Protect the Prince

by Estep, Jennifer

  Dahlia smiled at me, then turned to Helene. “And of course you’ll come too, my dear.”

  “Of course,” Helene said. “I’m quite interested to hear your stories, Everleigh, especially about life in the Black Swan troupe. Is it true that you killed another gladiator in a black-ring match?”

  Thankfully, a series of bells rang out, saving me from having to answer.

  Everyone took their places. The nobles were positioned at the tables along the walls, with the royal family sitting at the center table. To my surprise, Sullivan was seated on one side of the king, with Dahlia on the other. Helene was next to Sullivan, with Rhea across from her. And finally Gemma and Dominic were seated next to me, since I was at the opposite end of the table from Heinrich.

  Serilda, Cho, Paloma, and Xenia were relegated to one of the tables with Alvis and the nobles.

  I drew in a breath, discreetly tasting the air, but I didn’t smell the hot, jalapeño rage that I’d sensed in the throne room. It didn’t seem as though the person who wanted me dead had been invited to dinner. Perhaps my secret enemy was only a minor noble, servant, or guard, someone who could be more easily dealt with than the rich, powerful, and important people here. Either way, I relaxed a bit.

  More bells rang, and servants carrying bowls and platters streamed into the room. And so the dinner began.

  The food was excellent. Cold and hot soups brimming with spices. Light, refreshing salads with crisp lettuces, crunchy vegetables, and creamy dressings. Platters of exotic cheeses paired with sweet fruits and crunchy nuts. Baskets of hard, crusty baguettes slathered with savory dill and other herb butters.

  The main course was a red-pepper-crusted steak with garlic mashed potatoes and roasted butternut squash sprinkled with cinnamon and dripping with honey butter. For dessert, there were raspberry, blackberry, and kiwi sorbets served with thin, crispy vanilla shortbread cookies. It was one of the best meals I’d ever had, and I enjoyed every single bite. Especially since nothing was poisoned.

  During the meal, the conversation stayed lighthearted and innocuous. Everyone was doing their best to pretend that the throne room fight hadn’t happened, and I went along with them, asking questions about the food, the weather, and all the other usual chitchat.

  Every once in a while, I would look at the other end of the table to find Heinrich studying me with narrowed eyes. Beside me, Dominic did the same thing, although he seemed far more nervous than contemplative like his father did. The two of them were definitely planning something.

  Eventually, the dishes were cleared away, and the nobles said their goodbyes to the king and streamed out of the hall, leaving the people at the main table—Heinrich, Sullivan, Dahlia, Helene, Rhea, Dominic, Gemma, and me.

  Serilda, Cho, Xenia, Paloma, and Alvis also stayed behind, although they took up positions along the wall next to the Bellonan and Andvarian guards.

  “Now that we’ve enjoyed a fine meal, it’s time we get down to business,” Heinrich pronounced, staring at me. “If that is agreeable with you, Everleigh.”

  “Of course, Heinrich. We have much to discuss.”

  “Yes, we do.” A shadow passed over his face. “But first and foremost, I would like to know exactly what happened to my son. Alvis has told me, of course, and Gemma and Lady Xenia too, but I would still like to hear it from you.”

  My stomach clenched. I had expected him to ask me about the massacre, and I had come prepared. But he wouldn’t like what I was about to show him. None of the Andvarians would.

  “Perhaps this will answer some of your questions.” I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out an opal that was roughly the size of my palm.

  “A memory stone?” Heinrich asked.

  “Yes. Queen Cordelia wanted to record the luncheon before . . . everything happened.”

  I leaned forward and laid the memory stone on the table where everyone could see it. Then I drew in a breath and tapped on the stone three times to activate its magic.

  The opal started glowing with a pure white light, and the flecks of blue, red, green, and purple in the surface rose up, sparkling like stars suspended in midair before zooming over and attaching themselves to an open space on one of the walls. The flecks of color grew larger, brighter, and sharper before finally coalescing into a single, clear image—my face.

  From there, the royal massacre played out as it had that day on the Seven Spire lawn, and everyone in the dining hall saw Vasilia stab Prince Frederich and then fry Lord Hans to a crisp with her lightning. Screams, shouts, blood, death. The memory stone showed every horrible, brutal, grisly detail of the massacre right up until my hand closed over the opal, shutting off its magic.

  Once the stone had finished playing, I tapped on it three more times to preserve the memories inside for future viewings. Then I slumped back in my chair, suddenly exhausted and sick to my stomach, as if the massacre had just happened instead of nine months ago. I felt this way every time I watched the images. No doubt the refreshed memories in my own mind would stalk me in my sleep tonight and make me wake up screaming as they had so many times before.

  Dominic, Gemma, Helene, Dahlia. They all had similarly horrified expressions, while the twin scents of Heinrich’s ashy heartbreak for his slain son and Rhea’s salty grief for her murdered father stabbed me in the gut.

  Dahlia gave the king a sympathetic look, reached over, and squeezed his hand. A brief, grateful smile flickered across Heinrich’s face, although it quickly vanished, swallowed up by his grief.

  Dahlia gestured at a servant holding a tray that featured a silver tea set. The servant placed the tray on the table and stepped back. Dahlia poured some hot, steaming tea into a cup, dropped a single sugar cube into it, and stirred the brew. Her motions were smooth, graceful, and unhurried, as though she had performed this ritual hundreds of times, and I got the sense she did this for the king every night at dinner. Once the sugar had dissolved, she handed the cup to Heinrich, who nodded his thanks and started sipping the tea.

  I studied the older woman. She really did seem to love him. Amazing. Especially since he had married someone else. True, it had been Heinrich’s duty as king, but it still must have hurt Dahlia terribly.

  I didn’t know that I could have watched while the man I loved wed another woman, much less had children with her—legitimate children with all the wealth, power, and privileges of the Ripley royal name and heritage. But it seemed as though Dahlia’s love for Heinrich, and his for her, truly was stronger than the duties and obstacles that had strived to keep them apart. Good for them.

  My gaze flicked to Sullivan. Even though he had seen the images of the massacre before, he was still as upset as Heinrich, Dominic, and Gemma about Frederich’s murder. I hoped that he would look at me, so I could smile or nod or give him some other small sign telling him that I understood his pain.

  But he didn’t—he didn’t so much as glance in my direction.

  Helene leaned closer to Sullivan, then threaded her fingers through his, trying to comfort him the same way that Dahlia had Heinrich. Now was definitely not the time for jealousy, not with the screams of the dead still echoing in my ears, but I couldn’t help but wish that I was the one holding his hand.

  “Thank you for showing me that,” Heinrich said, breaking the tense, heavy silence. “Seeing what happened to Frederich, Hans, and the others makes my decisions about a great many things much clearer and easier.”

  I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t, so I spoke up. “As you can see, Cordelia had absolutely nothing to do with the massacre. Neither did I. It was entirely the work of Vasilia, along with Maeven and Nox, the two Mortans.”

  Heinrich nodded, agreeing with me, as did everyone else at the table. Even Rhea gave me a small, reluctant nod, and she seemed far less hostile.

  A bit of confidence filled me. So far, this was going as well as I could have hoped. Perhaps I wasn’t as bad at being queen as I thought.

  “Bellona and Andvari need to align with each other,
and with Unger too,” I continued, trying to close the deal I’d come here to make. “Our three kingdoms need to stand united, or the Mortan king will invade our lands, slaughter our people, and conquer us all one by one.”

  Heinrich nodded again. “I’ve been thinking about such an alliance ever since I learned the truth about Frederich’s death. Your coming here and showing me what happened to my son has only made me more certain about the course of action we should take next.”

  “And what action would that be?”

  The king stared at me, his blue eyes as cold and hard as chips of ice. I had seen that same expression on Sullivan’s face more than once, especially when he was going to be particularly difficult or stubborn about something. Whatever he wanted from me, Heinrich had already made up his mind that he was going to get it—no matter what.

  My confidence vanished, replaced by a growing sense of dread, and I was once again reminded that I had been queen for only a few months, while Heinrich had been ruling for decades.

  “An action that best benefits Andvari,” he replied. “After all, we are the ones who were targeted and slaughtered, so we are the ones who must appear strong now, especially since we are the ones who are the closest to Morta.”

  I wanted to point out that my family had been slaughtered right alongside his and that Bellona and Unger also shared borders with Morta, but I took a more diplomatic approach.

  “What are you proposing?” I asked in a wary voice.

  “A simple trade,” Heinrich said. “I will sign your treaty and align Andvari with Bellona and Unger . . .”

  “If?”

  The king gave me a cold, thin smile and gestured at his son. “If you marry Dominic.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  My heart clenched, my stomach dropped, and shock scorched through my body like a magier’s lightning bolt.

  Me? Marry Dominic?

  Out of all the things Heinrich could have said, out of all the things he could have proposed, out of all the things he could have demanded, my marrying Dominic had never even crossed my mind.

  Perhaps I should have expected it, given what had happened with Fullman and Diante back at Seven Spire. But all the Andvarians—Heinrich included—had been so hostile that I’d barely had any hope for a treaty, much less a larger, more permanent alliance. I had certainly never thought about marrying the king’s son.

  At least, not this son.

  And I was painfully aware of that other son, of Sullivan, sitting beside his father, the same sick shock on his face that I felt in my own heart. Even more than that, I could smell the hot, peppery anger blasting off him in waves, already mixing with minty regret and dusty resignation.

  Sullivan might have been surprised by his father’s proposal, but he was already bracing himself for my answer, and he actually thought that I was going to agree to his father’s ridiculous demand. He actually thought that I would say yes without putting up a fight. And perhaps most important, he actually believed that I would be cruel and heartless enough to marry his brother.

  An arrow of hurt slammed into my gut that Sullivan thought so little of me, but my own cold rage quickly rose up to freeze out the pain. Rage that Heinrich had sprung this trap on me in front of a roomful of people. Rage that he was demanding this. Rage that he was practically ordering me to do it, as though I were one of his subjects, instead of the leader of my own kingdom. Apparently, the father thought even less of me than his son did.

  As much as I wanted to give in to my shock, hurt, and rage, surge to my feet, and storm out of the dining hall, I forced myself to stay seated and keep my face calm and blank. Because like it or not, I was the queen of Bellona, and I had a duty to my kingdom, to my people, to at least listen to what Heinrich had to say—no matter how distasteful I might find it.

  So I leaned back in my chair and steepled my hands together in my lap, pressing my fingers into each other to stop them from curling into fists. “And what would I get out of this marriage?” I asked, careful to keep my voice steady and even.

  Heinrich shrugged. “You would marry Dominic here, in Glitnir, before the end of your visit. Then he would return to Bellona with you.”

  I looked at Dominic, who met my gaze with a neutral one of his own. His face was as calm and blank as mine was, but he too smelled of minty regret and dusty resignation. He didn’t like his father’s idea, but he would do his duty for the good of his kingdom.

  And then there was Rhea. Her lips were pinched together in a tight, thin line, and she stared down at the table instead of looking at me, Heinrich, or especially Dominic. She too would do her duty, even as the scent of ashy heartbreak rolled off her.

  I don’t understand why my father was so upset about you coming to Glitnir . . . He didn’t want you to come here. Neither did Rhea. Gemma’s voice whispered in my mind. But my father won’t get to be happy with Rhea. My grandfather wants him to marry someone else. I heard them arguing about it the other day.

  I thought she’d just been sharing some juicy gossip. I’d never expected that gossip to involve me or so many other people in this room—or for it to hurt us all so very much.

  “So I would marry Dominic before the end of my visit, and he would return to Bellona with me.” I repeated the king’s words to give myself a few more seconds to think. “And where would Gemma live?”

  Heinrich’s gaze cut to his granddaughter. “Here at Glitnir. So as not to disrupt her studies.”

  Gemma’s face paled, and she looked from her father to her grandfather and back again. After several seconds, when she realized that Heinrich was serious, she focused on Dominic. Gemma opened her mouth, probably to plead with her father not to go, or to at least take her with him to Bellona, but Dominic shook his head in a sharp, clear warning.

  The princess slumped back in her chair and dropped her head, but not before I saw the gleam of tears in her eyes. She had already lost her mother, and she didn’t want to be separated from her father too. My heart twisted. I knew how horrible it was to lose your parents, how small, helpless, and adrift it made you feel. I didn’t want that for her.

  I didn’t want any of this.

  “It’s a fair proposal,” Heinrich said. “This way, we both get what we want.”

  I couldn’t fault his logic. A royal marriage was one of the best ways to bind two kingdoms together. Cordelia had tried to do it with Frederich and Vasilia, and now Heinrich wanted to do it with Dominic and me.

  The king fell silent, and everyone turned their attention back to me, cataloguing and analyzing every slight rise and fall of my chest, every subtle shift of my body, and especially every faint expression that flickered across my face.

  A hard truth punched me in the heart—that up until now, I had just been playing at being queen. Dealing with the nobles and their petty squabbles, weeding the turncoat guards out of Seven Spire, even surviving Maeven’s assassination attempt. Those trials had all just been practice for this moment, when my thoughts, words, and actions would truly shape what happened to my kingdom and to my people, perhaps for generations to come.

  The crown of shards on my head had never felt heavier.

  Still, I remained silent, desperately trying to think, even as my gaze moved from one person to the next, studying their reactions just as they were all still studying mine.

  Stern, confident Heinrich. Sad, resigned Dominic and Gemma. Resolute Rhea. Sympathetic Dahlia. Smug, smiling Helene. Of course she would be happy about this. I couldn’t have a relationship with Sullivan if I was married to Dominic.

  I looked past the table at my friends standing along the wall. Serilda, Cho, and Alvis all looked as shocked as I still felt, and Paloma had her hand on her mace, as though she was ready to grab it and beat down anyone who tried to stop me from leaving.

  Xenia’s lips were puckered in thought, as were those of the ogre on her neck. She wasn’t surprised by the proposal, and she was probably already thinking about how my saying yes or no would affect everyone here, as well as in
the kingdoms beyond.

  And finally, there was Sullivan, who was still sitting right next to his father. I couldn’t tell exactly what he was thinking or feeling, since he was staring at the wall instead of looking at me, but a muscle tick-tick-ticked in his jaw like the second hand on a clock, and his hands clenched the arms of his chair, as if he needed something solid to hold on to in order to keep from unleashing the emotional volcano bubbling up inside him.

  “I’ve heard about your problems with the Bellonan nobles,” Heinrich continued. “How they have been . . . less than pleased with your leadership. Marrying Dominic would go a long way toward earning the support of your own people.”

  Yes, yes, it would. Fullman, Diante, and the other nobles might not have wanted me to come to Andvari, but even they would agree that my marrying the crown prince was a shrewd, advantageous move, especially given all the wealth and prosperity Dominic would bring to Bellona in the form of new trade agreements and the like. All that money would help soothe the nobles’ anger that I hadn’t married one of them and allay their doubts about their continued prosperity during my reign.

  “Plus, we would present a fully united front to the Mortans,” Heinrich added. “Not only now, but for future generations to come.”

  More shock scorched through me, but it was quickly drowned out by sick understanding. Heinrich was talking about whatever children I might have with Dominic.

  I forced myself to study the crown prince. Dark brown hair. Blue eyes. Strong, muscled body. Dominic was a handsome man, and many women probably would have been thrilled to bed him, but the idea left me feeling cold and nauseated. He wasn’t the one I wanted.

  He would never be the one I wanted.

  Dominic managed to smile at me, but he must have sensed my disgust because the expression quickly faded away.

  I turned my attention back to Heinrich. “Your proposal certainly would benefit us both.”

  Like it or not, every word Heinrich had said was true. Marrying Dominic would solve several of my most immediate, pressing problems. It would appease the Bellonan nobles, help me secure the throne, and unite our kingdoms against the Mortans.