Prince Incognito

by Rachelle Mccalla

  That was her uncle’s cold laugh—she’d recognize it anywhere.

  Glancing at the lock, she saw the light turn from red to green, and looked desperately around the room for somewhere to hide.

  * * *

  There was no furniture in the room, nothing but solid cement walls, cement floor, even a cement ceiling above his head. Alec paced the narrow space and watched through the tiny barred window as the sun sank lower in the sky, taking with it any chance he had to sign the covenant and support his family’s claim to the crown. By midnight, his window of opportunity would close.

  He couldn’t blame Parliament for putting a time limit on signatures. The way he understood it, they were just trying to avoid any more squabbling. They had hundreds of years of Lydian laws and history to abide by—creating the ruling oligarchy had stretched those rules enough already. But they’d found a way to honor the law that allowed only descendants of Lydia on the throne, while at the same time avoiding the likelihood of crowning the wrong person before the rightful heir could be established.

  They’d done the best they could do, given the circumstances, and placing a deadline on signatures was simply their way of promising the Lydian people that the uncertainty would end.

  No, he was the one who’d failed everyone. Even his little sisters had gotten along better than he had. As he paced, his determination grew. Somehow, he’d find a way out of the Bardici estate. Somehow, he’d make it to the Hall of Justice. But how could he possibly get there by midnight when he couldn’t even find a way out of his room?

  * * *

  Lily spotted a small door beyond her uncle’s desk and ducked into the space behind it, pulling the door shut after her just as she heard her father and uncle step into the office. Hardly daring to breathe, she prayed the men would leave quickly so she could get the papers to Alec or his sisters before sunset. Since she had no idea how she was going to smuggle them out of the Bardici estate, she knew she had to hurry.

  But the voices of her father and uncle rumbled from the other side of the door.

  “It doesn’t matter. Lily certainly didn’t know anything about it—the polygraph backed up her story. I couldn’t beat a confession out of Alexander the last time I tried. Even if he knows where it is, he’s made it clear he’d never going to tell anyone. It’s quite simple. Alexander is a liability I can no longer afford. As long as he’s alive, there’s a chance he could retake the throne.”

  Lily stared at the richly stained wood door as the meaning behind her uncle’s words sunk in.

  They were going to kill Alec.

  She couldn’t let that happen. With trembling hands, she lowered the pages she held. Critical as they may have seemed a moment before, now they hardly mattered. Granted, she still felt the crown ought to be restored to Alec’s family, but far, far more importantly, she had to do something to save Alec’s life.

  Still praying, she took a step back from the door, and bumped into something. She felt the oblong item with her hands. It was smooth, a little higher than counter height, with buttons on a panel toward the front. She realized the closet she’d stepped into was an office workroom.

  A plan formed in her mind.

  A foolish, crazy plan.

  Her uncle held no esteem for her life. As long as he didn’t care whether she lived or died, she had nothing to bargain with.

  But he cared about the papers she held. He’d do anything to keep them from falling into the wrong hands.

  She waited until her uncle’s fading voice told her he’d left his office again, then quickly got to work. He’d said little to indicate when he planned to murder Alec, but Lily got the distinct impression it would be soon.

  She didn’t have much time.

  * * *

  Alec heard footsteps approaching.

  Good enough. The sun had already begun to set, but from what Titus and Julian had told him, he had until midnight to reach the Hall of Justice. He braced himself near the door, ready for whatever came his way. At this point, he was desperate enough to take whatever break he could get, no matter what risks might be involved.

  He only had until midnight.

  The door opened, and the dying light illuminated the faces of Titus and Julian.

  Alec relaxed slightly. They were his only known allies. He wasn’t going to attack them.

  “Bring him this way.” David Bardici’s voice echoed from the hallway. “We’re going to have one last negotiation session.”

  The soldiers cuffed him on either side, shackling their wrists to his, and followed Bardici up to the back courtyard. Flaming torches illuminated smooth walls towering twenty feet around, topped with parapets and gun-wielding soldiers.

  In fact, as Alec’s eyes adjusted and he looked around, he saw that men with guns rimmed the ground and the wall, a double layer of muzzles pointed directly at him.

  Bardici wasn’t taking any chances.

  The general pulled out a handgun and stood opposite him no more than two meters away. In a low voice, too quiet for the men who rimmed the courtyard to hear, he began. “I’ll make this simple. I will ask you a question. If you do not answer to my satisfaction, I’ll shoot you—not a deadly shot, but something that will hurt enough to jog your memory.

  “If I have to ask my question again, and if you don’t answer to my satisfaction, I’ll shoot you again. We’ll keep going like that until I have the information I need, or you die, whichever happens first. Got that?”

  “Yes,” Alec answered with a sinking heart. He had a good feeling he knew exactly what the question was going to be. And he knew he wouldn’t have an answer that would satisfy the madman who faced him.

  * * *

  Lily returned the key to the maid with extra thanks and headed down the hallway almost at a run. The sprawling mansion was quiet. Too quiet.

  She had to find her uncle.

  Bounding down the wide front stairs with the sheaf of papers in her right hand, she came around the corner and almost slammed into her mother.

  “Lily!” Sandra Bardici looked more upset than startled. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I need to find Uncle David. It’s important.”

  “What?” Her mother took hold of her right wrist and turned the pages so she could read them. The color drained from her face. “Where did you get these?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I need—”

  “No. You don’t.” Her mother’s grip on her wrist tightened, and she pulled her back toward the stairs. “You’re coming with me.”

  Lily tried to pry her arm away, but her mother’s grip was surprisingly strong, and her attitude uncharacteristically fierce. What had happened to the obsequious woman Lily had known all her life? “Mom, you don’t understand.”

  “No, you don’t understand. Your uncle David is within hours of taking the power he was born to control. You’re not going to do anything to stop him.” She pulled her toward the stairway. “He’s going to be king.”

  “But Uncle David can’t be allowed to become king.”

  “Don’t say that!” Her mother slapped her across the cheek. “I’ve put up with your insolence long enough. Your uncle David will be king, and I will be his queen. And no one—not you, not your pathetic excuse for a father, nobody will take that away from me!”

  Lily blinked back the tears that had sprung to her eyes at her mother’s sudden swipe. It took her a moment to make sense of what Sandra Bardici was saying, but slowly, the pieces fell into place. “You’re on Uncle David’s side?”

  “I have been for years, Lily. Who do you think had the foresight to invest in the Bardici bid for the throne? Certainly not your father. No, I’ve done it all myself, even when I had to go behind his back. I sold everything, and when he refused to sell, I did what needed t
o be done to liquidate our assets.” She pulled Lily up the steps after her.

  Shocked by her mother’s words, Lily didn’t resist her pull up the stairs. “You poisoned the horses because Dad wouldn’t sell them?”

  “Somebody had to do it. We couldn’t afford to keep them alive.”

  “You killed my horses.” Anger snapped inside her, and Lily jerked her hand free, pivoting back down the stairs. She had to find her uncle David. She had to stop him, before he became king and her mother, queen.

  “Lily, no!” Her mother lunged after her, but she was still several steps higher on the stairway, and Lily bounded down the last five stairs in a single leap.

  Her mother grabbed at the empty air, but her momentum was too great for her, and she keeled over the edge of the railing, falling the last ten feet onto the marble floor below. “No!” she screamed. “You’ll pay for this!”

  Judging by the racket her mother was making, Lily figured the woman hadn’t been injured too badly. She ran down the back hall searching for her father, her uncle or anyone who could tell her where the men had gone.

  * * *

  David Bardici pointed the gun at Alec. “Where is the Scepter of Charlemagne?”

  Alec debated how best to answer. Was there any point trying to lead the man on in a satisfactory way? “If I give you an answer, how will you know I’m telling the truth?”

  “You will tell me the truth, or you will die!” Bardici took aim with his gun, and before Alec even realized the man wasn’t bluffing, he sent a shot into Alec’s left shoe.

  Pain speared up through his foot, and he sagged slightly, but quickly straightened.

  The general stared at him with rage-reddened eyes and nearly screamed his question as he asked again. “Where is the Scepter of Charlemagne?”

  Alec looked down at the blood that had begun to seep from his injured foot into the pale pink cobblestones of the courtyard. How many more shots could he take?

  It didn’t matter.

  He had no choice. He lifted his head and faced Bardici. “I will never tell you.”

  Bardici took aim at Alec’s other foot just as a female voice carried through the courtyard.

  “Wait!”

  * * *

  Lily followed the sound of the gunshot and nearly flung herself into the midst of the armed men. “Don’t shoot.” She waved the papers as she skidded to a stop in front of Alec, facing her uncle. “This man is under my protection.”

  David Bardici sneered. “I can shoot you as easily as him.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.” Lily lifted Basil’s abdication documents high in her hand. “These papers prove that Basil renounced any claim to the throne. Alec and his family are the rightful rulers of Lydia.” She blinked upward, surprised by how many armed soldiers surrounded them, then smiled. “And now every Lydian soldier here knows that Prince Alexander is the rightful heir, not you.”

  “Give me those!” David lunged for the papers.

  Lily flung her arm backward to keep the documents from his grasp. The two soldiers handcuffed to either side of Alec lifted him back and away. Lily tried to follow them, but their retreat was too slow for her uncle. He snatched the papers from her hand as he whipped his gun toward her.

  At that moment, her father stepped in between them, pushing his big brother backward, away from Lily. “Don’t touch her!” he yelled, shoving the general away.

  David raised his gun and Michael grabbed his wrist, grappling with him, the gun pointed high in the air, neither man in control.

  As David struggled with his brother, the general called out to the soldiers standing by. “Shoot him! Shoot Alexander!”

  Lily turned to face Alec as the soldiers who were handcuffed to his wrists unlocked the cuffs, though they still held him up as he sagged between them. She had no way of knowing how much blood he’d lost, but judging by the pool of red that stained the cobblestones, he could bleed out in short order. She needed to help him.

  “Shoot him, I said!” David screamed, still struggling with his brother for control of the gun.

  “Alec?” a soldier called down from the wall, “should we shoot General Bardici?”

  Alec looked up with a weak smile toward the voice that had spoken. “He needs to stand trial for his crimes. Capture him.” In spite of the strain in his voice that betrayed the seriousness of his injury, his words carried clearly, and the men on the ground rushed forward.

  “Not so fast!” Sandra Bardici limped forward from the doorway, her gun trained on Alec. “If anybody moves, I’ll blow him away.”

  The sight of his wife wielding a gun must have startled Michael, because he faltered, and David quickly got the upper hand—control of the gun and the papers he’d snatched away from Lily.

  David backed toward his sister-in-law.

  “Sandra?” Michael looked at her in dismay as she pointed the gun toward their group.

  A sneer traced across his wife’s face. “It’s over, Michael. I’ve waited long enough. I’m leaving you for your brother.” David shuffled sideways until he stood beside her, then lifted the papers he’d taken from Lily to where a flaming torch burned brightly, fire illuminating the courtyard.

  The papers burst into flame, the orange tongues licking upward toward David’s hand until he dropped the black wisps of ashes to the ground.

  With triumphant smiles, David and Sandra darted into the house.

  Lily dropped down at Alec’s feet. Whatever else was going on, Alec had to have his injury attended to. There wasn’t time to worry about the documents, her mother’s sudden revelation or anything else.

  A few soldiers moved forward uncertainly.

  “I need a first-aid kit,” Lily told them as she worked Alec’s shoe from his foot as quickly and gently as she could. “And he needs something to drink—juice or soda, something to replace the fluids and blood sugar he’s losing.”

  The soldiers scrambled away, and the two who stood on either side of Alec lowered him to the ground.

  “I need to get to the Hall of Justice.” Alec looked as though he’d crawl away if only he could gather his strength.

  “You’re not going anywhere until this injury is taken care of, or you’ll pass out before you get there.” Lily peeled back his bloody sock to reveal a clean shot through the foot. Fortunately it was straightforward—the bullet had passed straight through—but it had sliced several vessels that were losing blood quickly.

  Soldiers appeared with first-aid kits, and Lily quickly located a tourniquet, wrapping it above the wound. “You’re going to need to have those veins repaired, Alec. We’ll have to get you to the hospital.” She looked him full in the face.

  A soldier held a bottle of juice for him, and Alec swallowed a few gulps. “I need to get to the Hall of Justice by midnight. How much time do we have?”

  The man at his right arm checked his watch. “Twenty minutes. If we hurry, we might just make it.”

  Realizing the importance of the trip and Alec’s determination to do his part to help his family, Lily quickly bandaged the wound, tying it off with as much pressure as she could to staunch any further loss of blood. “This should hold you for now, but I want you admitted to the hospital as soon as you get that paper signed, do you understand?”

  Appreciation shimmered in Alec’s eyes. “Thank you. I have to get going.”

  As she tied off the bandage, Lily told him all she knew. “My uncle and the other Lydian generals are working for someone who goes by the number 8. You’re going to have to stop them all before this will end.” She stood, and the soldiers eased Alec to standing.

  “Take it easy,” she told him. “I’m going to get the documents.”

  “Your uncle already burned them up.”

  “Those were only cop
ies.” She cast a quick smile over her shoulder as she ran toward the house.

  Lily left Alec in the care of the soldiers. She didn’t want to leave his side, but at the same time, she needed to produce the real abdication documents to prove her uncle had no right to rule. Besides, she didn’t feel she had any right to be close to him after the way her uncle had used her to get to Alec. The only way she knew to make up for her role in his capture was to do what she could to help his family.

  That meant retrieving the papers she’d hidden inside.

  As Lily hurried through the dark halls, she heard footsteps behind her and glanced over her shoulder, but didn’t see anyone. Was she being followed?

  Ducking back into a doorway, she watched as a figure ran past in the darkness, only recognizing her father after he had passed.

  Where was he headed? Unwilling to be deterred from reclaiming the critical documents, Lily took the next corner to the spot where she’d tucked the papers under a hallway rug. She skidded to a stop just as a voice sounded behind her.

  “Lillian. How nice of you to join us.”

  Spinning around, she watched her uncle pass through the filtered moonlight that poured in through a window, the gun in his hand glinting silver in the darkness. Lily froze. She didn’t dare reach for the papers now or she’d give away their location.

  “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to leave you behind. You’re far, far too handy to have around.” David advanced, holding the gun on her, and grabbed her by the wrist.

  “Are you coming?” Sandra rounded the corner, spotted them both, and smiled wickedly. “Ah, perfect. Let’s bring her with. The copter’s ready. Come on.”

  With her uncle dragging her by the arm and her mother prodding her in the back with the gun, Lily had no choice but to go with them. They turned down the hallway where her father had disappeared moments before. She almost missed him standing in the shadows of a darkened doorway, but she caught his eye as she struggled past.

  “Help! Help me!”

  “Shut up. No one can hear you anyway.” Her mother rammed the gun into her back.

  As they made the next corner, Lily looked back in time to see her father dart silently from the doorway in the other direction.