The Sleeping Prince - Melinda Salisbury Page 0,105
heard the music he played to lure her.” She lapses into silence, her brow furrowed. Then she takes a deep breath. “Dimia was the first name that came to me once I got to Scarron. I was escorted part of the way there by her brother, Taul. Merek had dispatched him and some others to try and find her. And I didn’t want to be Twylla any more. I was done with her, and her life – lives – so when Javik asked my name, I said it without thinking. I’d already coloured my hair so I could leave Lormere unnoticed, and it seemed fitting: new hair, new name. New life.” She pauses and I feel as though I’m missing huge parts of this tale: Daunen Embodied was desperately important to Lormere. Surely they wouldn’t let her walk away from it?
As if she’s read my thoughts, she continues. “I left, if not at Merek’s desire, then with his understanding. I had to go and he respected that. He helped me. It was his money that paid for my cottage, and that we were going to use to rescue your mother.”
“Weren’t you betrothed to him?”
“I was.” Twylla hangs her head. “I knew your brother,” she says. Her voice has changed. “When I saw you on my doorstep, I thought at first he’d sent you. Then when you said you sought a Lormerian named Dimia, I knew that he hadn’t.”
“Why would he send me to you?”
She pauses. “I was betrothed to Merek, but I had a brief … relationship with Lief.”
“Relationship? With Lief?”
She nods. “He was assigned to guard me and we became close. It’s why I left the castle.”
“What happened?”
“It didn’t work out as I’d hoped.”
“He hurt you?” I say quietly.
She pulls the strangest expression, looking as though she might fly apart, but at the last moment she pulls herself together and meets my eye, her gaze defiant.
“I thought you were him, you know. When you knocked. You have the same knock. Isn’t that strange, to think something like that is a family trait. But of course it would be. I’ll bet one or even both of your parents knocked in the same way.”
Now it all makes sense: why she looked so hopeful and yet so scared when she answered her front door, why she looked so sad at my father’s grave. But it doesn’t explain why she’d want to help me.
“Were you disappointed?”
She takes a deep breath, looking down at her hands. “My heart was. My head wasn’t. Most days I’m at war with myself. My head wins, usually. And for that I’m glad.”
“I’m sorry,” I say finally, because I don’t know what else to offer.
“You’re not responsible for it,” she says evenly, though her gaze drops. “He spoke about you. And your mother. Told me about your farm. And your father.”
It makes me want to cry, imagining Lief miles away, confiding in this strange girl about us.
“Why did you offer to help us? If you and he … If it didn’t end well, why would you help us?”
“I’m not glad he’s dead,” she says, ignoring my question. “No matter what happened. I don’t want you to think that.”
She closes her eyes, as though praying, and I watch her in the thin light from the candle. She has an oval face, a neat chin. Her cheeks are freckled, and the corners of her mouth turn down slightly, making her look pensive, even when her face is relaxed. The more I look at her, the more I think she’s pretty, which surprises me because I didn’t notice it first. Lirys is obviously beautiful; all my life I’ve been used to how people react to her, how they smile automatically on seeing her, as though her beauty is a treat to them. Twylla’s beauty is the kind that sneaks up on you. I wonder if Lief thought the same.
“What do you see?” she says suddenly, and my face reddens. She looks at me, fixing me with green eyes, darker in this light. “Tell me, when you look at me, what do you see?”
“A girl,” I say, and she smiles. “What should I see?”
“You look like him,” she says. “Before you said a word to me I knew you were his sister. Same eyes, same shape to your face. You have the same smile. You’re very like him too.” She pauses, then sits back, curling her legs beneath her. “I know you want to know what happened. And I will tell you all