The Fairest of Them All Read Online Free Page B

braced myself against the window.
    “Are you all right?” he called up.
    “Yes,” I said, through gritted teeth. “Just climb!”
    His anxiety moved from him to me. He was afraid to hurt me, pictured me flying sideways out the window like a golden bird,my body smashing into the ground.
    But my hair was strong, stronger than iron. It could hold him ten times over, and I anchored myself against the tower.
    After a moment of hesitation, he stretched one hand up over the other and twisted his thighs around my hair. He began to climb. I could feel his fear dissipating, his excitement to see me pulsing through every strand.
    I closed my eyes, as everythinghe’d ever thought or felt or dreamed passed into me, like water seeping into the soil. I could feel the way he’d ridden through the forest to come find me, stopping at an inn at the edge of the woods, for the night. Hear the songs he’d sung to himself as he rode. I could barely breathe, as it poured through me, unfurling, moving further back in time. I could feel his worry over his motherthe queen, the way he’d begged her, as a child, to see him when she was busy talking to ghosts, his loneliness and hurt when she looked past him, his love for poems and stories that filled him, that populated his world, his anger at his father the king, all of it combined with a deep love for them both, a love for me . . .
    It was overwhelming, feeling that I knew every part of him, feeling Iwas seeing all the secret parts of his heart that should have remained hidden.
    Finally, he grabbed on to the stone windowsill. His face was right next to mine and he pulled himself into the room. He moved gracefully, like an acrobat.
    And then he was standing before me, several inches taller than me, still clutching my hair in his hands. I looked up at him. His face was sweet and glowing. I hadto look away, embarrassed to see him as nakedly as I did.
    “I could live in this hair,” he said, pressing his face into it. I felt his breath, his lips, through the strands.
    “Give that back to me,” I said, grateful for his silliness. I pulled it from him and yanked more of it in from the window until it reached the floor, then reined in the next batch.
    He turned to help me, gathering my hairinto the tower, letting it brush against his face as he did. A thousand more images sparked in front of me: painted letters on a page, banquet tables covered with gold plates and sparkling glasses, childhood afternoons on horseback chasing falcons, stretched-out canvases and the feel of a brush dipped in paint, artists and dancers and musicians . . . Infusing all of it, a deep love for art and beauty,a desire to fill the world with wonderful things. I could feel my own heart expanding as I took him inside me, and everything became possible for me, the way it was for him. More than anything else, there was joy. I had never felt the kind of joy that he did. Even at his most hurt, his most lonely, he contained this wonder inside him, a passion for the world and all its beauty. People lovedhim for that, I realized.
    I could love him for that.
    “This must be what heaven is like,” he said, interrupting the flow of emotions.
    “Pulling my hair in through a window?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    I was giddy with happiness. “You don’t seem very much like a prince,” I said.
    “And what is a prince supposed to be like?”
    “I thought princes were dignified.”
    “You don’t find me dignified?” He made a faceat me, twisting his features into a ridiculous expression.
    “Well, you are the most dignified prince I’ve ever seen, though it’s true I’ve only seen one.”
    “You might have better luck if you didn’t get yourself locked inside of towers.”
    I laughed, as he reached out and ran his palm along my cheek. I leaned into it. And then we fell silent, just watching each other.
    “You’re here,” I said, finally.“I can’t believe it.”
    “Did you not call me to you?”
    I was so moved, I