“That looks heavy. Can I help you?” he asked the young boy.
Silver lined his small eyes, and his lower lip quivered as he looked to the prince and then at his father up ahead.
He shook his head and went on his way.
“Keep up, Jakob!” His father yelled.
The boy stumbled on with too thin legs and arms.
Luci dismounted and brought the horses to where the prince stood, staring off after the boy.
“Is everywhere like this?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Luci answered.
The truth was that she was nearly as sheltered as he was. She may have been a servant in name, but she was loved like a noble. The people’s struggles were memories from her early childhood that she tried very hard to forget.
“You grew up like this?” he asked, still staring after the boy.
“Worse. That child has a father. Piccadilly Street in Thornhollow is where people go to be forgotten. Do you see that little girl with the tattered doll, the smile she wears? That doesn’texist on Piccadilly Street. Only men who take and women who exist. Children who fight to be invisible. Every town has a Piccadilly Street.”
Silence stretched along with the setting sun that painted the sky above them with a sickly red hue. Like the sun wanted him to see what his Kingdom was made of as much as the people who toiled, oblivious to them.
He was silent as he took in the truth around them, throat bobbing. Luci couldn’t bring herself to look away. There was a vision in her mind of the crown prince, but this moment threatened to paint it with new colors. It was in the way she held her breath, chest aching. In the way her shoulders ached with the tightness she refused to release.
“I knew things were harder, but not this,” he said.
“Now you know,” she whispered.
Silver lined his eyes, and he blinked it away, clearing his throat.
“Now I know,” he agreed.
And in those words, she knew that the painting in her mind was a fair rendition of him. Laugh lines and all. Born to privilege, but integrity in his bones. It was the reason he was standing in this town in the first place. A hope. A fool’s dream. And so it was no surprise what he said next.
“I’ll fix this even if I can’t bring back magic. Midnight knows we have enough in the capital. Why should we have much when they have little?” he asked.
Luci swallowed hard, feeling like she was somewhere in between reality and a dream.
“Your marriage tour is supposed to make them forget what they don’t have,” Luci said.
His gaze jerked towards hers, and in silence, he spoke a million words she didn’t understand. But goodness knew shewanted to. She wanted to know what each one meant down to its most finite understanding.
“Luci,” he began.
Maybe she wanted to understand, but with the sound of her name on his lips, she knew she couldn’t.
Sniffing, she stared at the gravel beneath her boots.
“We should go,” she said.
Not waiting for him, she walked the horses to the inn until he gently took Grimsbane’s reins from her, brushing her hand as he did. A silent apology. One she couldn’t accept, even though she wanted to.
A stable sat to the right of the winding stairs, and a young man sat, blade of hay sitting between his teeth as he stared off into nothing.
“We’d like to have our horses tended to,” Luci said quietly.
It felt like the world was made of glass and any loud noise might shatter it into a million pieces.