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“Why don’t you tell me about it, and I’ll see what I can make of them?”
I inhale deeply. “I care so much about Ivy. I don’t know… I don’t know if I’d still want to keep this body and live a sort-of human life if she wasn’t in it. Just being around her makes me so happy. I think that’s what you would call love, isn’t it? I love her.”
The words spark a flare in my chest that’s both warm and sharp. I know they’re true before Casimir even replies.
“You’re the best judge of your own emotions,” he says. “But from that description, I’d agree.”
I grimace. “But isn’t love supposed to be good? It’s supposed to bring joy and make your life brighter and… It should be those things. Why would it hurt me too?”
Casimir rests a gentle hand on my back. “How does it hurt you?”
I grapple with my tangled feelings before I can wrestle a coherent explanation out of them. “When Lothar took Ivy—when we found out what he’d made her do, how she’d had to hurt herself, and we didn’t know if we’d be able to rescue her—I’ve never been in pain like that, not even when I’ve been injured in this body. And I couldn’t get away from it. There was nothing to heal or bandage. It wrapped around me from the inside, like… like I was trapped in the pain.”
My voice drops. “It reminded me of when the scourge sorcerers first stuffed me into this body, when it was still clay and I couldn’t move it. When I really was trapped.”
“Ah.” Casimir’s voice stays soft. “That must have been very frightening.”
“Yes.” I swallow thickly. “But it shouldn’t matter now. She’s here. She’s safe. I just—I was worried about her, and then I remembered how it would feel if I lost her, and all of that together was too much for a moment.”
“That’s understandable,” Casimir says. “Especially when you’re still getting used to human emotions. The rest of us have had our whole lives to make peace with the interplay between joy and pain.”
I glance sideways at him. “What do you mean?”
“Opposites always go together.” He takes back his hand to interlace his fingers in demonstration. “You can’t have happiness without sadness, peace without violence, love without heartbreak. They’re equal sides of the same coin. One might dwindle to give the other more prominence, but circumstances can always flip it back. And that’s how it should be. The joyful parts wouldn’t feel as powerful if we could take them for granted.”
That’s what my old existence was like. Nothing meant particularly more than anything else, all just minor blips in my awareness. It does feel dull, looking back on my past experiences now.
I rub my face. “I don’t want to feel anything bad about loving Ivy. I don’t want to be afraid of caring about her. I don’t want to hold back from loving her more… but the more she matters to me, the more it could hurt. How do you ‘make peace’ with that?”
Casimir lifts his shoulders in a subtle shrug. “To some extent, we don’t. That’s why we fight so hard to protect the things we care about—which I think is a virtue, not a flaw. But it’s also in how you look at it. Yes, in some ways, love is a cage that chains us to the person we’ve fallen for. Doesn’t it also open up so many possibilities that were once closed to us? How many things have you discovered or experienced that you wouldn’t have if you didn’t care about Ivy?”
The question sends a flood of images through my mind. The feel of Ivy’s cheek against my fingers, the brilliance of her smile. The exhilaration of riding alongside her, the rush of pride when she turns to me for comfort. The heady pleasure of our bodies merging.
There’s a whole world inside this love. That’s why I don’t want to lose it.
Will I really, though, no matter what happens? We’ll still have been together; I’ll still have meant so much to her and her to me.
No one can erase what we’ve already shared.
The lingering ache melts away with that realization. I smile at Casimir. “Thank you. I hadn’t been thinking about it in that way.”
The courtesan chuckles. “Very few of us, even those of us practiced at dealing with emotions, react perfectly when someone we love is threatened. I’ve had my share of conflicted impulses. It’s all part of this bizarre but wonderful existence you’ve found yourself in. Of course, if the rest of us have any say about it, Ivy will make it through any danger that faces her for a long time to come.”
I push to my feet, buoyed by my new perspective and a rush of determination. “Yes, she will. And I want to get to feel everything else I can with her, even if there’ll be parts that hurt too.”
Twenty-Three
Ivy
“You aren’t even giving me a chance!”
The crisp teenage voice carries from one of the temple doorways up ahead. I expected to find Petra down here, but that sounds like her younger sister.
As I hesitate, Petra’s voice follows, not quite as loud but still forceful. “It’s not about giving you a chance. This isn’t your place. Father and Mother didn’t go riding into battle. That’s what the army is for.”
Princess Klaudia lets out a scoffing sound. “Father and Mother had an army. We’ve barely pulled together a squadron. We’ll have a difficult enough time overcoming the damage Lothar’s done with all of us contributing. I don’t want to keep sitting around here at the temple while the rest of you handle the dangerous parts. I hate it.”
Spoken like a true sixteen-year-old. But even as my lips twitch with a hint of amusement at the teenage rebelliousness, an ache forms in my gut.
