and I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.
I watch her walk down the hall and I think to myself, is that what a princess is supposed to look like?
My mother has told me of her. Or rather, of her parents; one of them is the king Ipomoea.
And I know from her description—bone-white and blood-red; I heard their horns are swirled like ribbon—that this girl slipping through the halls of my family’s castle, coat like blood-stained ghost, must be one of the royals from Delumine.
I watch her walk down the hall and think to myself, is that what I’m supposed to look like? She’s just taller than me, and a little more slightly built. Within seconds of seeing her I find myself bitterly jealous of her finely built head; her unfairly nimble legs; the long, elegant sweep of her tail behind her, like a white flag in war. The stark white of her coat makes her seem almost gauzy against the half-lit hallway, edges blurred like a spirit under the pale orange lanterns.
She looks like the paintings of unicorns that hang on our walls. Like a sketch I saw once in a fairytale book. That is what a princess should look like, I think; not like me, who broke the first mirror I looked in.
My eyes follow her, and I feel my chest tighten with envy. Salt builds in my throat; I feel the rough crystals on my tongue, the taste of it somewhere between blood and tears and pure, acrid, envy.
The terrible feeling only clears when I finally move toward her. Each stride further dislodges the hard, acidic knot in my chest, and by the time I am halfway down the hallway, halfway to the balcony, it has been replaced by a feeling of anxiety so bright, so light, I almost feel as though I’ve been lifted off my feet. The fishhook of it pulls me up—I can’t feel my steps or hear my hooves against the ground. Instead, the only sound is the blood rushing in my ears, and then the thin, musical whistle of the wind when I finally step outside.
Below us the world is spread out like a tapestry. I see endless fields of tulips: bright yellow and red, a cool blue-almost-green, a checkerboard of pastels in pink and washed-out purple. Every flower—every petal, even—is painted over by the gold of the sun streaming down overhead, and it is enough, for just a moment, to draw my eyes away from the girl.
But then she turns to look at me, and her eyes are red as rubies, and I blurt out: “You’re a princess, too.”
