What is Hidden

by Skidmore, Lauren

  The servant rounded on me, trying to silence me, but the damage had been done—and I knew how to deal with unwanted fingers in my face. The boy was smaller than Aiden and was on the floor in no time at all. I whipped the curtain aside and ran out to where I could be seen.

  Aiden stared at me in confusion, mouth open, as Joch frowned.

  “Why would you do this to him when you’ve been through the same thing?” I demanded.

  “Because breaking him is the only way to bring my love back!”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded.

  He sneered at me, all traces of the man I thought I knew gone from his hard dark eyes. “I know you heard the gossip about me. About Tatiana. The girl I came to this country for, the girl I’ve been hunting for all this time. The girl your prince stole from me.”

  “I did no such thing,” Aiden interjected, but Joch silenced him with a look.

  I almost pitied him for a moment before questioning him again. “But why go through all the trouble of working as a mask maker in the palace? Why teach me glass blowing? Why did you even talk to me?”

  His eyes slid to mine in an exasperated expression. “It was easier. You wouldn’t give up, and eventually that would draw attention, which was the last thing I wanted. I was sent here with a mission, and if I completed that mission, I would get Tatiana back.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Who sent you?”

  “Someone with connections.” He sounded tired of the conversation. “Someone that could help, and that’s all I cared about.”

  “And your mission?”

  “To dispose of the prince, of course. And to hurt him the way he hurt me.”

  “Then why all the others? Why my father?” My voice cracked.

  A brief flash of recognition and something like remorse flickered in his eyes, but it disappeared so quickly I must have imagined it. “I didn’t pick the targets. I just did the work. He was a means to an end.”

  Aiden had had enough. Joch’s callous last words were enough to provoke the sleeping dragon that was his temper.

  Until that point, he’d been frozen in place, but then he was burning for some action. He punched Joch squarely in the jaw before he could defend himself, and the action seemed to be a signal for Joch’s men to descend upon us.

  =

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  +

  The men swarmed from out of nowhere, rapiers at the ready, as they surrounded us. The girl Joch brought with him—the one who was meant to be me—melted behind the wall of fighters and disappeared. Joch watched with an unreadable expression as Aiden rose to his full height, then crouched into a fighting position I knew well.

  “I know you’re good, Aiden, but you can’t fight all of them,” I hissed as I automatically went to protect his back. My knife sheath was cool against my skin but hardly reassuring. I doubted I could even draw it before being cut down. “They have swords.”

  “Watch me,” he growled back and then lunged at Joch. The Chameleon laughed and dodged neatly away, a burly guard taking his place and swinging at Aiden.

  The guard managed to catch Aiden’s side, and he let out a choked cry, glaring at the man. Not to be deterred, Aiden dropped to the floor and knocked the guard’s legs out from under him, then quickly seized his arms and relieved him of his sword. Armed, Aiden turned again to glare at Joch while the other men awaited orders.

  “Fight me,” Aiden whispered, a threatening timbre to his voice that I’d never heard before. It gave me shivers, and I looked around us, my heart pounding in my ears.

  Joch met his gaze for a long moment, head tilted to one side as if considering his offer. Then he shook his head, ever so slightly. “With pleasure.”

  He drew a rapier from the guard standing behind him and shifted easily into a perfect form. Without even a single strike, it was clear he knew how to fight.

  Aiden slipped into position as well, his hand coming away red from where the guard had already struck him.

  “Aiden,” I whispered anxiously.

  He didn’t take his eyes off his opponent. “Don’t worry about me,” he said in a clipped voice. “That’s my job, remember?”

  I choked out a laugh despite the situation.

  The two men circled one another, each weighing the other, searching for weaknesses. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

  I’d never fought Aiden with any weapon other than my small knife, but it was clear he’d been trained thoroughly. He looked perfectly in control, his body tense with anticipation.

  Finally Joch struck, quick as a snake, and the sound of metal on metal rang out as Aiden blocked him. I winced with every blow as Joch attacked again and again, putting Aiden on the defensive.

  Joch shouted in triumph as a line of red seeped through Aiden’s left sleeve across his bicep. I cried out, and it was all I could do to keep myself in place as Aiden glared at his attacker, ignoring his wound.

  Then, suddenly, it was Aiden on the offensive. The room was silent save for the sound of their weapons, their footsteps on the stone floor, and their breathing, all echoing too loudly in the enormous ballroom. Their rapiers moved too fast for my eyes to follow as Aiden began a complicated series of attacks: right, left, and center. Joch’s face lost his cocky expression as he concentrated and then contracted in pain as Aiden landed a solid blow to his right shoulder.

  It wasn’t enough to stop Joch, but it was enough to send him across the room, momentarily out of Aiden’s reach. Joch bent over, gasping for air. When I looked back to Aiden, he was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and his mouth was tight with pain, but he clearly wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.

  Joch seemed to reach the same conclusion as he straightened.

  “Well fought, prince,” he said in a low, breathy voice. Then he simply turned and slipped outside the ring of guards. As Aiden’s eyes flitted to mine, I knew he wanted to chase the Chameleon down, but he couldn’t leave me behind. I doubted he would even have the strength to run for very long, let alone continue the fight.

  Again, I thought of my knife, feeling as if it suddenly weighed three times its normal weight.

  “Things aren’t looking so good, Evie,” Aiden murmured to me as I ran to his side, the animalistic sound gone from his voice, replaced for the first time with concern.

  “Now really isn’t the time for talking, Aiden,” I said through clenched teeth, looking over his injuries. His sleeve was completely drenched in blood, and his clothes were cut from hits I’d missed earlier, each cut rimmed with red.

  “It might be the only time.”

  “I never thought you were so pessimistic.”

  “Do you have something up your sleeves that I don’t know about that’s got you so optimistic? Because I would love to hear about it right now.”

  The doors to the ballroom swung open, and I couldn’t have planned the timing better if I’d tried. In poured Arianna and a half dozen Lacies, followed by at least twenty fresh men in royal guard uniforms. As soon as Aiden saw them, he groaned. “Like that. That would have been nice to know about.”

  I flashed him a grin, then glanced in the direction Joch had fled. Aiden followed my gaze then looked at me with a grim expression. “Don’t you dare follow him on your own,” he threatened me.

  “I have to,” I replied, just as grim. “You’re bleeding, if you haven’t noticed. You’d pass out before you caught him.”

  He looked down, and I honestly think he was surprised to see blood. He gripped my arm. “Don’t. Please.”

  “I have to,” I repeated, pleading now. “He killed my father, stole my life, and betrayed me. I can’t just watch him run away.”

  Even as the battle swirled around us, he said, “I need to tell you something.”

  “Is now really the time?”

  “I don’t care! It needs to be said!”

  “I already heard your apology, even if it was to the wrong person.” I could see him cringe even as he used his stolen rapier to block and disarm an attacker.

  �
�I meant it, though. Every word. And I understand if you never want to speak to me again. But,” he hesitated before finding his way directly in front of me, “there is one more thing I have to do, in case I don’t see you after this.”

  “Of course you’ll see me—“

  His hand roughly cupped my chin, cutting my words off as his lips pressed against mine in a hurried, desperate breath of a kiss.

  I didn’t have time to react before he pulled back, looking as sheepish as he could while incapacitating a man who dared to interrupt.

  “I just needed to do that once.”

  I stumbled back out of the reach of a particularly long-limbed guard, my eyes wide, cheeks burning, and lips tingling. Aiden’s eyes wouldn’t meet mine, but that could have been because they were needed elsewhere. He pressed his lips together as he swung at another oncoming guard with a grunt.

  “Q-quit being so dramatic, Aiden,” I stammered. “We’ll talk once we get you home, all right?”

  Either that offer was good enough for him, or he had no more breath to spare on arguing. He was swept back up into the madness of battle while I slipped away, though not without being hit a few times.

  Once out of the ballroom, I headed in the direction Joch had gone, trying to think a step ahead of him. Obviously he’d be looking for a way out—it was much too dangerous for him to hide here. I turned my path to the short pier we’d docked by, and sure enough he was there, out of breath and preparing a gondola by lamplight, favoring the shoulder Aiden hit.

  I could hardly make him out, but I was burning with the need to fight, and I drew my knife.

  The sound of steel on leather caught his attention, and he whirled to face me, the white of his wide eyes bright in the lamplight. He stopped untying the knots of the rope that secured the gondola and faced me, legs wide and braced for an attack.

  He surprised me by chuckling first, though. “So. You’re going to fight me? Is this how it’s going to end? Cut down by one woman while in search of another.”

  “Don’t you dare act the victim,” I said, my voice low. “You deserve whatever I do to you.”

  “You were a casualty of war. You cannot blame the soldier for following orders.”

  “Can’t I?” I narrowed my eyes. “Tell me, Joch, was she worth it? Was she worth killing innocent people?”

  “I would do anything to get her back. I have nothing else to give and nothing else for anyone to take.”

  “You had human decency.”

  He let out a hard laugh. “What use is decency when you’re alone in the world? I don’t regret anything I did for her.”

  “Your note . . . you said love could bring the prince back. Was that just another lie?”

  “Of course. For a country that hides behind masks, your people are far too trusting. I simply needed you here in case anything went wrong. Your prince is rather unpredictable.” He smirked.

  I saw red. Every single one of Aiden’s lessons fled from my mind, and I relied on pure reflex and muscle memory to attack. I jumped forward, swinging the knife and barely catching his jaw on the side opposite his Mark. I cut enough to make it bleed, but not enough to really hurt him. It shocked me to land a hit, to draw blood with so little force.

  He took me seriously then. He frowned, wiping away the thin droplets of blood. “You’re not a target, you know,” he said so quietly that I could barely hear him over the water lapping at the shore. “I don’t need to fight you.”

  “Well, I need to fight you,” I retorted, adrenaline pumping through me, amplifying every move he made. I sprang forward again, slashing at him and pushing him back toward the edge of the pier.

  He didn’t try to fight back, and that made me angrier. “Fight!” I shouted at him as he continued to dodge me until he had no room left to retreat.

  He looked at me one last time while I caught my breath and steeled myself for another attack. Pity that I didn’t understand appeared in his eyes.

  And then, before I could do anything more, he jumped off the pier and disappeared into the inky darkness.

  “No!” I shouted after him, almost throwing my knife into the water in frustration. I knew that by the time I got a boat ready, he’d be long gone, and I had no chance of catching him by swimming after him. “No,” I whispered again, sinking into a crouch and staring into the darkness. His abandoned lantern still flickered behind me, taunting me. I’d been so close, and he’d slipped away.

  I’d find him again. I had Aiden by my side, and he could find anyone and anything.

  At the thought of Aiden, my heart stuttered and my cheeks warmed, until I remembered the chaos I’d left behind me.

  When I returned to the hall, the fighting was over. I drifted over to one of the alcoves where I could rest and attempt to recover, which is where Arianna found me.

  I smiled at her, my gratitude outweighing my weariness. “Tell me how you knew the exact moment we needed you.”

  She laughed. “A Lacie never reveals her secrets. But I will tell you that the king sent me ahead of you to help keep you safe. He thought that if you didn’t know about us, it was less likely for the Chameleon to discover us. And he knew that a Lacie is as well-trained in defense as in any other art, and that we’d work more quickly. As soon as we heard of your arrival, we came as swiftly as we could. This place is like a maze, or we would have been here sooner.”

  “I’m just glad you came at all,” I said, my shoulders sagging.

  “Let’s get you back to the palace and cleaned up. I’m sure your prince will be demanding your attention all too soon.”

  I grimaced, unsure of how I was even going to handle that. “Let’s take this one step at a time. I’ll worry about what to say to Aiden when neither of us is bleeding.”

  =

  TWENTY-NINE

  +

  I didn’t see Aiden for a week. He was confined to his rooms as the royal physician fawned over him, and while I could have sought him out, I was too sore and exhausted both emotionally and physically.

  Iniga came to me immediately, emotional and full of apologies. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you,” she sobbed as she sat next to my bed, helping me with my breakfast.

  “It’s not your fault,” I reassured her. “That was the point, not to be recognized.”

  “But still,” she protested. “I should have known. And Joch,” she moaned theatrically. Despite the guilt I felt at letting him escape, I had to fight not to smile. “You should have told me something.”

  “Iniga,” I said firmly. “It wasn’t your fault. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get you in trouble. You and I both know how hard it is for you to keep a secret. And you didn’t talk to Joch if you could help it. He didn’t talk if he could help it. I forbid you to feel bad.”

  She sniffed and gave me a dirty look, though I could see she was fighting a smile too. “That’s cheating.”

  I shrugged and grinned. “Nothing more can be done. There’s no point in moaning over the past when the present is still so messy.”

  She sobered. “I still can’t believe Aiden was the prince. Is there anyone out there who is actually who they say they are anymore?”

  Rumors flew around the palace after everything was said and done, and it became widely known that the prince had his own secret identity, though it wasn’t really known what that identity was. I’d confided in Iniga when she first came to see me, with permission from the royal family. I was worried that she might be in danger if she didn’t know, and it’d been nice to tell someone the whole story. However, it also made everything feel much more real. Before I’d put it all into words, it sounded like a fairy tale, a mad adventure of storybooks.

  “It does explain a few things, though,” she said thoughtfully. “Like why I never saw his parents at court. Or why I thought I never did. The king and queen—I still can’t believe it. And did you know they made the announcement of his safe return themselves? They said it was time to let the old tradition die. Everyone in court
is talking about how they actually spoke with the prince without realizing it.” She shook her head in amazement, then chattered on for a moment more, piecing many of Aiden’s mysteries together, and I let my mind wander.

  Truth be told, I was terrified of seeing Aiden again.

  But I couldn’t hide forever, and in the end, Aiden came to me.

  Thanks to a bruised skull and some minor scrapes still in the process of healing, I was under orders to rest in my room, but I was restless and without supervision, so I often got up and went for long walks on the palace grounds on the pretense of having to walk Hachi. He would have been perfectly content to stay at the foot of my bed after being separated for so long, but I could barely sit still. I was still excused from my duties, or else I would go to the workroom and try to be productive. That didn’t stop me from trying, but Milo sent me away immediately.

  “Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you’re invincible. Go back to bed and heal properly. I don’t want to hear you in here unless there’s a healer at your side giving you leave.”

  I was even so restless as to try to find something to do in the kitchens. I knew Vera would put me to work no matter how bad off I was, but the gossip was too much to handle.

  “I heard the prince proposed marriage to someone and was rejected.”

  “No, the girl was a spy from the Northern Islands!”

  “My cousin said he hasn’t made any public appearances because he’s so heartbroken over it.”

  “Did you hear how he was living a double life? My ma said they do that every generation, but people are forbidden to speak of it. There’s no way that can be true, right?”

  And so on. I slipped back out into the hallway and refused to go back to the kitchens until some new scandal became the popular gossip. Unfortunately, it seemed that was not going to happen anytime soon.

  Instead, I found myself wandering the quiet garden paths in the brisk autumn afternoons. In my defense, I thought the fresh air would do me some good.