Spin Me Sweet Tales

Chapter Nine

I tense, my hands tightening around the blanket that conceals my body as the door opens. If he attempts to cement our wedding in the traditional sense, then I will fight every second of his attempts. My teeth clamp together so tightly I think I might break a molar, and my heart has stopped beating.

But when the person's face emerges from the door, confusion replaces fear.

A hunched back man hobbles into the bedroom, a cane in one hand and a tray in another. The cane he uses is made from a slice of a tree, with the bark still flourishing with flowers and leaves. Nature compliments the old man, whose age sores are brown like the bark on his cane. They pepper along green skin. His skin is the faintest shade of green, a diluted pistachio hue, and when he turns to face me head on, the light hits every peculiar feature.

A nose too big for his narrow face. Ears that start mundanely, but as it nears the tip, they transform into a leaf. Stories of nature are inked on his weathered flesh, streaming up his thin arms like coils of vine. He is made from the soil, his species bred to appreciate earth and all its wondrousness. The old man's hair is thin, and he is balding in some spots, but what hair remains is in rivulets of green and white. The green in his hair varies with pigmentation. Some are as rich as grass, others pistachio hued like his skin, but most stands are more white than green. A color too diluted to be considered green, but not pure enough to be white yet.

But the part of him which makes me gasp are his eyes. Mushroom-shaped moles near the corners of his beady, small eye sockets, but there are no eyes. Only two empty sockets where eyes should be. When I gasp, his dark green lips peel back a smile, showcasing his teeth made of tree bark.

"Good day, Queen Evalina. I would say you're looking lovely today, but who am I to say?" He says in a soft, raspy voice.

I know better than to ask why he is blind, but when he hobbles into the room, I jump out of the bed to help him. He tries to juggle the tray, his cane, and his inability to see at the same time. I wrap both my hands around the tray, and he lets me remove it from his hands with his joking smile turning into a grateful one.

"His highness, King Shaharuddin, said you must be hungry after your exhausting day." The green man says, and almost immediately after he says those words, my stomach growls at me. "And it appears the king was right."

I look down at the tray. A glass of red wine sits in the left corner, alongside a bowl of raspberries and a single chicken leg. At least, I'm going to believe it's a chicken until I'm told otherwise. Yet, on the right side of the tray, there's a book with a delicately folded letter on top.

"Can I guide you to the bed?" I ask.

"You say something like that again, and the king will have my head."

My eyes widen. "Oh, no! I didn't mean it like that!"

His laugh is as raspy as his voice. "Guide me to bed, you little minx."

I try not to, but I smile as I help the old man sit on the edge of the bed. He sighs with relief as he lowers his body to the ground, then lifts his misaligned ankle on the bed. I lift the chicken wing, but before I take a bite, a question flutters out.

"What's your name?" I ask the green old man.

"Christof Zalias, at your service." He tries to bow in a seated position, but halfway down, he must rise again. His cheeks blush a darker shade of green. "My apologize, Queen Evalina, but my back doesn't permit me to bend that way anymore."

I take a bite out of my chicken leg, which thankfully tastes like chicken, and I murmur once I swallow. "It's nice to meet you, Christof."

"The king wanted me to inform you that you may go to sleep after eating your dinner. He wants you to have a first night of rest without his presence before, um," he clears his throat and awkwardly adds. "Spending the night with his new bride."