“All trackers need to be on hand right now.” Tove ignored me. “All the storks in the field should be called back to roost. Both Finn and Thomas need to be at the palace. I can stay here and help, but I don’t think that’s enough.”
“Tove can stay at the palace,” Aurora offered up too quickly. “If that would help.”
“We have additional trackers on staff,” Elora told him, but I saw her looking at Thomas from the corner of her eye. “A new alarm system is in place, and the Princess is never left unguarded.”
“They sent a Markis after her,” Tove reminded her. “Thomas and Finn are the best we have. They’ve both been your own personal guards for the better part of two decades.”
Elora seemed to consider this for a moment.
“Both of you, report for duty tomorrow morning,” she nodded.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Thomas said, bowing.
Finn said nothing, but he gave one wary glance towards Tove before departing.
The rest of the crowd began to dissipate after that, but I stayed sitting the corner with Tove, Willa, and Duncan.
Garrett, Noah, the Chancellor, and two other Marksinna lingered to talk to Elora and Aurora. I could feel Elora seething, and I should get out of the room before she had a chance to chew me out. But I needed a moment.
“Why did you do that?” I asked Tove.
“It’s the best way to keep you safe,” Tove shrugged.
“So?” I asked in a hushed whisper, since a few people still milling about could overhear. “Why is it so important to keep me safe? Maybe the Vittra should have me. Marksinna Laurent is right. If all these people are getting hurt over me, then maybe I should go-”
“Laurent is a stupid, uppity bitch,” Willa cut in before I could finish that thought.
“And nobody’s gonna sacrifice you because things are tough. That’s insane, Wendy.”
“The royals are crazy and paranoid. What’s new?” Tove leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re gonna be good for the people. But you have to live long enough to do it.”
“That’s comforting.” I leaned back in the seat.
“I’m gonna head home and pack,” Tove said, standing up.
“You really think you need to stay here to watch out for me?” I asked.
“Probably not,” Tove admitted. “But it’s better than staying at home, and it’ll be easier for me to help you with your training.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“So.” Willa turned to me after Tove walked away. “You need to have a girls’ night.
Especially since the house is going to be crawling with boys from now on.”
I would’ve agreed to anything if it got me out of the War Room before Elora had a chance to lecture me, but the girls’ night didn’t sound bad. Willa looped her arm through mine as we left the room.
We camped out in my room all night. I thought Willa would want to play dress up or something silly, but we both wore comfy pajamas and lounged around.
After the meeting, I’d asked about the history between Vittra and Trylle, and Willa had found a book in her father’s things. She let me read through it, and answered my questions as often as she could. In exchange, I had to do karaoke with her and let her give me a pedicure.
I didn’t make it through as much of the book as I would have liked, and I didn’t find out all that much. Vittra attacked, Trylle retaliated. Sometimes the body count was quite substantial, other times it was only minor property damage.
I ended up staying up way too late with Willa, and by the end of the night, the book had been forgotten. We resorted to singing along with Cyndi Lauper, and dancing.
Willa had spent the night, and she was a massive bed hog, so I slept terribly. I stumbled out of the bedroom in the morning, feeling like a train wreck. I wanted to go downstairs, eat something, drink some water, and then not move again for another three or four hours.
Duncan wasn’t loitering around my door when I left my room, and I thought it was good for him that he finally got a chance to sleep in.
I made it a few steps down the hall when I realized why he’d slept in.
Finn walked towards me, his hands clasped behind his back, and I groaned inwardly. He was dressed, with his pants pressed and his hair slicked back. My hair was insane, and I had to look awful.
“Good morning, Princess,” Finn said when he reached me.
“Yeah, it’s something like that,” I said.
Finn nodded once, and he walked past me. I looked around, expecting to see another person summoning him, but there wasn’t anyone else.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“My job, Princess.” He glanced back at over his shoulder. “I’m walking the halls to watch for intruders.”
“So you’re not even gonna talk to me?”
“That’s not part of my job,” Finn said and kept walking.
“Excellent,” I sighed.
Stupidly, some part of me had been excited about the prospect of Finn being reinstated. But I should’ve known better. Just because he’d be around all the time didn’t mean anything would change between us. It would only make it more awkward and painful.
15. Capulets & Montagues
“Why are you here?” I demanded, and Loki only raised an eyebrow in response.
His room was in the old servants’ quarters, and it wasn’t quite the cell I’d expected. Duncan had explained that the palace had once been overflowing with live-in help, but the last few decades had seen a drastic reduction in both the mänsklig and the Trylle that stayed around. Meaning there were less people to staff the palace.
Even though we didn’t have a dungeon, I’d thought Loki would be kept some place similar to where the Vittra had put me. But this was just a room, the same as the one Finn stayed in when he lived here, except this one had no windows. It was small, with an adjoining bathroom and a twin bed.
To top it off, Loki’s bedroom door was wide open. A tracker stood guard a little ways down the hall, but he wasn’t even at the door. I convinced Duncan to distract him because I wanted to talk to Loki alone for a minute, and it hadn’t been that hard for Duncan to steer the guard away.
Loki lay on top of his blankets on his bed, his hands folded behind his head and his legs crossed at the ankles. A plate of food sat on the end table, untouched.
“Princess, I didn’t know you’d be visiting, or I’d have straightened up the place,” Loki smirked and gestured vaguely to his room. There was hardly anything in it, so it wasn’t messy at all.
“Why are you here, Loki?” I repeated. I stood just outside the door, my arms crossed over my chest.
“I don’t think the Queen would like it much if I left.” He sat up, swinging his long legs over the edge of the bed.
“Why don’t you leave?” I asked, and he laughed.
“I can’t very well do that, now can I?” Loki stood up and sauntered towardd me.
Some rational part of me thought I should step back, but I refused to. I didn’t want to him to see any weakness, so I raised my chin high, and he stopped at the doorway.
“I don’t see anything stopping you.”
“Yes, but your mother works best on the things you cannot see,” he said. “If I were to leave the room, I’d become so violently ill, I’d be unable to walk.”
“Elora would do that to you?” I asked, and he nodded. “How do you know for sure?”
“Because I tried to leave,” Loki smiled. “I wasn’t going to let a thing like bodily harm stop me from escaping, but I underestimated the Queen. She’s very, very good with persuasion.”
“How does that work? She used persuasion and told you what would happen if you left the room?” I asked. “And now you can’t leave?”
“I don’t know exactly how persuasion works.” Loki turned away from me, growing bored with the conversation. “It’s never been my thing.”
“What is your thing?” I asked.
“This and that,” Loki
shrugged and sat back down the bed.
“Why did you come here?” I asked. “What were you hoping to gain?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He grinned, that same mischievous way he always did. “I came here for you, Princess.”
“By yourself?” I arched an eyebrow. “The last time Vittra came for me here, they sent a fleet, and we still defeated them. What were you thinking coming here on your own?”
“I thought I wouldn’t get caught.” He shrugged again, totally nonplussed by the whole thing, as if being held captive was no big deal.
“That’s completely idiotic!” I yelled at him, exasperated by his lack of concern over the situation. “You know they want to execute you?”
“So I’ve heard,” Loki sighed, staring down at the floor for a moment. Something occurred to him, though, because he quickly brightened and stood up. “I heard you’re campaigning on my behalf.” He walked over to me. “That wouldn’t be because you’d miss me too much if I were gone, would it?”
“Don’t be absurd,” I scoffed. “I don’t condone murder, even for people like you.”
“People like me, eh?” He cocked an eyebrow. “You mean devilishly handsome, debonair young men who come to sweep rebellious princesses off their feet?”
“You came to kidnap me, not sweep me off my feet,” I said, but he waved his hand at the idea.
“Semantics.”
“But I don’t understand why you’re a kidnapper,” I said. “You’re a Markis.”
“I am the closest the Vittra have to a Prince,” he admitted with a wry smile.
“Then why the hell are you here?” I asked. “The Queen would never let me go on a rescue mission.”
“She let that other Markis go after you,” Loki pointed out, referring to Tove. “The one that threw me against the wall.”
“That’s different,” I shook my head. “He’s strong, and he didn’t come alone.” I narrowed my eyes at Loki. “Did you come alone?”
“Yes, of course I did. Nobody else would be stupid enough to join me after what happened the last time we paid you a visit.”
“That really doesn’t explain why you’re here,” I said. “Why would you volunteer for this, knowing how dangerous it is? Do you know how dangerous it is? When I said they wanted to execute you, you laughed it off, but they really mean to do it, Loki.”
“I missed you too much, Princess, and I couldn’t stop myself from coming.” He tried to say it with his usual gusto, but frustration tinged his smile.
“Don’t make jokes.” I rolled my eyes.
“That was the answer you were looking for, wasn’t it? That I chose to come back for you?” Loki leaned against the doorframe, just inside the room, and sighed. “My dear Princess, you think too highly of yourself. I didn’t volunteer.”
“I didn’t think that,” I bristled and my cheeks reddened slightly. “If you didn’t volunteer, then why did they send you?”
“I let you get away.” He stared off down the hallway, where Duncan had distracted the tracker. “The King sent me to correct my error.”
“You were in charge of guarding me in Vittra,” I said as it dawned me. “Why you?
Why not a tracker or something?”
“We don’t have many trackers because we don’t have changelings.” Loki looked at me. “The hobgoblins do a lot of our dirty work, but you could overpower them without even trying. The Vittra that came after you last time are only slightly more powerful than mänsklig, which is how you managed to defeat them. I’m the strongest, so the King sent me after you.”
“Who are you?” I asked, and he opened his mouth, probably to say something witty and sarcastic, so I held up my hand to stop him. “My mother said she knew your father. You’re close to the Vittra King and Queen.”
“I’m not close to the King.” Loki shook his head. “Nobody is close to the King. But I do have history with the Queen. His wife, Sara, was once my betrothed.”
“What?” My jaw dropped. “She’s… she’s much older than you.”
“Ten years older.” Loki nodded. “But that’s how arranged marriages work a lot of the time, especially when there are so few of the marrying kind in our community.
Unfortunately, before I came of age, the King decided he wanted to wed her.”
“Were you in love with her?” I asked, surprised to find myself caring at all.
“It was an arranged marriage!” Loki laughed. “I was nine when she married the King. I got over it. Sara thought of me like a little brother, and she still does.”
“And what about your father? Elora said she knew him.”
“I’m sure she did.” He ran a hand through his hair and shifted his weight. “She lived with the Vittra for a while. First, right after they were married, they lived here in Förening, but once Elora became pregnant, Oren insisted she move to his house.”
“And she did?” I asked, surprised that Elora had been forced into anything.
“She didn’t have a choice, I don’t suppose. When the King wants something, he can be very…” Loki trailed off, and when he looked at me, he smiled. “I was in their wedding. Did you know that?”
“You mean my mother and my father’s?” I asked.
“Yes,” he nodded. “I was very young, maybe two or three, and I don’t remember it much. But I walked down the aisle and threw petals, which is a very unmasculine thing to do, but there were no other children of royal blood to be in the wedding.”
“Where were the children?”
“The Vittra didn’t have any, and the Trylle were all gone as changelings,” Loki explained.
“You remember their wedding? And you were only a toddler?” I asked.
“Well, it was the wedding of the century,” he smirked. “Everyone was there. It was quite the spectacle.”
“Do you know why they got married?”
“Oren and Elora?” His eyebrows furrowed. “Don’t you know?”
“I know that Oren wanted an heir to the throne and Vittra can’t have kids, and Elora wanted to unite the tribes,” I said. “But why? Why was it so important that the Vittra and Trylle unite?”
“Well, because we’ve been warring for centuries,” Loki shrugged. “Since the beginning of time, maybe.”
“Why?” I repeated. “I’ve been reading the history books, and I can’t find a clear reason why. Why do we hate each other so much?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head helplessly. “Why did the Capulets hate the Montagues?”
“Lord Montague stole Capulet’s wife from him,” I answered. “It was a love triangle thing.”
“What?” Loki asked. “I don’t remember Shakespeare saying that.”
“I read it in a book somewhere,” I waved Loki off. “It doesn’t matter. My point is -
there’s always a reason.”
“I’m sure there is one,” Loki agreed. “Now the principals have become too different. The Vittra want more, and the Trylle want to hang onto their crumbling empire for dear life.”
“If anyone has a crumbling empire, it’s the Vittra,” I countered. “At least we can procreate here.”
“Ooo, low blow, Princess.” Loki put his hand to his chest with false hurt.
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
“So it is.” He dropped his hand and returned to his usual sly grin. “So, Princess, what’s your plan for getting me out of here alive?”
“I don’t have any plan,” I said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. They want to kill you, and I don’t know how to stop them.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Loki said with casual indifference.
“Princess!” Duncan called from the end of the hall.
I looked back to see him standing in front of the irritated tracker. I don’t know what Duncan said to hold him off from guarding Loki, but Duncan had clearly exhausted that avenue.
“I have to go,” I told Loki.
“Your tracker is summoning you?” Loki glanc
ed down the hall. Duncan gave me a sheepish smile as the guard walked towards us to resume his post.
“Something like that. But listen, you need to be good. Do what they say. Don’t cause any trouble,” I said, and Loki gave me an exaggerated innocent look, like, What me? “It’s the only chance I have to convince them not to execute you.”
“If it’s as you wish, Princess.” Loki bowed before turning his back to me and walking to his bed.
The guard returned, giving me a deeper bow than Loki, and I smiled at him before hurrying down the hall. I’d wanted to talk to Loki a bit more, although I’m not sure that it would’ve accomplished anything. Because the guard was my subordinate, I could’ve pushed the issue, but I didn’t want it going around the palace that I was spending time with Loki. As it was, I was taking a risk that I shouldn’t have.
“Sorry,” Duncan said when I reached him. “I tried to stall him, but he was afraid of getting in trouble or something. Which is silly, because you’re the Princess and his boss, but-”
“Its fine, Duncan” I smiled and brushed him off. “You did a good job.”
“Thanks.” He paused for a moment, looking startled by my minuscule bit of praise.
“Do you know where Elora’s at?” I asked and kept walking.
“Um, I believe she’s in meetings all day.” Duncan checked his watch as he fell into step next to me. “She should be with the Chancellor right now, going over the security precautions of Förening in case Loki isn’t a solitary incident.”
“I’m pretty sure Loki is an isolated threat, and he’s not even really a threat,” I said. “I don’t think the Vittra have the numbers to launch a counter attack.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“In so many words, yes,” I nodded.
“And you trust him?” Duncan asked honestly. He didn’t have a hint of sarcasm or irritation, and I had a feeling that he’d trust my instincts. If I approved of Loki, then Duncan would too.
“I do, sorta.” I furrowed my brow, thinking of what exactly I meant. “I don’t think he’s the most trustworthy guy, but I don’t think he’s lying about this either.”
“I understand,” he nodded, and my vague reasoning was good enough for him.
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