“Cassandra,” I said, offering my hand. I was supposed to introduce myself with my title but it seemed inappropriate here. He knew who I was. He took my hand and placed a gentle kiss on the back of it.
“I hope you enjoy the reception tonight,” he said. “We’re all very excited to have you here.”
“I’m very excited to be here,” I said and, for the first time, I wasn’t lying about that. If being here brought me to meeting him tonight then, it would all be worth it.
A shout rang out, and I jumped. Someone else yelled, and I spun around just in time to see several guards with earpieces launch themselves at a man. I caught a glimpse of the gun in his hand, but it was knocked away before he could use it. I was lurched off my feet as the handsome stranger pulled me away, arms around me, turning to put himself between me and the man being tackled.
The warmth that had been there moments ago was gone, and I felt shivers run up and down my spine and arms. The music stopped. The guards lifted the attacker to his feet, and briefly my eyes met those of the man who’d had a gun and had intended to kill someone. Was it me? My aunt? Someone else in my family?
I didn’t know, and I was so thankful I was never going to find out. He was dragged away and I was left staring, wondering what my future here was going to hold, if this was just the beginning. I swallowed the thickness in my throat, steeled my shoulders, and tried to pretend I wasn’t shaking all over.
The group called itself the Heledia Liberation Front, though the real name was something in Italian. They wanted a democracy, the abolition of the monarchy, and many of them wanted it any way they could get it, with incredibly violent means if necessary.
Chapter 4
It was surreal. It seemed like we were all underwater, moving in slow motion, all sound muted by the air itself. Everyone around me was yelling something, doing something, but it seemed like there was a fishbowl over me. Then there were hands on me – the boy, Carlo. He was moving me away from the scene, his face painted with as much horror as I was feeling. He looked so shocked. I didn’t blame him. I don’t think anyone really expects someone to get a gun into a private event in the palace. This place wasn’t just a government building; it was a home for many of us.
My whole body felt cold. Someone had brought a gun into our home. There was only one reason to do that. I should find my mother. I needed to find my family. I needed to make sure everyone was okay. I needed to see their faces and know that everything was okay. I moved, trying to break free of the boy’s grip.
He was saying something, but I couldn’t seem to hear him. Something about not being safe. Well, I knew that much – that was obvious. But it didn’t matter. My family was in danger, and I needed to get to them.
“It’s not safe,” he said with more force, cutting through the glass layer that seemed to be around me.
“I know,” I said, breaking his grip on me and moving away.
He was frantic to follow me. He reached out to grab me again and I dodged him.
“Stop it,” I said. “I need to find my family.”
“We don’t know who else is here,” he said, his eyes darting around the room.
“Princess,” someone said behind me. I turned. Several guards came forward, blocking out the boy and encircling me. “We’re moving you to a safe location.”
“My family.”
“They’re already there.”
I nodded and moved with them. We walked briskly through the reception hall while several other guards detained guests, locking the doors. That was the procedure. They were going to lock everyone in behind us, and quarantine the room until they figured out who was responsible for what. The door closed behind us and the fish bowl world with its muted sounds was gone. Now, I could hear our footsteps on the floor, the voices of the security personnel, and through the open windows, the sound of someone shouting outside. Everything seemed so loud.
“Where are we going?”
“A safe place.”
“I’d feel safer if I knew.”
“We have protocol. We’re following it, ma’am.”
I wanted to plant my feet and yell, throw a temper tantrum, and tell them I was their princess and I needed to know where we were going, and why. But I held myself together. I couldn’t lose my cool. If I couldn’t handle this – if I was seen not being able to handle this – it could spell disaster for my image. I was going to be queen one day. Having a fit was not going to do me, or anyone, any good.
So I took a breath and let myself be swept along. I held my tongue still and my head high as we came to a room where the rest of my family was waiting. My mother was in the corner, crushing my brother in a tight hug. My father was pacing furiously, red in the face, looking like he’d just finished yelling at the nervous-looking security guard watching him cautiously. Everyone was there except for my aunt, the queen.
My mother saw me and stood, dragging my brother with her, not wanting to let either of her children out of her sight or her arms. She sacrificed one arm to wrap it around me and drag me farther into the room, as though standing near the door might expose me to the assailants who may or may not be in the corridor.
“Cassandra,” my mother sounded like it was the first time she’d seen me in weeks. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Everyone else?”
“No one was hurt,” one of the guards said.
“What’s going on?” Benjamin asked.
“If we knew that, it wouldn’t have happened. Period,” my father said, with his arms crossed over his chest. I’d never seen him look so furious in his life, and based on my mother’s face, I don’t think she’d ever seen him look so angry, either. He seemed like he was about to explode.
“We’re working on it,” the guard said. “The important thing is that reaction plan beta worked flawlessly. The queen and immediate heirs are protected. So far, no casualties or injuries have been reported in the main reception room.”
“Well done,” Dad snarled, and my mother shushed him with a hand on his shoulder. Watching her protect her children and calm her husband, I realized I was seeing another side of her, too.
We waited in silence after that, because we were all scared and angry, and nobody wanted to provoke my father into another outburst. I thought of the tantrum I’d come close to throwing in the hallway on the way here, when I’d felt scared and alone and didn’t understand what was happening around me. I had held it in. I wondered if that was part of the reason why he wouldn’t have made a good king.
My mother always said my father’s emotions ran deep, and he either couldn’t, or didn’t care to stifle them. He was trusting and easygoing. He was quick to laugh, quick to make friends, but also quick to anger, and these were not good attributes for a king. Right now, his emotions showed clearly – he was angry and scared. Next to him, my brother was stoically silent, knowing his usual sarcasm and humor would he horribly out of place right now. His nerves showed, though, in the way his eyes darted between my parents. My mother was tight-lipped and pale, and her hands were shaking.
I was calm, I realized. Not that I felt safe, confident, or in control, but I was composed. I was waiting and watching, because I understood the consequences if I didn’t – and ended up doing something stupid as a result. It also occurred to me that they might be looking to me to figure out how they should act or what they should do. This room was a microcosm of my rule; I needed to keep it together for myself, for my family, and for the future of the country.
“How long do we wait here?” I asked, turning sharply and addressing the guard next to me.
“Until we receive clearance to take you to your apartments. The protocol is to establish a safe area where the perimeter is secured and we have full control of the area. Once the danger level has dropped to yellow, we move you along a secured path to your apartments.”
“And when will that be?”
“When we get the call, ma’am.”
I nodded stiffly and returned to
sit with my mother and brother. As we waited, I realized that my reign would be different than all those that came before – I would face challenges never faced before. I would need to know how these situations were handled, because I was betting this wouldn’t be the last time my safety – and the safety of the people I loved – was in jeopardy.
So I’d be the face of calm and patience while we waited out this danger.
* * *
We were waiting longer than I expected, and much longer than my father was prepared to handle.
“Nick, calm down,” my mother said in a calm, hushing tone.
“This is insane,” he said, huffing down onto the couch.
My mother had calmed herself enough to let go of Ben and I, and we were walking around the room a bit, allowing the blood to circulate in our bodies. But there wasn’t anywhere we could go; we were in Aunt Sonia’s small tea room with some shelves of her books. I perused the spines restlessly.
The books were in various languages, and about many more topics than I would have expected. I’d expected to see books on history and politics, but I also found books about medicine, architecture, law, and other professions. I could make out virtually all the titles, though my French had always been stronger than my Italian. It made sense that Aunt Sonia would be well-read, because she was a naturally curious person. She could talk to anyone about anything, and I was beginning to see why.
I tried to find a book to keep my mind off the possibility of murders running around the palace, the chance that somebody was getting hurt. I thought of the boy who I’d known for a few seconds, the one who’d grabbed me to protect me from whatever was going on. Carlo. Was he okay? Would he be a suspect because he’d been there with me?
The guards all seemed to get a message at the same time, their hands going to their ears to press the tiny buds and better hear whatever was being said. I stifled my curious questions and waited. Maybe it was all over, or maybe the monarchy was tumbling and they wanted our heads. One of the guards nodded into the air and turned to us.
“We’ve been given the all clear to begin moving you to your apartment.”
I nodded and stood. I wasn’t in charge; I was a child with my parents. But I was a queen-to-be, and I wasn’t going to wait for my father to ask a hundred more questions before we went.
No one said a word. The door opened and we stepped back out into the world after what felt like years and years. Still loosely surrounded by security, we began to move through the halls. Our rooms had never seemed so far away. Unlike the noise and chaos after the gunman had been caught, it was now deathly quiet, but for our footfalls. I now truly understood the expression about being able to hear a pin drop. A mouse could scurry across the hall and it would be the loudest thing to happen.
There were guards everywhere, still and stoic like tensed dogs waiting for something to snap at. We walked in single file, not speaking.
I just wanted us to get to the safety of our rooms and talk to Aunt Sonia. I knew there were things about this night they weren’t going to let me know. And as the heir, I wasn’t sure how far my demands would take me.
Now that things were calming down, my mind was beginning to wander toward possibilities that were horrifying. Was the gun meant for me? For my aunt? For all of us? I couldn’t bear the thought. Once, I saw my mother cut her finger on a mandolin slicer, and had been horrified at the truth: she could bleed. There existed things in the world that were capable of hurting the people I loved. And now it was clear that there were people who were capable of making the people I loved bleed, too.
It didn’t happen today. But it could happen in the future – I could see that on my mother’s face. She was grave and pale, and when her eyes met mine, I saw regret. She was terrified of what she’d gotten her children into. Dad looked like he felt guilty, like he felt he was responsible for the terror his family was enduring, and the things we would go through. We’d been born into the wrong family.
I wondered how many parents in the world felt this way. Sure, plenty of kids ended up in crappy situations, inheriting conditions, diseases, social grudges, poverty, or war. But did parents ever think it would have been better to not create a life in such a situation? I think my parents, for one fleeting moment, were thinking that now, somehow joined at the mind as we hurried to a place of safety in the palace. Their children were in danger because of who they were, because of the family we were born into.
But you can’t control who you love. My parents had proved that, and my aunt even more so. It couldn’t be helped. I smiled at my mother and squeezed her hand in mine. I’d rather be here, alive and experiencing this with her, than never knowing her at all. I just wanted her to know that. She gave me a small smile of understanding in return, but I knew we’d have to talk this over later.
We found ourselves in the residence wing and the air seemed to relax around us as if everyone took a collective breath and let it out as one. We weren’t completely safe, nobody ever was, but we were as home as we could be right now, and that’s what mattered.
“Family meeting,” my mother said before we could separate and go into our different rooms. “Now.”
We all walked into my parent’s room and my mother shut the door before a guard could follow us in. There was saying in the palace: the servants listen to nothing, but hear everything. That went for the guards as well, and my mother wasn’t having it. This wasn’t about being secretive; it was about connecting as a family at a time when we really needed to. And she would be damned if she let someone in on that.
The door closed and it was easier to pretend we were back home.
“Everyone is okay?” my mother asked.
“There was no shot fired, Isabel,” my father said.
“I meant emotionally. Their lives were just threatened by a man with a gun. I think it might be a little traumatic,” my mother said sharply, and my father backed off instantly, like a puppy who had been reprimanded.
He tended to react that way in the face of my mother’s rage. He was easily beaten down by a glare from her, or a sharp word. My brother would joke and say it was because he was “whipped.” To me it just seemed like my father was so much in love with my mother that he would do anything for her. Right now he wanted to appease her, make her feel safe.
“We’re okay,” I said, speaking for Ben as well because I knew my brother wouldn’t. I didn’t know for sure that he was okay, but it was the answer Mom needed. “Are you?”
“The gun wasn’t meant for me,” she answered softly.
She didn’t know that for sure but I understood what she meant. She wasn't the one in immediate danger, and she never really would be. She was a member of the royal family, she was titled, but without my father and us kids, she was no threat to anyone in Heledia. As long as my brother and I existed, there would always be a target in front of her. That wasn’t how parenting was supposed to work. The parents were supposed to be the shield for their children; the children weren’t supposed to be the first in the line of fire.
“We’re all okay,” I said with authority, like saying it would make it so. “We’re going to stay that way.”
“Maybe we should rethink some things,” my father said.
“Rethink some things?”
“There’s a lot of upheaval here. A lot of danger. People have recently gotten very anti-monarchy and as the heir, you’re going to be top on their list,” he said.
“So what are we meant to be rethinking?” I asked. “I can’t change who I am. I can’t suddenly stop being a princess and the heir.”
“Well, you—”
“No,” I cut him off in sudden fear of where this conversation was heading. “I won’t back down from this. I won’t step out of the way when things get scary and throw someone else in my place. This is my bed, and I’ll sleep it in. It’s my right. I won’t give it up.”
My father looked hurt. I’d snapped, quickly and fiercely at the idea of abdicating my place. I could see he’d taken it persona
lly. He’d done it once himself and few people let him forget it. Now his daughter was appalled at the mere idea, but I had different priorities than him when he was my age. He was thrust into a situation before he was ready, but I’d spent my entire life preparing to be the best queen I could be when the time came. I wasn’t going to give this up for anything.
“This isn’t about pride or anything like that,” my mother said. “This is real and dangerous and I’m worried.”
“We’re all worried,” I said. “We’re all in danger and no matter where we go in life there’s always that danger. This is my home. I won’t let some crazies take it away from me.”
“This isn’t a game—”
“No. It’s not. It’s my life. My job. My duty. It’s the way things go,” I said. “I’m not letting the entire future we planned disappear because someone is trying to scare us.”
My mother was silent, and my father was sitting off to the side. My mother glanced at him for support, and saw that he wasn’t going to argue with me. She rolled her eyes, huffed, and got up to glare out the window.
Dad walked over, wrapping his arms around her midsection from behind and setting his chin on her shoulder. He was whispering something in her ear.
I turned to look at Benjamin. He’d been silent during this whole thing, sitting there with a solemn face and more seriousness and maturity than I’d ever seen. For once I didn’t feel like I was so much older than him. He seemed to understand the seriousness of it all, the actual consequences. Maybe he wouldn’t be doing keg stands in California after all.
“You okay?” I asked, sitting down on the bed next to him.
He shrugged. “Yeah. But who knows? Maybe tomorrow someone will put a bullet in my head.”
I wanted to tell him that they were likely aiming for me. That there was more of a danger that I was going to be the one shot, but I didn’t want to invalidate his feelings. We were all in danger and it certainly wasn’t a contest. So I nodded.
A Royal Renewal_The Royals of Heledia Page 4