by Leah Rooper
“It’s so dumb. Daniel will never stop fighting for her.” I jump to my feet and start pacing around the room. “Okay, think. There must be a way we can get around this. A way Eva could take the throne.”
Alice scoffs. “Yeah, too bad Eva and Daniel don’t look more alike. If she did, we could just have her pretend to be him.”
I raise a brow. “Serious ideas only, please.”
“Hey, it worked for me.”
“UGH!” I run my fingers through my tangled hair. “THINK!”
Alice sighs. “Madison, face it. There’s a law against women ruling in Eldonia. Unless the king magically comes back to life and rewrites the rule, then we’re hooped.”
“Wait,” I whisper. “What did you say?”
“I said we’re hooped. Screwed. Done for.”
“No.” My voice is thin. “A king. We need a king.” Suddenly, my whole body feels like it’s on fire. “I have an idea.”
Chapter Seventeen
Daniel
Dawn is just breaking but almost every single one of the Falcons have met me at the local rink. They all look a little worse for wear—at least I wasn’t the only one beaten by Eldonian liquor— but they’re here. For me. We planned on having one last skate before they fly home. One last skate before my coronation.
Usually the swish of skates on ice can clear my head, can take me away from all the chaos in my mind. There’s only one focus for me—to get the puck in the net. But I can barely land a pass.
One year ago today, I was sitting in my living room, watching TV with Ma. There was a knock on the door and we learned that my father had passed away. Now today, I’m taking his place as King of Eldonia.
I should be savoring these last few moments with my team. But I can’t even squeeze a thread of joy from hockey.
What is wrong with me?
I skate over to the bench and grab a drink. Tremblay skates up beside me.
“Everything okay, man?”
“Me?” I laugh. “What about you? You’re barely able to keep a puck without your favorite winger.”
“Alice texted me saying she was busy with Madison this morning.” Tremblay shrugs. “And hey, I’m just warming up.”
He slaps me on the back and we head back out to center ice. Great, I was trying to distract myself from thinking of Madison, and Tremblay has to bring her up.
When I found out she had been using me, it was like a poison had been injected in my body, tainting everything in my world, turning it black. Now I can’t even find the joy in hockey.
“Wait! Stop the game!” A voice rings out through the arena, and I look up to see Madison and Bell running down the stairs. Madison’s still wearing her giant ball gown from last night. Somehow, even with dark circles under her eyes, and her makeup all smudged, she still looks gorgeous. Dammit.
Some flicker of life comes back to me and I skate over to them.
“What are you doing here?” At least my voice still remembers how to be angry.
Madison bends over, hands on her knees, panting wildly. She holds up a finger. “Just. One. Moment.”
Finally, she heaves herself up, flipping her long black hair back. “I really need to join you guys in wind sprints.”
“Madison.” Bell grits her teeth.
“Oh right.” Madison grabs my arm in a panic. “We have to go. Right now.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” I start to skate away, but she holds my arm tight.
“You have to. Eva is going to marry Lyle Worthington and we need to stop the wedding.”
“W-what?” I gasp. “Why! Why would she do that?”
“She’s doing it for you.”
For me?
“Daniel, we have to go now.”
I jump over the bench and throw off my skates. I don’t care if Madison is just doing this to keep her audition. I can’t have Eva give up her whole life, just for me.
“Don’t worry,” Madison says as we run up the steps. “I have a plan. We’ll explain on the way.”
At the top of the stairs, Alice stops, then turns around and looks down at my team. “Well, are you guys coming? We’re gonna need backup.”
…
Madison
Wind tears through my hair, but somehow, I manage to keep up with Daniel, even in my high heels.
I heave in another breath. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would be leading the charge of an entire hockey team—and one bastard prince—to an Eldonian chapel to stop a wedding.
But here I am, running as fast as I can beside Prince Daniel Sacachelli, dressed to the nines in his number 77 Falcons jersey.
“Up there,” Daniel says, and points up towards a small wooden structure flanked by lemon trees.
“That’s Eldonia’s grandest chapel?” I gasp.
“It’s a national landmark,” Daniel says in a snarky tone.
It looks like a postcard. Quaint. Cozy. Definitely not something worthy of a royal wedding. It’s nothing more than a small wooden chapel on a hill, surrounded by trees.
Ugh. A hill. “Why didn’t we take a car?” My lungs seize up and my ankles burn. I used up all my oxygen telling Daniel the plan.
And now…the chapel looms before us. I peer into the horizon, through the dusky rising rays of sun. There’s movement through the windows.
Daniel’s face is flushed, his gaze intense. He starts running faster and my legs scream, trying to keep up.
“Daniel—” I say under my heaving breath and reach for his elbow. He doesn’t hear me—or doesn’t want to—and his arm jerks out of reach.
I wish I could grab him, spin him toward me and kiss him. Tell him I believe in him. That he can do this.
But I’m surprised he even listened to me about this plan.
A few more steps later, our small army is right in front of the chapel. Daniel slows to a stop.
“What now, boss?” Hayden says.
Daniel doesn’t reply. He just stares straight ahead.
I take one more gasping breath and tuck my sweat-sticky strands of hair behind my ears in an attempt to look somewhat decent. Considering I’m still in my ballgown, and everyone else is wearing a hockey jersey—besides Alice, who’s in sweatpants—I definitely look a little out of place.
But I don’t feel out of place. Standing beside Daniel, being here to support him…this is where I belong.
I dare to take a step toward him. “This is it. This is our last scene.”
All I want is for him to tell me everything will be okay after this. That everything will go back to normal.
Then it hits me like a bolt to the chest. Normal will never be good enough for me now. Now that I know that he loves me—or at least, he did love me—I’ll never be able to get over the what ifs? What if we could love each other without the fake relationship, the audition, all that background noise?
He looks down at me. I search his expression for anything—hope…forgiveness…maybe even love. But there’s nothing. His face is cold and hard as the ice he spends so much time on.
Then, as if looking at me burns his eyes, he turns and strides toward the chapel.
Each beat of my heart hurts. Tears well in my eyes and I scrunch my face to keep them from falling. The entire team of Falcons follows Daniel and I feel like I’m caught in the riptide of blue jerseys.
One pair of sweatpants stays in the current with me.
“You hanging in there?” Alice asks.
“Barely.” My voice is only a croak.
She wraps her arms around me and pulls me tight against her chest. With our height difference, I’m squished against her minimal boobage. It’s comforting anyway.
I sniffle once then push away. “There’s no time to be sad. We have a kingdom to save.”
Alice smiles softly. “Let’s go make your prince a king. Then I’ll kick his ass.”
I nod twice then move into action.
Eldonia is my stage and I am the star.
First, I shove through the musc
led bodies of the Falcons and stand beside Daniel at the door of the chapel.
“Uh, you gonna knock?” Hayden says. “You know…on the door?” He looks around for support from his team.
I shove Hayden to the side and stand right beside Daniel. He can push me away as much as he wants, but he’s going to learn that Madison Myong always keeps her promises.
“Kings,” I say firmly, “do not knock.” Then I shove him through the door.
…
Daniel
Light floods into the dark chapel, illuminating the small room. There’s a few wooden pews, but at the back is a glorious sunlit stained-glass window.
Bathed in its many colors of red and blue and green, are my sister and Lyle Worthington.
She has her gloved hands out in front of her, allowing Lyle to only hold the very tips of her fingers. Her dress, although white, only goes to just below her knees, and she wears a fancy ivory hat with lace in front of the eyes. She looks very…diplomatic.
Between them is the officiant of Eldonia, a bespectacled man wearing thick red robes and holding a very thick book. As he snaps it shut in astonishment, I catch the word Eldonia embellished with gold leaf on the front.
Standing just off to the side, dressed in the finest purple velvet, is the Queen Dowager, flanked by Dwayne Boulder. All five of their heads snap to me, and my small army of Falcons as we surge into the tiny chapel.
“TIME OUT!” Coach Zabinski screams as we flood in. “TIME OUT ON THIS WEDDING!” Everyone turns to look at him with questioning gazes. He coughs. “Oh, um, sorry. Your play, Sacachelli.”
Eva shakes Lyle’s hand free from hers. “Dan-Dan! What are you doing?”
And for once in my life, I think I know exactly what I’m doing. All at once, I feel just as comfortable here as I do on the ice in Chicago. This is my arena now. This is my play.
“I’m breaking up this wedding,” I say, walking toward them.
“What are you going to do about it?” Lyle crows. “Eldonia needs a king. Go back to the rink, ice-mutt.”
I really want to slug Lyle, but I remember where that got me last time—in a burned down pub. Eva rushes forward and grabs my hands. “Dan-Dan, listen to me.” Her eyes are bright with tears. “I should never have asked you to come here. It was so wrong of me, and I see that now. You belong in Chicago with your mother, your team.” She looks behind me. “With Madison.”
“Eva…” I stroke a piece of her hair. “All I want is for you to be happy.”
“And that’s all I want for you. Daniel, please.” She squeezes my hands. “It’s not that I don’t believe in you. I think you’d make a great king—”
“But you’d make a better queen,” I say, giving her a smile. I walk forward and feel something on my shoulder—Lyle, grabbing at me. I shrug him off and he stumbles backward. With a girlish squeal, Lyle topples over into the wooden pews.
“Queen Dowager, Officiant Giles,” I say, looking between my stepmother and the Officiant. “I accept the position of King.” I turn to Giles. “And I’d like to be crowned now.”
Eva and Lyle both scream, “NO!” The Queen Dowager only has the energy to gasp and look slightly faint.
I look back at the Falcons and take strength from my team.
“Daniel!” Eva cries. “Please. I’m trying to protect you.”
I flash her a grin. “Don’t you know anything, little sister? Daniel Sacachelli always has a play.”
“He can’t do this!” Lyle screeches, picking himself up from the pews. “We were about to be wed! I was to be King!”
Officiant Giles finally speaks. He clears his throats. “No, you were about to be a husband. Prince Daniel is first in line to the throne. If he wishes to accept the title—” He shrugs. “—then we can perform the coronation. All the necessary witnesses are present.”
The Queen Dowager comes forward, her expression one of false concern. “Daniel, sweetling, think about what you’re doing. Evangeline and Lyle are about to be wed. It would be so…convenient for him to take the throne. Then you can go back to…wherever you’re from and continue your little game of…hooky.”
“It’s HOCKEY!” Tremblay calls.
“You know,” I say, slinging an arm over the Queen. She physically recoils. “Living in Eldonia’s made you stiff. Come visit Chicago. Have some pizza, see a hockey game, RELAAAX a little.”
“Daniel,” Eva says, one eyebrow raised, “what’s gotten into you?”
“Let’s just say…I’m ready to be King.”
I’m not sure where all this confidence is coming from, but it’s growing in me with every passing moment. Maybe it’s been growing this whole time and I’m only seeing it now. My eyes catch Madison in the crowd, and I know the person I am in this moment is because of her. “Do your damnedest, Giles.”
Giles appears more bemused than offended. He hands me the giant book of Eldonia. “Please kneel, Sire.” Then he clears his throat.
“Do you need me to get your scepter?” Madison asks. Everyone turns and stares at her. I can’t help but smile. Of course, she’d say something like that. “What? Doesn’t he need a scepter to do this?”
“I’ve got this!” Tremblay holds up his hockey stick. “Will this work?”
The Officiant shrugs. “Why not?” He looks at the Falcons. “This is already a rather…unorthodox coronation.”
Tremblay passes the Officiant the hockey stick, and looking rather ungraceful, Giles lays the blade upon my shoulder.
Then the coronation begins. The Queen Dowager and Eva look on, their expressions stunned and blank. A whimpering comes out from behind the wooden pews, and I can only imagine Lyle’s having a hard time. Good.
“Sire,” Officiant Giles says, “is His Majesty willing to take the oath?”
“I am willing.”
“Will you solemnly promise to govern the lands and peoples of Eldonia with mercy and just judgment?”
“I am willing.”
“Will you solemnly promise to uphold the morals of honor, peace, and equality, as per Eldonian custom?”
“I am willing.”
“And are you willing to rule with love in your heart, for all of Eldonia and her peoples?”
“All this, I promise to do.”
“Then, by the power invested in me by God—” The Officiant touches each of my shoulders with the blade of the hockey stick. “—I pronounce you King of Eldonia.”
The Falcons start to cheer as if we just won the Stanley Cup.
I rise with a smile, and my whole team surges forward, surrounding me in a sea of blue. They hoist me up on their shoulders.
Goddamn. I’m the King of Eldonia.
I catch Eva’s gaze. She isn’t smiling. Her face is terse, her eyes prickling with tears. “There’s no going back now, Dan-Dan,” she says.
I can’t help grinning. My poor sister. But I revel in having my teammates all around me, the feeling of being up on their shoulders and seeing their wild grins. Even Officiant Giles has been hoisted up, and he looks terrified, balanced on Tyler and Gerver’s shoulders. “Well, I guess the only option then is to move forward.” I leap off the guys’ shoulders. “Time for my first act as King!”
“What is your first act?” Lyle snarls, poking his head out from one of the pews. “Every day is National Spaghetti Day?”
I stroke my chin. “That’s a great idea. But I can’t get distracted.” I walk over to Eva and grab her hand.
“King Daniel.” Her glassy eyes look right into mine.
Everyone’s looking at me. Waiting to see what their new King will do.
This is the moment I’ve been dreading since Eva first came to Chicago. The moment I would be King of Eldonia. And somehow, amazingly enough, it feels so right. In some crazy way, I was meant to be King. This whole time I was fighting it, but it was the right choice all along.
I’ve felt this before—belonging. I’ve felt it on the ice, making food with Ma, when Madison kissed me, and here, standing in front of eve
ryone as their King. This is where I’m meant to be.
“My first act as King,” I say, “is to abolish the law that allows only a male heir to rule Eldonia.”
The Queen Dowager makes a sound in her throat, as if she’s just swallowed a dying crow. “That law has been around for a millennium—”
“Yeah,” Alice calls. “It’s old and sexist and stupid.” She glares at the Queen.
“Can he do that?” Lyle demands, looking at Giles.
The Officiant shrugs. “The Divine Right of Kings is still intact here.”
My lip twitches. “Yeaaaah, that will also have to go. But not yet.” I give a big grin. It’s time for the final shot. “And now with that pesky, outdated law out of the way…my second act as King is to…” I flash my subjects a wicked grin, “…abdicate.”
He shoots. He scores.
And the crowd goes…silent.
“Sooo,” I say, “now that my fifteen seconds of royal fame have come to an end, that means the title of ruler passes to the next in line. And because I’ve abolished that archaic rule, the next in line is…” I turn to Eva. “You.”
Eva blinks. Once. Twice. “M-me? Queen?”
“It’s yours, Eva.” I cup her chin. “Eldonia was always meant to be yours.”
Madison steps toward us. “And you don’t need Lyle Wimpington to do it.”
Eva still looks shocked, and then a smile bigger than I’ve ever seen crosses her face. She leaps into my arms, wrapping her hands around my neck. “You should have told me your plan.”
“It wasn’t my plan,” I say. “It was Madison’s.”
Eva turns to Madison. “I knew I brought you here for a reason.”
I turn Eva toward the crowd and shout: “INTRODUCING THE NEW QUEEN OF ELDONIA! ALL HAIL QUEEN EVANGELINE!”
Now, the crowd goes wild.
The Falcons erupt again, and this time even the Queen Dowager looks happy.
I feel a presence beside me. “Hey.” Her voice is calming and electrifying all at once.
I turn around, and there she is, still in that gown from last night.
“So,” she says, “what do I call you now? Are you still Prince Daniel, or are you like ex-King Daniel?”