Page 8 of Heart’s Rescue

“Poetry,” he says.

“What?”

“I’m terrible at it.” Petya picks up his glass, raises it to his lips, and then seems disappointed to discover he’s already emptied it. “Figures, sure, I’ll resolve accounts all day. But counting syllables? Iambic stars-cursed pentameter?”

He makes a sound in the back of his throat like he’s choking. I almost smile.

“Sounds like a good punishment,” I say.

“If you’re a freaking sadist,” Petya answers.

We fall silent again, and I think of my brother bent over a desk trying to twist his mathematical mind into iambic pentameter. Did she ask him to write sixty lines, I wonder, or sixty poems? I almost want to ask him what happened to the poems he wrote, but I bite my tongue. I already know. I can imagine the flames where Mother must have thrown them.

“Look, Arryn,” Petya says.

He spins around a little until he’s facing me. His eyes are sort of shiny and unfocused, and I realize he’s probably drunk. How odd. Have I ever seen him drunk before?

“I came here when I heard about the prince disappearing because—” He pauses and seems to gather himself. “Because I thought you might be— happy.”

I frown, wondering if I’d just heard him correctly.

“Or, not happy.” He waves his hand in front of him, just like he did at the breakfast table earlier today. “Just, relieved. Maybe you’d want someone to talk to.”

He gives me a strange kind of smile as if he’s trying to say, hey, I’m someone.

“I, um, thank you?” I stutter, unsure of how exactly to respond.

I haven’t been around many drunk people, aside from my beloved, and my beloved prince has never once made an offer like that. Is this typical wine talk?

“Because, you know,” Petya continues, “you don’t have to live the life Mother designed for you.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” I ask.

He laughs again, hard as a knife’s edge. “But I wanted this,” he replies. “I wanted the company. I wanted the headquarters to move from this dead-end town to the Silver City.”

“And I want the prince,” I reply.

As I say it, something catches in my mind. Something Petya said earlier today.

“Arryn,” Petya says, shaking his head. “He’s a stars-cursed idiot. Nothing like his sister. This kingdom was doomed the day he was born.”

I’m too caught in thought to get offended by my brother’s treasonous rant. Besides, it’s nothing I haven’t heard before, although usually I take the time to defend my beloved.

“Hey, Petya,” I say, “did you mean what you said earlier? About some shepherd woman finding Prince Folwynn and marrying him?”

Petya blinks once, then twice.

“That Folwynn’s lost in the Barrier Mountains,” I continue, prompting him, “and he’ll get rescued by someone? And they’ll marry him?”

Petya shakes his head slowly and then makes a noise in the back of his throat that isn’t exactly a laugh. “You really like him, huh?”

“I love him,” I reply.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Our eyes meet. I turn away, irritated. Petya huffs as if he too is finished with this particular argument.

“Look,” Petya says, “all I meant earlier is that, if I’m some poor mud-farming shepherd in the Barrier Mountains and I find an idiot with a crown wandering through my backyard, I’m turning that to my advantage.”

“Through marriage?” I try to sound skeptical. Not excited.

“Eh, why not?” Petya shrugs. “Say the farmer’s a good-looking little thing or has a young daughter. Or, hells, even a good-looking son. I mean, if the Royal Family was sticking to custom, the prince should have married years ago. He’s getting up there in age.”

“He is not!” I snap. He’s only two years older than me, after all.

Petya waves his hand at me, then burps.

“Also, Folwynn couldn’t negotiate his way out of a burlap sack. He’d be easy pickings for someone clever.” Petya shrugs again. “Which, I guess, is why Mom picked him.”

I tried not to let my expression show how quickly my heart is suddenly hammering away at the inside of my ribcage. I murmur a string of thank yous to Petya as I lead him toward the door, all while trying to give the impression that he’d just won some conversational contest, or at least that I was going to think really hard about what he’d said.

And I was. I was already thinking about it.

Because, whatever else I may or may not be, I’ve always been clever.