Deleted Scene: To Poison a King

After I finished tending her brother, Ophelia insisted on walking me back to my rooms. I tried to protest, but she would hear nothing of it. “It would be improper not to. Besides, I want to spend more time with you.” 

I was so caught off guard I nearly laughed. “Why?”

“I believe our paths are meant to cross.”

She spoke with such conviction, I could not help but sober. I remembered how I had spotted Ophelia across the great hall—had it only been earlier that day?—and my uncharacteristic wish to join her. Our paths were meant to cross. It was the kind of thing my mother would have scoffed at, and I as well. Yet in that moment, Ophelia’s pronouncement did not sound foolish or whimsical. It sounded prophetic.

“You said you have gifts of your own,” I remarked. “Will you tell me what they are?” 

“No.”

My cheeks warmed. “Oh.”

She glanced at me across her shoulder. “I will show you.”

Ophelia reached for my hand. I nearly flinched away but managed to smother the reaction; I was not the king, I did not have his aversions. If Ophelia noticed, she did not show it. Her hands were soft and warm. She gave my fingers a squeeze, and I felt the contact in a deeply human way. I did not know the last time I had been touched.

And then we were off, darting through the moonlit palace, Ophelia in front and me pulled behind. Up we went, and up and up, into the north tower, which was the tallest in the palace. I worried someone would catch us, tell us not to run, scold us for our liberated behavior. I wanted to ask where Ophelia was taking me, but I sensed she wished it to be a surprise.

We stopped halfway up a set of winding stairs. She pulled me to an open window and flung out an arm, motioning toward the stars. “Look. There is Vreaga and Altier and Oronon, and Ura Pan and Urstis and—”

“Those are not their names.” I did not know all the stars, but I knew the largest and brightest, and the ones she had listed were incorrect.

“They are their true names,” Ophelia said. “It is what they call each other. The names you know are only the names we have given them.”

“How do you know that?”

She smiled, which is to say, her smile grew larger. She never seemed to stop, really. “Because I can hear them.” 

There was no light in the stairwell, except for the moon. I realized we were still holding hands. “No one can hear the stars.”

“I can. They speak to each other, and I listen.”

I looked through the window. The sky was mostly clear, save for a spreading wave of clouds to the west. “Are you a seer?”

“They call me a seer like they call you a witch. It does not exactly describe me. I cannot foretell the future, but sometimes I look at the stars and just know things. A piece of information will drop into my head as if it had been there all along. The stars see everything, don’t they? And for some reason, they choose to share their knowledge.”

I wondered what the stars had told Ophelia about me. “Does anyone know of this ability of yours?”

“Oh, no.” Her eyes sparkled. “You must tell no one.”

I was startled. “But why would you share your secret with me?”

“I told you already. Our paths were meant to cross. Do you think I am lying?”

“I…do not want to think that,” I said, but did not know how to put the rest of what I wanted into words.

Maybe she knew. I would come to learn that Ophelia did indeed have a knack for knowing things. She could see your heart better than you could see your own. She was like a burning star herself, the kind who leant its light to all it touched. And she was right—our paths were meant to cross. If I was a better storyteller, I might find a way to spare you the tragedy of her tale. If I was a better person, I might have found a way to spare her from tragedy.

Ophelia walked me back to my chambers that night, chatting happily the whole way. When we reached my door, she thanked me again for helping her brother. Then she smiled, and kissed my hand, and sent me on my way.