At the tender age of seven, Parisa Tyrneamitore had already realized she was different from most other children. It was not because of her beauty, inherited from her mother, whose incandescence had inspired poetry and art and works of literature across the seven seas. It was not her sharp tongue, inherited from her father, whose wit rivaled those of trickster gods. It was not because of her title, nor her privilege, nor her wealth, nor the fact that she was a Tyrneamitore.
It was because of her stupid, idiot eyes.
"Agh!" Pari growled, crumpling the passage Sauda had assigned as for homework into a tiny ball and throwing it to the end of the table. "It's too hard!"
Sergei exhaled and retrieved the wadded homework, setting it back in front of her. He flattened it out into a singular piece of paper once more, massive hands somehow delicate in their task. "Parisa," he rumbled. "We'll keep trying until we get it, alright?"
"But I don't want to!"
It took a special sort of person to argue with Sergei Zhernekov, who had grown up in the vast and treacherous forests of rural Russia and certainly looked the part. He was barrel-chested and had arms that were bigger than Parisa's head, but he was also the only person who'd been able to rock baby Kyros to sleep even more quickly than Tasia, which was what had initially gotten him hired as the imperial nanny. He was the only person who could get Mirza to vent and Vic to calm, and he was slowly chipping away at Pari, but she was proving to be quite the challenge. The problem was, Pari knew that she was precocious and she enjoyed it. She was a very deliberating fiend.
But Parisa wasn't trying to be fiendish right now; she was just frustrated. Sergei could tell when her frustration was authentic by the way her lower lip wobbled and tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. She was the type to submit to rage rather than grief, but it seemed that even her rage was quickly running out.
"Pari," he said. "Zaychonuk. Let's read through this together. Follow my finger."
He placed his massive index finger on the paper, right under the first line. "The Great Kingdom of Atherdale was founded by..." he trailed off, letting Pari fill in the blank. She pressed her hands against her head, glowering at the words. "King... Koremar?"
"Exactly," he told her. "Good job. Next line, let's go. King Koremar created a hu..."
"A... hub for..." Pari glanced at him, then down at the paper. "... my..."
Sergei waited. Her forehead creased as she peered down at the paper. "Myth... mythology."
"Close," he said. "Mythological. Mythological what?"
"Mythological... creation."
"Creatures."
Pari's expression grew stormy again. She snatched the paper out from beneath his hands and shredded it, tears flowing freely this time. "I can't do it!" she hollered. "I'm stupid!"
Sergei waited. Eventually she tired herself out and, paper bits floating around them, dropped her head into her hands. Her shoulders shook and his heart gave a little twist. It made no sense that the princess was having such difficulty reading at, what, a second-grade level? Pari was clever as a whip in all other aspects. She could recite entire passages she'd heard only once. But give her a sheet of paper with a line of words and it was like all that confidence shrunk in on itself.
There had to be more to this than the excuse that she was simply bad at reading, Sergei decided. He set his hand on Parisa's back as she struggled to compose herself. "Pari..."
"Sorry I messed up the paper," she said stoutly, her voice quavering. "But I can't do it. I told you. I'm a dummy."
"You are not a dummy." he told her firmly, his heavy accent making the words harsh. Pari slouched in her chair but he pulled her back up, saying, "You know, Feofil's Uncle Mikhail had the hardest time in school."
"He did?" she perked up. A small relief threaded through him at her expression. "Yes, I had to spend many nights working on division and multiplication with him."
"But that's so easy!"
"Maybe for you. Mikhail found it easy to read." he told her. She scowled back at him, crossing her arms and letting them thump against her stomach. "Well, maybe he's a weirdo."
"Parisa, my point is that we all struggle with different things." Sergei rubbed her back reassuringly. "I had my troubles too."
"No one else thinks it's hard to read!" she burst out. "Even Vic can do it better than me, and he's a baby!"
"Why do you think you have trouble reading?" he asked her. She looked at where the paper should have been, only to realize that she'd torn it all up. "I don't know."
"Wait here." Sergei said. He pushed himself out of the tiny chair he'd been sitting in - to be fair, all chairs were tiny where the Zhernekovs were involved - and disappeared from her field of view. Pari twisted around to watch in horror as he approached the bookshelf. "Sergei!" she cried. "No, I don't want to!"
"I won't make you read much, zaychonuk." he said, grabbing a book at random and returning to her side. Pari looked on miserably as he lay the open book on the table and pointed to a simple paragraph. "Read this for me, please."
"I can't." she said, tears creeping into her vision and making the already-blurring words even more indistinguishable. "They move too fast."
"They... move?"
"They switch around!" she shoved the book away and buried her face in her arms. Sergei considered her silently, rubbing his chin through his beard. "Parisa, do the letters always move like that?"
"Yeah," she cried. "It's like they're all going to different places and they won't be still so I can read them. I don't know how everyone does it so fast! It's not fair! Why are my eyes so slow?!"
"Would it make you feel better if I told you that words shouldn't move around like you say they do?" he reached over to pat the back of her head. "Pari, look at me."
When she finally turned to him, her tears spilled. They dripped down her cheeks and plopped on the table like little drops of rain and she sniffed hard, wiping them with the back of her hand. "I'm just bad," she said softly, her voice breaking. "And I'm stupid."
"Parisa, no." he drew her in as she began to cry harder, wrapping his enormous arms around her little frame. Seeing the kids cry always hurt, but seeing his confident little Pari so down on herself made his stomach turn. He had to stop her from saying those words before they sank in so deep that he could never remove them. "You're not stupid." he told her, his familiar rumble running through her bones and drying her tears. "I think that there's a reason you're having such a hard time reading, Pari, and it's not because of anything you've done wrong."
"Really?" she said, then recalled, "What did you mean when you said words don't move around?"
"They sit still when I look at them." he informed her. "For most people, actually."
"Well, how do I make 'em do that?"
"I think that we need to get someone to teach you," Sergei released her, tucking some of the child's hair behind her ears and then rubbing the remains of the tears away. Pari sniffed again and looked at him dolefully. "More classes?"
"Maybe different ones." he comforted. "I'll talk to your Papa and Mama today and we'll figure it out."
"Okay." she turned her attention back to the book, dread reappearing in her expression. Sergei reached over and picked it up, then set it on the ground next to the table. "Why don't you go play with Feo and Sparrow for the rest of the day?" he suggested. "I think you've worked hard enough."
Her misery vanished behind the shine of disbelieving smile. "Really?" she leaned forward. "But we didn't do math yet!"
"Ah, sometimes it's alright to skip a little math," he lowered his voice to a whisper, cupping his hands around his mouth like he was sharing a particularly juicy secret with her. "Don't tell Ms. Sauda though."
"Okay," Pari agreed, delighted to be part of a conspiracy. She slid down from her chair and went skittering to the door, then turned back to Sergei, hesitation in her step. Her eyes were large. He thought that for the first time he could remember, he spotted something vulnerable in them. "What is it, zaychonuk?"
"Trim your beard, Sergei!" she declared, then threw the door open. "It tickled my head."
There was the little monster. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, but in his heart he felt relief.