Fairest: The Lunar Chronicles: Levana's Story (17 page)

“At first I’d thought it was a game to you,” Evret continued when it was clear he’d made his point. “Like it was with your sister. Trying to get me to want you like that. I thought you’d grow tired of me, and eventually you’d leave me alone.” A line formed between his eyebrows. “But when you told me to marry you, I realized it was already too late. I didn’t know what you would do if I fought you—
really
fought you. You’re very good at your manipulations—you were even back then—and I knew I couldn’t resist if you forced me to accept. And I worried that if I kept fighting, you might … you could do something rash.”

“What did you think I was going to do?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, Levana. Have me arrested? Or executed?”

She laughed, although it wasn’t funny. “Executed for what?”

His jaw tightened. “Think about it. You could have told anyone that I’d forced myself on you, or threatened you, or—anything. You could have said anything, and it would be my word against yours, and we both know I would lose. I couldn’t risk it. Not with Winter. I couldn’t let you ruin what little I had left.”

Levana stumbled backward as if she’d been struck. “I would never have done that to you.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” He was practically yelling now, and she hated it. He almost never yelled. “You held all the power. You’ve
always
held all the power. It’s so exhausting to fight you all the time. So I just went along with it. At least being your husband allowed Winter and me some protection. Not much, but…” He clenched his teeth, looking like he regretted telling her so much, and then shook his head. His tone quieted. “I figured that eventually you would tire of me, and I would take Winter far away from here, and it would be over.”

Levana’s heart throbbed. “It’s been almost ten years.”

“I know.”

“And now? Are you still waiting for it to be over?”

His expression softened. The anger was gone, replaced with something infuriatingly kind, though his words were heartbreakingly cruel. “Are you still waiting for me to fall in love with you?”

She braced herself, and nodded. “Yes,” she whispered.

His brow wrinkled. With sadness. With regret. “I’m sorry, Levana. I’m so sorry.”

“No. Don’t say that. I know that you lo—that you care about me. You’re the
only
one who’s ever cared about me. Ever since … on my sixteenth birthday, you were the only one to give me a gift, remember?” She fished the pendant from beneath her collar. “I still wear it, all the time. Because of you. Because I love you, and I know…” She gulped, trying in vain to swallow back her mounting sobs. “I know it means you love me too. You always have.
Please.
”

His eyes were wet too. Filled, not with love, but remorse.

In a broken voice, he said, “It was Sol’s gift.”

Levana froze. “What?”

“The pendant. It was Sol’s idea.”

The words trickled into her ears like a slow-draining faucet. “Sol…? No. Garrison said it was from you. There was a card. It was from
you.
”

“She’d seen you admiring that quilt in her store,” Evret said. His voice was tender, like speaking to a small child on the verge of a breakdown. “The one of Earth. That’s why she thought you might like the pendant too.”

She clutched the pendant in her fist, but no matter how tight she squeezed, she could feel her hope passing like water through her fingers. “But … Sol? Why? Why would she…?”

“I told her about how I’d seen you impersonating her. That day, before the coronation.”

Levana’s mouth went dry, the mortification she’d felt that day quick to return.

“I think she felt bad for you. She thought you must be lonely, that you needed a friend. So she asked me to look out for you, when I was at the palace.” He gulped. “To be kind.”

He seemed sympathetic, but Levana knew it was just a cover for his true feelings. Pity. He pitied her.

Sol
had pitied her.

Sickly, irrelevant Solstice Hayle.

“The pendant was her idea,” Evret said, looking away. “But the card was mine. I
did
want to be your friend. I did care about you. I still do.”

She released the pendant faster than she would have released a burning ember.

“I don’t understand. I don’t—” She choked on a sob. She felt like she was drowning, and desperation was clawing at her, her lungs trying to breathe, but there was no air left. “Why can’t you even
try,
Evret? Why can’t you even try to love me?” Crossing the room, she knelt before him, taking his hands into hers. “If you would just let me love you, let me show you that I could be the wife you wanted, that we could—”

“Stop. Please, stop.”

She gulped.

“You’re always so desperate to make this work, to turn our marriage into something it isn’t. Haven’t you ever just stopped to wonder what else might be out there? What you might be missing out on by trying so hard to force this to be real between us?” He squeezed her hands. “I told you a long time ago that by choosing me, you were giving up your chance to find happiness.”

“You’re wrong. I can’t be happy—not without you.”

His shoulders sank. “Levana…”

“I mean it. Think about it. We’ll start over. From the beginning. Pretend that I’m just a princess again, and you’re the new royal guard, coming to protect me. We’ll act like this is our first meeting.” Suddenly giddy with the prospect, Levana leaped back to her feet. “You should start by bowing to me, of course. And introducing yourself.”

He massaged his brow. “I can’t.”

“Of course you can. It can’t hurt to try, not after everything we’ve been through.”

“No, I can’t pretend that we’ve never met, when you’re still…” He flicked his fingers at her.

“Still what?”

“Still looking like
her.
”

Levana pursed her lips. “But … but this is how I look now. This is me.”

Dragging his hand over his coiled hair, Evret stood. For a moment, Levana thought he was going to play along. That he would bow to her, and they would begin anew. But instead, he shuffled around her and turned down the blankets on the bed. “I’m tired, Levana. Let’s talk about this more tomorrow, all right?”

Tomorrow.

Because they would still be married tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. For all eternity, he would be the husband who had never loved her. Wanted her. Trusted her.

She shuddered, more afraid than she’d been in a long, long time.

After so many years of wrapping herself in the glamour, it was nearly impossible to let it go. Her brain struggled to release her grip on the manipulation.

Heart hammering, she slowly turned around.

Evret was in the middle of pulling his shirt over his head. He tossed it on the bed and looked up.

Gasping, he stumbled back a step, nearly knocking a glowing sconce off the wall.

Levana shrank away, wrapping her arms around her waist. She ducked her head, so that her hair fell over half her face, hiding what it could. But she resisted the urge to cover her scars with her hands. She refused to pull up the glamour again.

The glamour he had always loved.

The glamour he had always hated.

At first, it seemed that he wasn’t even breathing. He just stared at her, speechless and horrified. Finally, he closed his mouth and placed a shaking hand on the bedpost to steady himself. Forced down a gulp.

“This is it,” she said, as new tears started to leak from her good eye. “The truth that I didn’t want you to see. Are you happy now?”

His blinks were intense, and she could imagine how difficult it was for him to hold her gaze. To not look away, when he so clearly wanted to.

“No,” he said, his voice rough. “Not happy.”

“And if you had known this from the beginning, could you ever have loved me?”

His mouth worked for a long time, before he responded, “I don’t know. I…” He shut his eyes, collecting himself, before meeting her full on. This time, he didn’t flinch. “It’s not the way you look, or don’t look, Levana. It’s that you have controlled and manipulated me for
ten years
.” His expression twisted. “I wish you would have shown me a long time ago. Maybe things would have been different. I don’t know. But now we’ll never find out.”

He turned away. Levana stared at his back, feeling not like a queen at all. She was a stupid child, a pathetic girl, a fragile, destroyed thing.

“I love you,” she whispered. “That much has always been real.”

He tensed, but if he had any response, she left before she could hear it.

*   *   *

“Come here, baby sister. I want to show you something.”
Channary smiled her warmest smile, waving Levana over excitedly.

Instincts told her to be cautious, as Channary’s enthusiasm had turned into cruelty before. But she was hard to resist, and even as Levana’s instincts were telling her to back away, her legs carried her forward.

Channary knew better than to use her gift on soft-minded children, especially her young sister. She’d been scolded by their nannies a hundred times.

In response, she’d only gotten more secretive about it.

Channary was kneeling before the holographic fireplace of their shared nursery, the gentle warmth in contrast to the roaring flames and crackling logs in the illusion. With the exception of celebratory candles, fire was strictly forbidden on Luna. The smoke would too quickly fill up the domes, poisoning their precious air supply. But holographic fireplaces had been popular for some time now, and Levana always liked to watch how the flames danced and defied predictability, how the wooden logs smoldered and crumbled and sparked. She would watch them for hours, amazed at how the fire seemed to always be burning low, eating into the logs, and yet never went out altogether.

“Watch,” said Channary, once Levana settled beside her. She had set a small bowl of glittering white sand on the carpet, and now she took a pinch of the sand and flicked it at the holographic flames.

Nothing happened.

Gut tightening with apprehension, Levana looked at her sister. Channary’s dark eyes were dancing with the firelight.

“They’re not real, right?” Leaning over, Channary passed her hand through the flames. Her fingers came away unblemished. “Just an illusion. Just like a glamour.”

Levana was still too young to have much control over her own glamour, but she did have a sense that it wasn’t exactly the same thing as this holographic fireplace.

“Go ahead,” said Channary. “Touch it.”

“I don’t want to.”

Channary glared at her. “Don’t be a baby. It isn’t real, Levana.”

“I know, but … I don’t want to.” Some instinct made Levana curl her hands in her lap. She knew it wasn’t real. She knew the holograph wouldn’t hurt. But she also knew that fire was dangerous, and illusions were dangerous, and being tricked into believing things that weren’t real was often the most dangerous thing of all.

Snarling, Channary grabbed Levana’s arm and tugged her forward, nearly pulling Levana’s entire torso into the flames. Levana shrieked and struggled to pull back, but Channary held firm, holding her small hand into the glowing flames of the holograph.

She felt nothing, of course. Just that same subtle warmth that the fire always released, to make it seem more authentic.

After a moment, Levana’s heartbeat started to temper itself.

“See?” said Channary, though Levana wasn’t sure what point she’d just made. She
still
didn’t want to touch the holograph, and as soon as her sister released her, she pulled her hand back and inched away on the carpet.

Channary ignored the retreat.

“Now—watch.” Reaching behind her, Channary produced a book of matches that she must have taken from the altar in the great hall. She had struck one before Levana could begin to question it, and leaned over, pressing the match into the bottom of the holograph.

There should not have been anything flammable. The hearth should not have caught fire. But it wasn’t long before Levana could see a new brightness among the smoldering logs. The real flame licked and sputtered, and after a while Levana could make out the edges of dried leaves charring and curling. The kindling had been hidden by the holograph before, but as the real fire took hold, its brightness far outshone the illusion.

Levana’s shoulders knotted. A warning in her head told her to get up and walk away, to go tell someone that Channary was breaking the rules, to leave fast before the fire grew any larger.

But she didn’t. Channary would only call her a baby again, and if Levana dared to get the crown princess in trouble, Channary would find ways to punish her later.

She stayed rooted to the carpet, watching the flames grow and grow.

Once they were almost as big as the holograph, Channary again reached into the little bowl of sand—or maybe it was sugar?—and tossed a pinch into the flames.

This time they turned blue, crackled and sparked and faded away.

Levana gasped.

Channary did it a few more times, growing more daring as her experiment succeeded. Two pinches at a time, now. Here, an entire handful, like little fireworks.

“Do you want to try?”

Levana nodded. Pinched the tiny crystals and tossed them into the flames. She laughed as the blue sparklers billowed up toward the top of the enclosure and crashed into the stone wall where there should have been a chimney.

Rising to her feet, Channary began searching through the nursery, finding anything that might be entertaining to watch burn. A stuffed giraffe that smoked and charred and took a long time to catch flame. An old doll shoe that melted and furled. Wooden game pieces that were slowly scorched beneath their protective glaze.

But while Levana was entranced by the flames—so very real, with their smell of ashes and the almost painful heat blasting against her face and the smoke that was darkening the wallpaper overhead—she could tell that Channary was growing more anxious with each experiment. Nothing was as enchanting as the simple, elegant blue and orange sparks from the sugar bowl.

Snip.