drag him under and then my foot ended up getting stuck in a particularly tricky piece of algae. It took a while for Oziakel to realize what was happening and that I wasn't playing some sort of trick on him."

To Zita, there were some people she just couldn't imagine as children no matter how hard she tried. In her mind they must have somehow been placed on this earth fully formed, personalities intact. She was shocked by how easily her imagination pictured a young Adair splashing around the pool with his brother. It wasn't a leap for her mind to conjure up sun-drenched days, children running, shrieking, and being summoned back to the palace, returning a good few shades darker than when they left.

She couldn't help but think of her upbringing. She remembered her childhood as exceedingly lavish but crushingly lonely. She had always wanted siblings and fellow kids to play with. Every once in a while a noble family would come visit but there was never much fun to be had. Her mother forbade her from partaking in any activity that could injure her or detract from her beauty in any way, which in effect made Zita quite the house cat. She always thought she enjoyed the indoors, but now she wondered whether that was just something she told herself to not feel as though she was caged.