Elle could have been speaking a different language for all Brinley understood. For so long she had felt like the underdog, the one constantly being kicked and criticized, never good enough. But hearing the words from Elle made them sound all wrong, suddenly. Like the barrier had not been a one-way mirror, with Brinley peering through at her sister’s wonderful life. It appeared that Elle had also been watching Brinley, wishing things were different, too.
“I have come to save you,” Elle added, correctly reading her sister’s confusion. “I have been back here for three days, patrolling the forest, waiting for you. I knew you would come. And when I saw the stories last night and this morning, I knew today would be the day.”
Brinley turned her head to take in the looming trees, the completely random, haphazard path she had chosen through the woods. “But how...”
“Oh. That.” Elle waved a dismissive hand. “Alec is a lumberjack, remember? He knew of a private cabin not far from here. He’s also a computer programmer, so he hacked into the security cameras and we monitored your progress so I could intercept you.”
“He’s a lumberjack and a computer programmer?”
“Well, it’s very hard to make a living as a lumberjack.”
Brinley was vaguely aware of the cameras, but because no one knew of the secret tunnel, they would not think to check them when they finally noticed she was missing. They had not spotted Elle, after all, assuming she had slipped out the front gates hiding in a transport truck or some such trickery.
She shook her head to clear it. “But...this is my home.”
“Really?” Elle narrowed her eyes. “Estau is your home? Estau where they scold you for teaching a girl to throw rocks? Force you to wed a man you don’t love? Put you on a stage and mock you?”
Despite the cold, Brinley could feel her face burning.
“We were not meant for this life,” Elle said. “I thought I was, and I tried my best to conform to it, but Brinley...every time I saw you, I realized I was not being my true self.”
“Huh?”
“You inspired me, Brinley. Your passion, your courage, your complete disdain for the shame of failure. You have always done what was in your heart, be it playing with swords or jumping off the roof or going to university. I have always done what the tutors instructed or was dictated to me—and I had never once been happy until I met Alec.”
Brinley glanced around. “Is he...?”
The lumberjack/computer programmer was a man of legend, rumored to be the one thing to tempt Princess Elle away from her lovely destined life. But...possibly not. Brinley now saw that it was almost definitely the case that Elle had been looking for an escape route and the lumberjack had merely moved the trees to make way for her. Love was not a byproduct of duty; it was a side effect of happiness.
“He is at the cabin,” Elle said. “We need to leave immediately, before they realize you’re missing. We’ll take the snowmobiles to the northwest corner of the Lenora border—it’s just a few kilometers from here—and Alec has friends who can drive us to Bellida. From there we’ll take a private plane to...”
Brinley listened, astounded, as Elle outlined a getaway plan as careful as it was far-fetched. In all her “bad” life, Brinley had never plotted something so insanely intricate and contrary to expectation. Her passion had been contained to the castle walls, exploring every inch, learning its secrets and keeping some for herself. She was curious about the outside world, but she had no true desire to abandon the life she knew. The life she wished to know.
“Come now,” Elle said, getting back on the snowmobile and grabbing a second helmet from the handlebars. “It’s time to go.”
THE CABIN LOOKED AS one might imagine a hidden cabin in the woods to look. Roughly made but functional and warm, visible only to those who knew where to find it. It was small, the arched roof covered in snow, the windows obscured by dark curtains. And Alec, the man who had stolen the princess, looked nothing like the seductive thief the kingdom pictured. He was quite the opposite, in fact, with his barrel chest and calloused hands and thick beard. He wore a wool hat even indoors, his cheeks ruddy but his eyes warm when they landed on her sister.
And Elle...
Elle, sitting in front of the fireplace, tending a fire she herself had built, pouring water from a tin kettle that glowed red hot where it sat on the embers. Elle, who wore thermal leggings and wool socks and a long sleeve shirt with the name of a sports team Brinley didn’t recognize. Elle, whose smile had changed as much as her hair, unrestricted and happy and real, for the first time in her life. The invisible barrier had come down, and Brinley was seeing her sister as no one but Alec had ever seen her. She was not just a good princess, she was...human.
“...wonderful,” Elle was saying, describing the barely-inhabited island she and Alec had called home this past month. “Quiet and beautiful, no one to whack your knuckles with a ruler or balance a book on your head and order you to walk up the stairs. We swim, and no one photographs us. We eat, and there is no magazine analyzing our food choices. We are free, Brinley. Finally.”
Brinley was pretty sure if anyone heard Elle say she had been inspired by her sister, she would be in a world of trouble. No one would blame Elle for fleeing, they would blame Brinley for planting the seed. Never mind that had she even one iota that Elle might actually water the seed and later harvest its plant and run away with it, she would have been much more careful. Elle’s departure had not changed only Elle’s life, after all. It had upended Brinley’s.
Alec used a pair of tongs to retrieve slices of bread he had been toasting on a crude metal rack over the flames, and now he spread each piece with peanut butter and passed them around. Brinley watched her sister smile at Alec as she accepted the toast, and Brinley took her piece and bit into it, crumbs falling onto her knees and no one scolding her for the mess. She wondered if she could really do this. She had been undecided when she left the castle, and did not bring anything with her. Not her e-reader, not her toothbrush, not her favorite pair of socks. She would be leaving everything behind. Though, if Elle and Alec were to be believed, she would gain so much more. For the first time in her life she would have the opportunity to live unobserved, free to be herself and make mistakes and learn from them without being publicly humiliated. It would be a weight off her shoulders, shaking loose the shackles she had been born into.
But now she looked at the simple ring on the fourth finger of her left hand and wondered if it were possible to find happiness in the confines of the life she had. Elle had found Alec, who saw her as she was and as she wanted to be, and Brinley had yearned for that. And now it was entirely possible she had found the same with Finn, though it was too soon to say for certain. But it would always be too soon to predict the future. The real issue was whether or not she was brave enough to follow her heart one more time.
“YOU’RE SURE?” ELLE asked again. She shouted the question over her shoulder, struggling to be heard past the roar of the snowmobile and the rushing wind. “This is what you want, and not merely what you believe is expected of you?”
“It is what I want,” Brinley shouted, clinging to her sister’s back, bumping on the hard seat as they trundled over the frozen ground. “And I think no one will expect it.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Elle slowed as they broke free of the shadows of the tree line, approximately one hundred yards from the tunnel entrance. A figure strode toward them, tall and broad, wearing a black ski suit and sunglasses and carrying a rather large duffel over one shoulder. Even as she squinted into the too-bright sunshine, Brinley knew it was Finn.
Elle shut off the motor, the sudden quiet interrupted only by Finn’s footsteps crunching on the snow. They climbed off the snowmobile and stood, pulling off their helmets and watching him approach until he stopped a few feet away.
“Brinley,” he said, his tone clipped. He spared Elle a cold, unsurprised glance. “Elle.”
Elle sniffed contemptuously. “Finian.”
“What are
you doing here?” Brinley asked, taking in his attire. He looked like he too had come to explore the woods, with considerably more preparation. She had shared her granola bars with Elle and Alec, and now had no provisions left.
“I have come for you,” he said stiffly. “To save you or retrieve you or...join you.”
Brinley’s heart kicked into overdrive. “You did?”
“Yes, of course.”
Beside her, Elle snorted her doubt.
Finn’s gazed darted to her, but returned to Brinley. She could count on one hand the number of times someone had looked at Elle then chosen to look at her instead.
“Are you...leaving?” he asked cautiously.
“She does not need saving,” Elle interrupted. “Nor does she need retrieving.”
A muscle flexed in Finn’s jaw. “I can see that.”
Brinley did not point out that Elle had returned to Estau for those very reasons.
“I hoped I would find you,” Finn continued, setting the bag at his feet and pulling off his gloves. His wedding ring glinted in the sunlight, drawing Brinley’s eye as he rummaged through a side compartment and pulled out his tablet, turning it on. “I wanted to show you something.”
As they waited for the screen to brighten, Elle glanced around, paranoid. She had abdicated; they could not make her come home. But unlike Brinley, who had been in trouble lots of times and faced many consequences, Elle had rarely been scolded and was clearly still fearful at the very thought.
“Here,” Finn said finally. He did not extend the tablet, obliging Brinley to come to stand at his side so she could see. After a moment Elle huffed and joined them, peering over Brinley’s arm to watch a video clip from a press conference held at the palace earlier that morning. Her parents stood next to each other in front of the dais in the media room, looking as proud and regal as always, which in itself was no surprise. The surprise was the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen that read, Castle Defends Princess Brinley Cantrella!
“...events of last night have already been addressed,” Queen Vivienne was saying, her voice calm and commanding. “Princess Brinley may not be the perfect princess, but she is your only princess. And instead of attempting to force a bold, modern young woman to meet an antiquated definition of what it means to be good, I suggest this kingdom—and this very castle—rewrite that definition.”
King Luke looked a little awed by his wife’s impassioned words, then blinked and nodded hastily. “Absolutely,” he said, sounding perhaps a bit more confused than convinced, but going along with it all the same. “Let’s change...things.”
The clip ended and returned to the newsroom, where a bemused journalist carried on with the rest of the day’s news. It was only twenty seconds’ worth of video, but to Brinley, who had never had her parents’ support, it felt like so much more. It felt like hope.
“So, there’s that,” Finn said. “And also this.” He opened a new window to show the same small blog they had visited before, the one that had admired Brinley’s rock throwing skills. Today’s feature post was titled, A Princess on Her Own Terms.
Brinley had read eighty-seven articles this morning, but not that one.
“And here.” He selected another page he had bookmarked. The second was a more popular site, one that typically loved picking on the royal families. The color photo at the top showed Brinley and Finn as they stepped out of the car last night at Castle Lenora, a private, rare smile on her husband’s stern face, Brinley’s cheeks flushed with happiness. Is the Bad Princess a Good Influence? asked the caption.
A third site showed Brinley glaring at the reporter who asked her about the divorce as she crouched on the stage. She looked fierce and determined as she said she made her own decisions. Behind her Princess Ilona looked on, her expression open and envious. An Expectedly Bad Example? Or an Unexpected Inspiration?
Brinley waited for Finn to call up a new page, and when he didn’t, she continued to read, hearing Elle’s sharp intake of breath as she skimmed the text ahead of her. When Lenora’s finest gathered at the castle last night, it was for the “surprise” announcement of the first child for Prince Jedrek and Princess Ilona of Lenora. The real surprise, however, came when Princess Brinley Cantrella of Estau spoiled the surprise by destroying the delicate chocolate egg filled with pink sugar intended to reveal the baby’s gender. (The egg had taken nine days and twelve people and two hundred pounds of rare chocolate to prepare, and three days to deliver and arrange.) But the true surprise had yet to be revealed—Princess Ilona is, in fact, not pregnant, and has announced her intention to divorce her husband.
Brinley gasped. “What?”
“It’s true. Ilona confirmed it in a press conference this morning. My father knew the marriage was on rocky ground and hoped that by announcing our divorce he could convince Jedrek and Ilona to stay married out of duty, knowing I would not be there as an alternative.”
“He—”
“And Ilona admitted that she was the one who placed the cord beneath the table,” he added. “She didn’t know who would trip on it, but she hoped someone would. She did not want to utter the lie about the baby, and the broken egg provided sufficient distraction.”
“She framed Brinley?” Elle demanded. “That’s kind of like shooting fish in a barrel.”
That stung a little, but was not inaccurate.
“She was inspired by Brinley’s speech,” Finn replied. “About making her own decisions. And because she very much wanted to be free and happy and not merely a ‘good princess,’ making an untrue baby announcement simply because it was scheduled.”
“Well, where is she?” Elle asked. “Because I have a spare seat on a private flight and she can be as free as she wants to be. All princesses welcome.”
It took a second for Finn to process the information, then he looked at Brinley, something that might have been hope in his gray gaze. “So you... That means... You’re not leaving?”
She shook her head.
“Not yet,” Elle piped up.
Finn ignored her, the straight line of his mouth curving slightly. “Good.”
Elle gripped Brinley’s shoulders and peered intently into her eyes. “Are you sure you want to stay here?” she demanded.
“I am sure.”
“I will come for you, each year on this day—”
“No,” Brinley said. “That is not necessary.”
Elle turned that same fierceness on Finn. “If you hurt her, I will return. I know how to get into the castle, and I will creep into your room—”
“Elle!” Brinley exclaimed.
“You deserve someone who loves you,” Elle said. “Not someone who wants you because of your title.”
“I have no need of the title,” Finn interrupted, insulted. “Jedrek and Ilona will divorce, so they cannot ascend the throne, and I am still next in line to be King of Lenora. I married Brinley because I wanted to. I am here because I want to be. I am also capable of making my own decisions.”
Brinley’s heart was beating a mile a minute. Two people who saw her, truly saw her, and cared for her. Who wanted to save her, though she had never been a princess who needed saving.
“It’s okay, Elle,” she said finally. “I belong here. And you belong...out there. Somewhere.” After a lifetime of the singular expectation that Elle would one day be queen, and months of a kingdom mourning her absence and the loss of that dream, it still felt wrong to say those words, even though she now knew them to be irrevocably true.
Elle stared at her for a long, assessing moment, then finally nodded. “Do not change,” she said fiercely. “Do not change for any man or any reason.”
“I could not,” Brinley said. “Even if I tried. Even if nine tutors tried.”
“Good. You were always the most interesting princess, anyway.”
Elle clasped her sister in the tightest hug their thick coats would allow, and after a startled second, Brinley returned the gesture. Never in their life had they embraced like this
. Like they meant it.
“Goodbye,” Elle said as she climbed back on the snowmobile. “If you ever want to leave him, I will come for you straight away.” And with a wave for Brinley and a glare for Finn, she rode off into the woods, a white knight with no one to save but herself.
“Well,” Finn said, when the whine of the motor had faded away.
“Well,” Brinley echoed.
Finn glanced around. “Here we are.”
“Yes. Somewhere.”
“We are the only ones who know where you are at this moment,” he said. “I did not alert the castle. If you wish to leave, you may. But I should point out that you do not have any supplies, and will likely freeze to death before dinner.”
“I was just considering my options.”
“I have supplies,” he continued, nodding at his bag. “So if you wanted to leave, you still could. And if you wanted company, I believe we could get very far together.”
Brinley’s throat tightened at the offer. She knew he wanted to be a prince and one day a king; she knew how much he was offering to give up for her. “I don’t want to go.”
Finn’s shoulders slumped approximately one percent, the barest acknowledgment of his relief. “Are you sure?”
“I am sure.”
“Good,” he said. “And for the record, I do not want you to go, and I am sorry I did not believe you about the egg. Last night I told you that sometimes I wished you would say less, but when I woke this morning and found you gone, I wanted very badly to take that back. Say whatever you want to me.”
I love you, she thought. I always have. I want to always.
“I told you to say more,” she said, instead. “But you say enough, Finn. Perhaps you can stay silent and I can stay bad, and that can be the new normal.”
His mouth quirked. “Normal? Really?”
“But there is something I do need to hear.”
He arched a brow. “Oh?”
“You knew Jedrek would not renew the forestry agreement.”
“Mm hmm.”
“Yet you married me anyway.”
Bad Princess Page 12