I laughed. “I don’t know. Probably. Who are they?”
“They did Bitter Sweet Symphony.”
“Oh!” I cried. “I know that one! Not bad. Okay, how about favourite celebrity? Wait. Do celebrities have a favourite celebrity?”
“I don’t know. I’m hardly a celebrity. You tell me.”
I snorted. “I’m not a celebrity.”
“You are though. Besides, surely I get these answers too.”
“You going to call Rafferty when you get home and tell him all about our date?”
He grinned. “I might.”
I tried to remember what I’d asked him. “Colour is a really deep green. Band is… Actually that is hard. I’m going with… Chainsmokers. Celebrity would probably be… Gah, Anna Kendrick. Your turn!”
“Okay. Uh, Dante Rios!” he said quickly.
I snorted. “God. Really?”
“I couldn’t think of anyone else. Favourite book?”
“Oh, easy! Going Postal,” I said.
“Going what?”
“Postal. Terry Pratchet. I found it in the library at school once and I loved it. Yours?”
“The Hobbit.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
I grinned. “Brilliant.”
We spent the rest of the night listing off as many favourite things as we could. And while we made each other laugh and I felt sufficiently prepared for talking to the girls about him, I wasn’t sure I actually knew him any better for it.
Chapter Eleven
The next day, I was ruminating about my date with Eric after spending an exorbitant amount of time talking to Jenn and Bea about it.
I decided that if Dmitri and I weren’t to be, I could do worse than Eric Baker. At least in the interim. Sure, it felt weird wondering what it would be like to fall in love with one guy while I was pretty sure I was still in love with another. But I supposed Lia was going through something sort of similar. It made little difference if Dmitri and I had slept together or that Lia believed Kostin didn’t even know she existed, the feelings weren’t so different.
So I figured who better to talk to than my supposedly so much wiser older sister.
But she was at uni so I’d have to wait until she got back.
Instead, I decided to pass the time by wandering to the library. For someone who’d started doing it to stave off boredom, I was actually interested to see what more I could find out about Gallyrian history.
“Do you get holidays, Kol?” I asked him as we wandered down.
“I do not think it appropriate to discuss my employment conditions with you, my lady,” he replied and I threw him a frown.
“How else will I know when to plan my grand escape?” I joked.
I was satisfied enough by the slight twitch in the corner of his mouth as he supressed a smile that I didn’t push it. “Do you have siblings, then?”
“I do.”
“Is that all you’ve got for me?” I asked teasingly.
It looked like that smile was harder to supress this time. “I have a younger brother.”
“Anyone else?”
He shook his head. “No. It is just the two of us. He lives north, closer to our parents, with his daughter.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” I said with a smile. “Did they miss you over Christmas?”
He gave a single nod. “Yes.”
I grinned. “I bet they did. Maybe I can get you some time off this year?”
“To coincide with your grand escape, my lady?”
I snorted. “No. I promise I won’t escape if you’re visiting family.”
“Thank you, my lady. Most kind.”
I laughed as I skipped into the library, feeling pretty good in the realisation that I didn’t feel too despondent about the whole Dmitri situation if I kept my mind busy. So all I’d have to do is keep it busy until I was over him.
“Why did you join the army, Kol?” I asked him while I looked over the books.
“I am the fourth generation to serve the king, my lady.”
“So it’s an obligation?” Deciding that was a poor choice of words, I rephrased. “I mean a duty?”
“In some ways, my lady. But I also wanted to be like my father, and his mother before him, and her father before her.”
“Your grandmother was in the army?” I asked, looking back at him.
“She was. During the Second World War. She was a nurse.”
“How about your grandfather?”
“Teacher and conscientious objector, my lady. He waited at home for her.”
I nodded. “Fair enough. It was always the army then?”
“It was. Until Mr Mironov pulled me out to join the Guard.”
“He picked you specifically?”
“He did, my lady.”
I frowned. “When was this?”
“About two years ago.”
I sighed. “Our union’s been planned a long while then, has it?”
“I believe so, my lady.”
I nodded again. “Well, I’m glad they picked you, Kol.”
“Thank you–”
“Anya!” I turned to see Hilde hurrying into the library, all sense of decorum gone. Well not all sense maybe – if I lost all mine, I’d be a damn sight worse off – but an awful lot of it for her.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, looking to Nikolai like he’d have any answers. When he frowned, I assumed he had none.
“Report from the south. Absolutely garbled. Fragments of information. All we know is the boys went missing for a time and one of them has been injured.”
My stomach dropped so far so fast I thought I was going to be sick. “What?”
Hilde waved me to her and I went like I was on autopilot until I was safely wrapped in her arms. “We don’t know how badly yet or who. Max and Reginald are trying to work that out. I haven’t told the girls yet and we’re keeping Kostin updated. Max said to wait until we know more before we tell Lia but he wanted you to know. I offered to find you so they could focus on getting the boys home.”
I nodded numbly. “But they’re both alive?” I asked.
“Yes. As far as we know.”
“Do we know…? What happened?”
“Nothing yet.”
I took a deep breath and pulled away to look at her. “Where’s Dad?”
“The War Room.”
I nodded, feeling a little feeling return. The War Room was the name given to the room off Rex’s office where he, Dad, and the council spent a lot of their time. Mostly arguing over stuff, from the sounds of it.
“I’m not sure there’s much you can do, dear,” Hilde said softly, kindly.
“Maybe not. But I can’t do nothing either.”
I strode out, presuming Nikolai would follow me because that’s what he did, and Hilde easily kept up.
I found Sergei in the small room between the hallway and the War Room.
“I need to see Dad,” I said and made to move past him.
Sergei held a hand up and looked to Nikolai like it was his fault I was somewhere I probably wasn’t supposed to be.
“It’s all right, Mironov,” Hilde said authoritatively. “Let her in.”
Sergei more symbolically than anything stepped aside and I rushed in.
“Anya?” Rex asked as he looked up from the table.
“What are you doing here?” Dad asked.
I looked around and saw Arnell and the others all standing around, staring at me in varying degrees of contempt and confusion.
“I want to help,” I told them, taking another step into the room.
Dad gave me a weary smile. “I don’t know there’s much you can do, kiddo.”
“The War Room is not a place for incompetent, little girls,” Arnell said sternly.
I turned a surprisingly fierce glare on him as Rex said, “Arnell, I am not sure even now is a cause for such rudeness.”
“My apologies, sire. But we have more pressing concerns than if Duke Genovich’s daughter feels like she’s contributing to the cause.” He paused and looked me over like I was nothing on the sole of his shoe. “No matter her relationship to those involved.”
Dad took a step towards him, but I spoke first. “You wouldn’t know what I was capable of, General. You took one look at me and decided I was an abomination to the precious peerage of Gallyr–”
“Tatiana!” Dad chastised, but I was on a roll.
“You’ve never given me the time of day. You’ve spent almost all your time trying to intimidate me into feeling inferior. I wondered why you didn’t have anything mean to say to me at the king’s birthday and I realised it was because I was feeling superior that night. And you were too cowardly to take a shot!”
“God’s sake, Tati!” Dad hissed, but Rex said, “No. I want to hear this,” as Arnell got more and more red.
Having my stride broken, I felt less empowered my by angry display and more uncertain. But I couldn’t deflate now. “I don’t expect you pay me deference, General. But a little civility would not go astray. I think we could both managed that as well-mannered adults. Don’t you?”
Arnell said nothing, but I could tell by the look on his face that he was well past miffed with me.
“Well, General?” Rex said. “Do you?”
Arnell nodded perfunctorily. “Yes, my lady. I believe we could. I bestow my sincere apologies I was…unjust in my behaviour towards you.”
I shook out my shoulders, not sure if it was a win or one of those things that was going to come back and bite me in the arse. “Apology accepted. I am sorry your initial impression of me was…not my best. The learning curve was steeper than I anticipated,” I petered off, feeling a little bit lame.
General Arnell cleared his throat. “Understandable, my lady. Now,” he said slightly louder to the room at large, “that that is out of the way, shall we try to regain contact with the unit?”
Rex looked between us and nodded as Dad scurried over to me with the face that told me we were going to have words. I lost track of what the other men in the room started talking about as Dad dragged me out into Rex’s office and shut the door behind us.
“What the hell was that?” Dad hissed as if he was worried the men in the War Room would hear us.
I felt my cheeks heat. “Sorry. But the guy gets on my nerves.”
“Passive-aggressive, Tati. We do passive-aggressive!” he snapped.
I frowned. “I’m no good at passive-aggressive.”
“I’ve noticed. And now you’ve called out the highest ranking member of the king’s army in front of the king’s entire council!”
“Was I supposed to let him bag me in front of the whole council?” I asked. “He started with the not so passive-aggressive, Dad.”
Dad sighed, then huffed a laugh. “I can’t believe you called him a coward. He’s the king’s general.”
“Look. Dude might be top shit on the battlefield, but it didn’t take me long to realise he didn’t have much in the ballroom.”
Dad shook his head as he pulled me in for a hug. “God. I knew bringing you home was going to be a novel experience.”
“Everything all right?” Rex asked, closing the door behind him again.
Dad nudged me and I gave the king a sheepish grin as I said, “Sorry about…that.”
Rex smiled fondly. “He had no right to treat you that way. No amount of pressure from any source gives a person the right to speak to another that way.”
I nodded. “Nor I the right to speak back that way.”
Rex’s smile grew more rueful for a moment. “Perhaps not. But you stood up for yourself. You are a strong young woman, Anya. And I would be grateful for your help at this time.”
“Anything I can do.”
“If you would not mind helping Max go over some transcripts then that would be most helpful.” Rex looked to Dad as though he’d know what I needed to do.
“Of course. We’ll get right on it,” Dad said, then gripped his friend’s arm. “We’ll bring them home safe, Rex. Both of them.”
Rex nodded, looking like he was holding back a decent amount of emotion. I was reminded of Dmitri’s words about how he’d learnt not to show his feelings to the world and I realised that of course he’d learnt it from his father. It seemed though that the student had become the master.
As I followed Dad and Rex back into the War Room, I caught Arnell’s eye. He gave me a single nod and something about his rigid stance told me I might not have won his kindness, but I’d taken a step towards possibly gaining his respect.
“Over here, kiddo,” Dad said as he pointed to a section of the pile of papers.
A man brought a chair over and set it next to the one already there. I nodded my thanks at him before he stepped back again.
“So what are we looking for?” I asked.
“These are transcripts of what Arnell’s men believe to be chatter from Bronkala’s men.” Dad spread his hand out on them. “We’re looking for anything that might pertain to the boys.”
“You think they were taken?” I asked as a sick dread feeling settled in the pit of my stomach.
“We don’t know. Something’s gone wrong with the satellite phone and we can’t get back through to the unit. All we’ve been told is that Mitya and Nico returned and one was wounded.”
“Communication’s lost?” I asked.
Dad nodded sombrely, his hand moving up and down on the table as though to emphasise his words. “We think Bronkala’s men have interference equipment.”
“Well, that’s not good.”
“Understatement of the year, kiddo. And it’s only February.”
“Am I looking for anything particular? Specific code words?”
Dad shook his head. “Nothing we’ve found so far relates to the boys. And Bronkala’s not stupid, they change their code weekly.”
I huffed. “Oh good. Every story needs a smart bad guy.”
“Just flag anything that you think might be important.”
“What if I get it wrong?”
“What if any of us get it wrong?”
He basically pushed me into the chair and before he walked away I asked, “Aren’t there people trained for this?”
Dad nodded. “Teams of them.”
“So why are we doing it?”
“They’re king’s sons, kiddo. It’s all hands on deck. And until we figure out something we can do, we have to busy ourselves with something.”
He nodded and walked away, leaving me to my pages and pages of transcripts.
It was all in Gallyrian and even though I understood most of the words, the fact that they were using code words made translating it a little more difficult because the sentences didn’t make complete sense.
But I stuck with it. Like Dad had said, even not actually finding anything but looking made me feel like I was doing something. It kept me busy and didn’t give me time to think about if neither of them made it back alive or whole.
“How are you going?” Dad asked after I didn’t know how many hours – the War Room had no windows.
I blinked hard after reading for so long. “I don’t know.” I put my hand on one pile of paper I’d made. “Some of these looked like maybe they might have something. Maybe?”
“You sound like you need a break,” Dad laughed sympathetically.
I nodded. “I think so,” replied apologetically.
But Dad shook his head. “All good. If you feel like slogging through some more then let me know. Otherwise go and have dinner and relax.”
“Okay.”
He helped me up as I stretched my back out and I reached up to kiss his cheek before I left. Nikolai was in the smaller room with Sergei and I gave him a tired smile before leading the way to the dining room.
“Tati!” I heard Lia cry as I walked in and then my sister had thrown her arm
s around me.
I gave a soft huff of a laugh and pushed her to arm’s length. “Food,” I told her and she smiled.
“How did it go?” Hilde asked and I realised it was just going to be us girls for dinner.
I shrugged, then looked at her calculatingly. “Arnell was fine.”
Hilde gave me a knowing smile and I almost wondered why Lia didn’t ask what we were talking about when she shoved her phone at me.
“Here, look at this.”
I looked between them as I pulled the phone closer and Hilde nodded.
“The alert came through a few minutes ago,” Hilde explained as Lia hit play on a video.
It was a news report on the missing princes and I sighed. “How do they get these things so quickly?” I asked.
“Who knows,” Lia answered. “But I wonder if they have a spy.”
“A spy?” I looked to Hilde who didn’t seem to confirm or deny the hypothesis.
“I did remind Lia we weren’t in a John le Carre novel,” the queen said with a small smile.
“How are you doing?” I asked her.
She nodded. “When you are the mother to the heir to a crown, you wait for this day. It is not easy, but I refuse to make assumptions before I have all the facts.”
“That’s wise. I’m not sure I haven’t run through six awful scenarios in the last hour.”
Hilde smile was understanding. “When people we love are involved, the mind likes to play awful tricks on us.”
I almost opened my mouth to tell her that didn’t apply to me. But not only would it have possibly looked more suspicious to refute it, it wasn’t true. Whether I was in love with Dmitri or not, I loved both of them as family friends.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” I said, more to myself than Lia or Hilde.
Chapter Twelve
By the time I made my way to the War Room the next morning, there was good news all around.
There’d been something in the pages I found that had suggested to the council that the princes had indeed found their way to Bronkala – though whether because Dmitri had gone looking or because Bronkala had found them, no one was yet sure.
Add to that the fact that Dmitri had sent through a short contact saying that they were fine but for an insignificant wound on Nico’s left arm and there was potential for the beginnings of peace talks, and everyone was happy. Well everyone but Dmitri apparently because Rex had ordered him to escort Nico home.
Some Proposal (I'm No Princess Book 4) Page 9