Royal Affliction (The Anti-Princess Saga)

by Jennifer Marsh

  “I thought she was too.” His voice was distant. “I remember the scene so vividly, the blood, the gore.”

  “But why is she contacting you now, after all these years of supposedly being dead?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone. She wants to see me today, and my new girlfriend.”

  “Did you tell her who I was? I do not think that she will want to meet me when she finds out that I am the daughter of the man that she deserted.”

  “No, I didn’t tell her that part, and I don’t know if I should. Please say you’ll come. I don’t think I can face the woman who staged her own death just to get away from her only child.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “Please say that you will come?”

  I was hesitant to say yes, but I couldn’t say no. He needed me to do this with him. He needed my love and support. “Where are we meeting her?”

  Though he still looked traumatized by the return of his mother, he looked grateful at the fact that I was coming with him. He even managed to smile, if only for a split-second. “She is staying at the Embassy suites in town. She wants us to meet her there at noon.”

  I looked back at Kafkus. “Would you mind if we went alone?” I knew that Clifton wanted just me to accompany him on this venture into his past, even though he didn’t say it.

  “This is a personal matter, and I think that Clifton is fit enough to protect you for this trip. It will give me and Quino time to train anyway.”

  “Take Kyle with you please. I know that he is human, but I have a hunch that he might be feeling a bit left out. It would be nice of you to include him.”

  He nodded in agreement and then left the room. I sat down on the bed, taking time to fully comprehend what had just happened.

  Drina was alive, but how was it possible? Why did she pretend to be dead for so long? Should I tell my father that the love of his life was still alive? My head was swimming with questions that I couldn’t answer.

  It looked like there was a lot going on in Clifton’s mind too. This news had come as much as a shock to him as it did to me, probably more seeing as it was his mother. “What are you thinking about?” At the moment I wished that I could read his mind like Kafkus could mine.

  “A lot of things.”

  “What should I wear? I have never met the mother of someone that I was dating before.”

  “I think….I think that you should wear your royal dress.”

  “So, you do want her to know who I am.” He hadn’t told her of me over the phone, yet he wanted me to wear something that would give it away as soon as she saw me.

  He shrugged. “She will find out eventually. I think it might be better that she knows from the start.”

  I couldn’t argue with his logic so I helped him pick out some nice clothes to wear and he was nice enough to fetch my golden gown from wherever he had hidden it.

  When I entered the living room, I found Quino, Kafkus and Kyle sitting at the table eating cereal.

  Quino looked up at me with milk dribbling down his chin. “Kafkus told me the news. What do you think your father will say when you tell him?”

  “I don’t know if I should. He believes her dead and maybe it is better that way.”

  “You would willingly lie to your King?”

  “I don’t want to. Sometimes, it is better to omit things that can hurt people. I would be saving him a lot of heartache if I chose not to tell him.” I remembered the painful look in my father’s eyes when I had told him that Drina was dead. I couldn’t bear to inflict that on him again. “I haven’t decided either way, so don’t get all high and mighty on me, Quino. I will hear what she has to say before I decide what to do.”

  He looked annoyed, but bit his tongue. He just went back to eating his cereal with a bitter look on his face.

  I followed Clifton out to the car and tossed him my keys. “You drive. I am tired of being everyone’s taxi.”

  He managed to smile through the obvious distress that he was feeling. “I never got my license. Since I never had enough money to get a car, I thought would be a waste of time.” He tossed the keys back to me.

  “So, you have never driven a car before, ever?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve never had to. The bus takes me everywhere that I need to go.”

  “Then how did we get back from Monterey?” I knew that none of the others knew how to drive.

  “Kafkus figured it out.”

  I couldn’t believe that he had never driven before. That was one of the first things I’d learned when I came here. “Well, you can’t expect me to drive you around forever.” I tossed the keys back to him. “Today is as good as any to start.” I resolutely positioned myself in the front passenger seat, not giving him a chance to argue.

  He sat down in the driver’s seat, but made no attempt to do anything.

  “Do you know how to start it?”

  He put the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine fired up. “That’s all I know. What do I do next?”

  I suppressed a laugh. It was weird teaching Clifton something that he should have been teaching me. He grew up here after all. “You fix the mirrors so that you can see out of them.” He did that. “Then you put your foot on the brake.” He did that. “Then you move this lever into the “R” position.” He did that. “Now, slowly let your foot off the brake while looking behind you for cars and pedestrians.”

  He let off the gas too fast and had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the car that was passing behind us. He looked at me apologetically.

  “It’s ok. Just try again.”

  He took a long deep breath, let it out, and backed out of the parking spot.

  “Good, now put the lever in the “D” position and slowly let off the brake.”

  He rode the brake while we were in the complex, finally pressing on the gas when we hit the street.

  He drove well under the speed limit, causing cars to go around us. Many of them flashed rude hand gestures as they passed. I directed him around the city streets, as I didn’t want to traumatize him with the freeway just yet. Other than driving slow, he did just fine. And soon enough, we pulled into the parking lot of the Embassy suites hotel. It took him three attempts to get in between the lines of a parking space, but finally we were parked.

  We got out of the car and stared up at the hotel. It was massive. I grabbed his hand and we walked into the building together.

  *******************

  The lobby was full of people ranging from tourists to businessmen. My glimmering gown attracted a fair amount of eyes mostly from the men, but I tried not to pay attention.

  “What room is she in?”

  “Room 513.”

  In the elevator I hit the button for the 5th floor and I took a deep breath as the doors closed.

  I hated these things. I avoided them when I could, but I wasn’t going to ask Clifton to walk up five flights of stairs. I groaned as the elevator did that maneuver that churned my stomach.

  “Are you ok?”

  “I will be fine once we get out of here.” I shut my mouth quickly after speaking. I felt like I should keep it closed until we got out of this confined space. The doors swung open and I hastily made my exit.

  “We could have taken the stairs.”

  I glared at him, annoyed that I hadn’t asked beforehand. “We can take the stairs on the way back.”

  We stood in front of her room in complete silence for a moment. And when he made no motion of knocking, I did it for him.

  “Thank you.”

  The door creaked open and a breathtakingly beautiful woman stood in the doorway. Her hair was a soft, strawberry-blonde and fell in loose curls around her tan face. Her eyes were like two shimmering pools of water illuminating on her face. She was tall and skinny, wearing an evening gown that was as black as night. If I didn’t know that she was Clifton’s mother, I would have placed her in her late thirties, though I had no way of knowing her real age. She was my father’s first wife, but where hi
s face showed signs of aging, hers did not. I saw a lot of Clifton in her soft feminine face.

  “Clifton? Is it really you?”

  “Yes, Drina, it is me.” He obviously didn’t want to call her mother, and I couldn’t blame him after what she had done.

  She looked taken aback at being called by her real name. I wondered if she had been called Drina since she had left Kortis. She recovered nicely, looking pleasant. “Please, come in.”

  She watched Clifton, as only a mother could, as he passed her. When she saw me however, she gasped, looking horror struck. She closed the door quickly behind us and locked the deadbolt. She spun back around to stare at me again. “You, you are his?”

  Clifton stood beside me. “Drina, this is my Zezka, Princess Quartessa.”

  I looked at him with a delighted surprise. He had never called me by my true name before. But I was a little perturbed by his tone. He obviously wanted to hurt the woman who had hurt him so bad.

  “I, I need to sit down,” she stuttered looking close to fainting. She stumbled in her haste as she made her way to the couch and plopped down hard.

  Clifton dragged me over to the couch opposite her, and we sat down. We remained there, sitting in silence for minutes that dragged on.

  I looked around at Drina’s suite. It was very colorful and inviting, decorated with extravagant fabrics and paintings lining the walls. This room looked expensive. She had been a queen in Kortis, and it seemed that she was still living like one here. I wondered how she was paying for her extravagant lifestyle.

  “So,” said Clifton, breaking the silence and drawing attention on him. “Are you going to tell me why you faked your death to get away from me?”

  She looked up at him with deep sorrow and regret evident on her beautiful face. “I did not do it to get away from you Clifton, you must believe that.” When he said nothing, she continued. “The night the Boru came to kill us, your father made me cast a spell to save my own life.” Tears began forming in her eyes. “Though I did not want to leave his side, he made me vow that I would. I duplicated myself and hid you from them. I placed a protective spell on the closet that I put you in. Only after I knew that you would be safe, I slipped out of the bedroom window, knowing that to separate myself from you would ensure your continued safety. They did not know about you and I did know that you would be better off without me. I have kept myself hidden these past years. Since they killed my twin, they thought me dead already.”

  “Duplicate?” It seemed to be all that I could say after her story.

  “Yes, I was a borderline witch back home. I had some power, but not enough to be classified as a real witch.”

  Clifton looked angry, rather than sympathetic from his mother’s story. “If they thought that you were dead, why couldn’t you take me with you?!”

  “I did not want the life that I have now to be the life that you had. I didn’t want you to have to hide. I left you behind so that you could do better than me, free from the ongoing rift between the Boru and the Zolera.”

  I could tell that Clifton had understood, but that didn’t make it any less heart-wrenching to hear.

  “Why contact me now, after twenty years of silence?”

  “There have been many times that I have tried to call you Clifton, but I just couldn’t bring myself to follow through with it. I knew that you would hate me for what I had done to you.” She sighed. “I just could not go another day without seeing you. And, even if you never wanted to see me again, I just want you to know that I love you. Not a single day has gone by that I have not thought of you.”

  Clifton’s face was unreadable.

  “So, why did you leave my father?” I had kept quiet so that she could explain her desertion to her son first. But with that done, I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. I needed to know why she had hurt my father so badly. “He loved you, and I know that he still does to this very day. Why did you do that to him?”

  She stopped crying long enough to look at me. Mascara was running down her cheeks, making her look much less attractive. “Your father ascended the throne after his parents were killed. In those times, you could not be King unless you had a Queen. It was my father who made the decision for me. He gave me to Dobbin without considering my feelings in the matter. I eventually grew to love my husband, and I still very much do. But the throne, and the responsibilities that came along with being queen, were something that I never wanted, nor felt that I deserved. Everyone expected more from me than I was able to give. And in time, the responsibilities grew too great. I had to escape. One night, I paid a witch to concoct something that would make me appear human. She helped me to cross over to this world. I have thought of going back from time to time, but I could never bring myself to do it. I am sure that King Dobbin would not want to see me after all this time.”

  As she spoke, I could feel her pain. She was like me, a woman on the run trying to get away from her royal responsibilities, though I had been born into mine whereas she had been forced. We had both traded our lives for a chance at a normal human existence. I could feel no more resentment towards the woman sitting across from me. Instead, I felt compassion for her, for what she had been through. Though, I was sure she was wrong about the part about my father not wanting to see her. I was sure he would, but I wouldn’t tell her that. I didn’t want this woman to return to Kortis and ruin my parent’s marriage.

  “I understand. I too ran here to escape a marriage that was to take place against my will.”

  “You did?”

  I rubbed Clifton’s thigh. “Besides, if you didn’t run away then I never would have found my great love or even been born.”

  Though tears still leaked from her eyes, she looked relieved, maybe even a little happy. “Do you feel the same way Clifton?”

  He looked at me and then back at her. “I understand your reasons for leaving, mother, and I would like to have you back in my life, that is, if you want to be.”

  She smiled big, looking happy for the first time since we’d arrived. “I would love that.” She held her arms out to him and he hugged her hard and buried his face against her.

  I stood up. I now felt like I was intruding on a private family moment. “I will leave you two alone. Clifton, I will meet you downstairs.”

  I started to leave when she called out to me. “Who is your mother, Quartessa?” It seemed that she needed to know who had replaced her as queen.

  “Avalon.”

  “Oh.”

  I didn’t give her a chance to say anything else before I left. I knew that her and my mother had been good friends back home. She probably wasn’t too happy that her old friend had taken her place.

  It was a long walk down those five flights of stairs. I stopped off at the hotel bar because, after everything that had happened this week, I needed a drink.

  I grabbed a bar stool and ordered myself a strawberry margarita with an extra shot on the side. I threw back the shot and had just begun going to town on the margarita when I heard someone call out my name.

  I turned to see a familiar face walking towards me. “Why hello, Officer Michaels.” He wasn’t wearing his uniform. Instead, he was dressed very nice in a dark navy suit and loafers.

  He pulled up the stool next to me and sat down. “I am off duty, and I distinctly remember asking you to call me James,” he said, flirting a little.

  “Sorry, James. So what brings you here?”

  “Blind date.” He looked around nervously. “A coworker of my sister, let me know if you spot a short brunette wearing a floral dress, will ya?”

  “Will do. You get a good witness account of the car?” I really hoped the person hadn’t seen mine.

  “Yeah, it was a white Ford Explorer and a blue Prius, though they didn’t get the license plates. Your Prius was blue right?”

  “Along with everyone else’s. I think it’s the company’s favorite color.”

  “Right, well, we still have the fingerprints to go off of, but nothing so far.�
�

  “Let me know.” I was glad to know I wasn’t a direct suspect, but those fingerprints were bugging me.

  “I like your dress. You were wearing it yesterday too right?”

  “Mhm.”

  “Hey, Tessa?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you, maybe, I don’t know, want to go do something sometime?” I flashed him a weird look. He understood my expression and added, “You know, if this date doesn’t work out and all.”

  James’ eyes held more depth than any human I’d ever encountered, as if I could know him for a thousand years and still not know him.

  “That sounds nice James, but, I am here with my…”

  “Tessa?” called Clifton. He had impeccable timing.

  “Over here!” I called back to him. “I am here with my boyfriend.”

  “Isn’t he your cousin?”

  “What? No, this is my boyfriend, Clifton. The other two were my cousins.”

  “Oh.” He abruptly stood up. “I think I see my date so I will leave you two alone.” He lied, but I didn’t call him on it. It must have been awkward for him to ask me out right before my lover showed up. “It was nice to see you again, Tessa. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you soon.” He whispered something in Clifton’s ear before walking away.

  I eyed Clifton with amused interest. “What did he say?”

  “He said to take good care of you or he would hunt me down,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Well that was a direct order from the police. You had better do as he says or I’ll have to turn you in.”

  “Is that so?”

  Clifton took my hand and guided me to the small dance floor. The music was slow and Clifton moved far more graceful than I could have thought.

  He kissed me as we danced, a moment of true romance. I felt so loved in his arms. I felt as a woman should feel when she is in love: no worries, no impending doom. No one else existed in that moment, except for Clifton and me. I wished that the song would never end, but like all good things that you wish could go on forever, it would never last long enough. Though the song ended, and nothing but chatter replaced it, we stayed there, still dancing to a melody that we could feel inside of us, a tune that sung of love and devotion. It was an eternal melody that would go on forever, long after we were both gone.