As I listened, I wondered what all of this had to do with a birthmark, but I dared not interrupt for fear Anton wouldn’t finish his story.
“It was the end of another summer, and Tosya was on leave from his university studies. He took it upon himself to cheer me up. We got drunk and”—Anton shrugged like he couldn’t believe he was admitting this—“Tosya took me to an old Romska woman to have my fortune read. I suppose he thought it would bring me some comfort.”
The prince stopped there, scuffing the toe of his boot on the floor.
“What did she tell you?” I asked.
Scuff, scuff. He glanced down to the parlor and sighed again. “That I would live to see the dawn of a new Riaznin, that the words of my Romska friend would part the clouds for the sunrise.”
I contemplated Anton. It wasn’t like him to heed a fortune-teller. He was familiar enough with the Romska to know there was nothing mystic about their ramblings. They only did what they had to do to bring food to their families like all the common people. But I could see why Anton believed the old woman—she showed him what he most wanted to have.
“What else did she say?” He was still dancing around the heart of his unease.
Scuff, scuff, scuff.
I moved my hands down from his birthmark and wrapped them around his fingers. “Anton?” I whispered.
His eyes lifted to mine and captured the glow of moonlight past the grime of the kitchen window. His aura made my chest ache. “She told me I would meet a girl who would change my life forever. Our two souls were fitted for each other.”
The pain in my chest expanded and rose to my throat. I thought I understood him. “And she would bear a mark like yours?”
A mark I didn’t have.
“Yes.”
I nodded slowly.
“I told you it was nonsense.” He grinned, but it didn’t sit right on his face.
“Was the old woman an Auraseer?” Not that my kind had the gift of foretelling the future. As far as I knew, no one did, but at least an Auraseer could sense what the prince hoped for and know if what she foretold rang true. Though most people in their desperation were fairly easy to read, even by those without my ability.
“I don’t know . . . she was different. Sometimes I wonder what magic encircles all of us, what we could do if we were sensitive enough to unearth it. Look at you, your connection with the dead. There’s been no Auraseer like you before.”
He was trying to console me, I realized. Distract me from the disillusionment of his confession—that he, despite all his wiser judgment, believed in the fortune he was given.
I had to stop troubling him to reveal his secrets. I wished I could give him back this one.
His large hand, cradled in my both my own, felt heavy. I let it go. “I believe we decide our own fate,” I said, unfailingly stubborn, as always. It was better than letting my heart break. “No one has the right to dictate who we are or what we can become. I thought that’s what you believed, too, what you were fighting for.”
“I do.” He managed to shake his head, cross his arms, and shrug at the same time, altogether not knowing what to do with himself. “I am.”
At some point Tosya had moved closer. He stood with his shoulder pressed against the crooked wall of the kitchen. With an affectionate smile, he said to us, “Come back to the table. The night is waxing late, and much as I’m delighted to see you, Sonya, I doubt Anton’s purpose in bringing you here was to reunite two long-lost friends.”
The prince cleared his throat and pulled his sleeve down. His shame thickened my throat as he quietly brushed past me and moved back to the parlor. He left the food tray forgotten. Numbly, I covered the bread and crock of jam.
Tosya approached me.
I traced a hairline fracture on the lid. “Why does he push me away? Why does he find any trifling excuse to shut me out? Why won’t he just confess he doesn’t believe I’m good enough for him?”
“Of course you are good enough, Sonya. It has nothing to do with that.”
I met Tosya’s deep-brown eyes. It was such a comfort to see him, this boy who’d been like a brother, to remember who I was when he had known me, the feeling he’d fostered within me of fragile self-worth. But Tosya had no idea of what I’d done since I left the Romska, no idea the convent’s burning was because of my willful recklessness. The black ribbon at my wrist itched.
I shouldn’t chide Anton for his secrets. Mine were so dark I hoped he would never uncover them.
Tosya put his hands in his pockets. “Anton once treated me the same as you. Being abandoned at such a young age . . . it had a profound effect on him. It’s difficult for him to place his trust in anyone.”
“I was also separated from my parents.”