by Zoe Chant
“Of course I don’t renounce my wife and child!” Victor tightened his grip around Debbie’s waist, making her feel warm and safe despite the roiling anxiety in the pit of her stomach. In a voice only she could hear, he asked, “Shall we confess?”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Debbie whispered back. “Unless we claim Princess Eugenia is the imposter. But there’s no way I’m getting her in trouble for something I did.”
“You have a true sense of justice,” Victor murmured. With a sigh, he went on, “It seems so wrong that your chance to be queen will be taken away. You would make such a good one.”
Turning to the onlookers, Victor spoke in a calm yet commanding voice. “Very well. I admit to one of the Lord Chamberlain’s accusations, but only one. My wife’s name is Debbie Jameson. She posed as Princess Eugenia because we loved each other and it was the only way we could marry. Debbie is my mate and the light of my life. The baby she bears is our beloved child. I treasure them more than gold. If loving them means giving up the throne, then I give it up. Gladly.”
The power and passion of his words made Debbie love him more than ever. Who cared that they’d lose their money, position, and palace? They had each other. They needed nothing more.
Aunt Agatha stood up. The look she turned on the Lord Chamberlain would have made Debbie turn and run. “You snake in the grass! Who stands to benefit if Rodica is destabilized by the lack of an heir? You do! If our money is devalued, then Doru’s stock rises! This was your plot all along!”
The Lord Chamberlain smirked. “It’s hardly my fault if I coincidentally happen to profit if Prince Victor becomes just citizen Victor.”
“You profit no matter why Rodica loses its only heir.” Victor’s eyes blazed with golden flame and his voice rose until the ceiling seemed to shake. “You also profit if my mate dies and I am so heartbroken that I never marry again. It was YOU who sent assassins after my true love!”
“No,” said the Lord Chamberlain. “No, I never—”
“Liar!” The piercing yell made everyone jump. It came from an unexpected source: Princess Eugenia. “You’re a liar and you always have been! You got me to come here now by claiming that Rodica was in desperate need of my economic expertise and about to go bankrupt!”
“Certainly not,” said Aunt Agatha, sounding offended. “We’re quite solvent.”
Princess Eugenia glared daggers at the Lord Chamberlain as she went on, “You convinced me to marry Prince Victor by lying about how compatible we were! You told me he was fascinated by economics and loved math! You said his favorite hobby is creating innovative methods of balancing the budget!”
Debbie, trying to imagine Victor entertaining himself by balancing the budget, stifled a giggle.
“Oh, there was someone in the palace who loved math,” Princess Eugenia went on. “There was someone who was an economics genius and my perfect match. But it wasn’t Prince Victor!”
“Who was it?” Debbie asked.
A grin split Princess Eugenia’s face. “Come on out, Radu!”
A man in a three-piece suit came forward, fiddling with a pencil. With his pale blond hair, even paler skin, and general air of twitchiness, he reminded Debbie of the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.
Princess Eugenia put her arm around his shoulder and gazed at him with total adoration. It was a very familiar expression. Debbie had seen it all the time, whenever Victor looked at her.
“There,” Victor said softly, nudging Debbie. “Now you know exactly what you look like when you look at me.”
“Who is he?” Debbie asked.
“Radu Drogovich,” replied Victor. “Our former treasurer. He resigned unexpectedly the day that Princess Eugenia disappeared.”
At the same time, Princess Eugenia said, “Radu Drogovich. Your former treasurer. And my mate!”
Aunt Agatha wagged her finger at Radu and Princess Eugenia. “You two didn’t have to flee in the night, you know. You could have just told me. I’d have found Victor another princess.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Radu, hanging his head. “That’s what Eugenia wanted to do. But I was afraid you’d eat me.”
“Maybe I’d have been tempted to eat you,” Aunt Agatha admitted. “But I wouldn’t have actually done it. Good Lord! Everyone seems to think dragons are completely uncivilized. I blame all those American fairytales. I should put an embargo on them.”
Princess Eugenia glanced from Aunt Agatha to the Lord Chamberlain, looking confused. “I don’t understand. Yes, Radu talked me out of going directly to the Queen Regent. But we did tell the Lord Chamberlain that we were leaving, and why, and where we were going. We asked him to privately convey it to the Queen Regent, so they could decide together how best to proceed. Lord Chamberlain, didn’t you ever tell the Queen Regent you knew where we were?”
“He certainly did not,” said Aunt Agatha.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Lord Chamberlain?” Victor asked ominously.
The Lord Chamberlain’s eyes darted from side to side, reminding Debbie of a cornered lizard. “So maybe I told a few small fibs in a good cause. All I wanted was for you to give Prince Victor a chance!”
“Oh, is that going to be your defense?” Princess Eugenia snapped. “Don’t bother, Lord Chamberlain. Radu and I did some research while we were hiding out in Viorel. We found that you purchased stocks whose value would skyrocket if people lost faith in Rodica and its stock market. It all became clear then. You guessed that darling Radu was my mate—of course he was, he’s like the male version of me—and so you arranged for me to get engaged to Victor, knowing that I’d run away with Radu as soon as I met him.”
“No!” protested the Lord Chamberlain.
Relentlessly, Princess Eugenia continued, “And then you pretended you didn’t know where I was, to sow confusion and prevent Victor from simply finding a new princess to marry. You wanted the wedding to be cancelled at the last minute, causing a scandal and leaving the future of Rodica in doubt. Don’t bother denying it!”
The Lord Chamberlain’s lip curled in a snarl. “Well... So what if I did? That’s still a far cry from sending assassins!”
“I think you did send the assassins,” Victor said. “I think what Princess Eugenia just explained was your original plan. But when I found a woman who could take Princess Eugenia’s place, you decided to kill her to make sure Rodica would never have an heir, and you could line your own pockets at the expense of an entire country’s welfare... and an innocent woman’s life! And when that failed, you dragged in Princess Eugenia to discredit my wife.”
Victor’s eyes blazed gold, and his fists clenched until his knuckles went white. “If you were a dragon, I would challenge you to a duel! There is nothing that would give me more pleasure than to watch you plummet dead from the sky!”
The Lord Chamberlain took a step backward, then another. Then he squared his shoulders, held his ground, and addressed the crowd. “The prince is mad! And so is the princess! I am completely innocent!”
“Liar!” The creaking cry made everyone jump.
It came from the lips of an old lady who was slowly, totteringly making her way forward, leaning on a cane carved in the shape of a dragon. Its front feet and coiled tongue formed the three prongs that touched the ground, and its curved tail was the handle. The woman leaning on it was dressed in a black cloak. Her white hair hung in witchy locks around a face as wrinkled as an ancient prune.
“Who’s that?” Debbie whispered.
“Got me,” Victor whispered back.
“I heard that,” quavered the old lady. With a cackle, she added, “Nothing gets past old Sophronia!”
“Sophronia!” Princess Eugenia gasped. She let go of Radu and ran up to give the elderly lady a big hug. “My old nurse! I thought you’d been eaten by wolves!”
“There’s them that wishes I lay in the bellies of a thousand wolves,” said Sophronia in her creaking old voice. She waggled a bony finger at the Lord Chamberlain. “Aye, su
chlikes as them forced me to fake my own death and go into hiding for more than twenty years, lest the secret kept in my good old head were to be discovered and I be slaughtered for real. For if I were ever to tell what I know, I’d be the ruin of schemers like yon Lord Chamberlain!”
Everyone gasped. Again.
“That old woman is senile,” said the Lord Chamberlain. His face turned red with fury as he went on, “A senile lunatic! You should have seen the scene where she was supposedly torn apart by wolves! There was blood everywhere! It was horrible! Disgusting! What sort of person would do such a thing?!”
Sophronia let out a long cackle. “One that knew a squeamish man like you would shy away from blood and not check too closely! One whose darling nephew happened to be a butcher and had plenty of buckets of blood at hand! Aye, there were no blood sausages sold by that butcher for some time after my tragic demise. Many were those that missed them, but none were clever enough to know why.” She cackled again, long and heartily.
Victor cleared his throat loudly, cutting her off mid-cackle. “Ah... Wisewoman Sophronia... What is the secret you mentioned?”
Sophronia tottered forward and pinched his cheek. “Now yon’s a good boy. Calls me Wisewoman! And such lovely cheeks!” She pinched him harder, making him wince.
“Your secret,” Debbie prompted, hoping to make her let go of her poor husband.
“Aye, my secret!” Sophronia kept a firm grip on his face as she spoke. “Princess Eugenia’s mother was a widow and, poor thing, knew she was not long for this world. So when she was giving birth, she sent everyone from the room but old Wisewoman Sophronia.”
To Victor’s visible relief, Sophronia released his cheek to gesture as she imitated the voice of Princess Eugenia’s mother. “‘Phronsie,’ she said (she called me Phronsie), ‘I fear the Lord Chamberlain is a wicked man, and the court of Doru is filled with intrigue. You must take one of my babies and spirit her away to a place where no one will ever know her heritage. Only then can I be sure that at least one of my babies will have a happy life.’”
“Babies?” Debbie said.
“Aye, babies,” creaked out Sophronia. “One baby raised in the palace. And the other given a false identity as an orphan and sent across the sea to be adopted in America, ignorant of her heritage... and of her twin sister!”
“Twins?!” Debbie exclaimed.
“Aye, they were twins, as like as a pair of cherries on a stem,” said Sophronia. “Only difference was one had a star-shaped dragonmark on her left shoulder, and one on her right. Lucky stars, they were.”
“Here’s mine,” called Princess Eugenia. She pulled at her sleeve, revealing a glittering silver star on her left shoulder.
“Oh,” Debbie murmured in disappointment. For a moment she’d actually thought she might be Princess Eugenia’s twin sister. She shook her head at her own foolishness. Of course she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. She wasn’t a dragon.
Victor’s handsome face creased in puzzlement. “You do have a birthmark on your right shoulder.”
“Coincidence,” Debbie said glumly. “It’s not a little silver star, it’s a big purple blob. Forget it, Victor. If I was a dragon shifter, I’d have noticed by now.”
Sophronia cackled. “Not with a Wisewoman like me handling the disguise! Show them all yon tattoo!”
“Tattoo?” repeated Victor.
“Aye, tattoo,” said Sophronia. “A very special tattoo! The ink is mixed with a blend of dragonsbane that only Wisewomen know, that puts one’s dragon to sleep but never gives a pain. I made it with my own cunning hands, that I did.”
“Can we see it?” Aunt Agatha inquired, turning to Debbie. “If you really are royalty, that needs to be publicly witnessed, given the... ah... unusual circumstances.”
Though Debbie’s head was spinning with the possibility that she was a secret princess—and a secret dragon shifter!—and even though Victor had made her feel better about the mark on her shoulder, old shame and anxiety still made her hesitate to display it.
Victor squeezed her hand. Pitching his voice for her ears only, he said, “You don’t have to show it to anyone if you don’t want to. We can think of some other way to prove who you are.”
Debbie was touched by her husband’s sensitivity and caring. But it was obvious that if she didn’t prove who she was, and now and in public, there would always be doubts that would undermine Victor’s status as heir, and his entire country along with it. “It’s fine. They can see it.”
Trying not to flinch, she pulled down her sleeve and exposed the ugly splotch of her birthmark for all the hungry eyes to see.
“Aye, that’s my work,” said Sophronia.
The crowd murmured excitedly.
Debbie glared at the old woman. “Couldn’t you have made it a little less hideous?”
Sophronia’s faded eyes squinted in bafflement. “What say you? It’s a magnificent design, it is! Don’t you recognize it? It’s a perfect map of your own dear country, Doru, all done in the richest royal purple!”
A muffled snort made Debbie glance at her husband. His lips were quivering and his shoulders were shaking. Sparks of light danced in his amber eyes. He was obviously trying hard not to laugh his ass off.
There was no way she was getting an answer out of him, so she turned to Aunt Agatha and hissed, “Is that really what it is?”
Aunt Agatha was managing to control her hysterics slightly better, but her voice still shook as she replied softly, “Now that I know what it’s supposed to be, I can see a resemblance. Sort of.”
“Great,” Debbie muttered. “I have all the luck. Who else gets a regrettable tattoo before they’re old enough to talk?”
Sophronia glared at them all. “I may be aged, but my hearing is perfect!”
“Sorry, Wisewoman,” said Aunt Agatha.
Debbie and Victor too added their apologies. Then Victor loudly cleared his throat. “The Lord Chamberlain’s many crimes have been verified by witness account. Guards!”
The Lord Chamberlain turned and attempted to bolt from the room. For an oldish man, he moved fast.
But not fast enough.
“Oh, no you don’t!” yelled Victor, and brought him down in a flying tackle. He slammed the Lord Chamberlain face-down on the floor, and planted his knee in the fallen courtier’s spine. “Guards! Take him to the dungeon!”
The Lord Chamberlain was dragged out, to a chorus of boos from the onlookers.
“Good riddance,” remarked Aunt Augusta.
Victor dusted himself off and returned to his place beside Debbie. To Sophronia, he asked, “Can the tattoo be removed?”
“Perfect map, it is,” Sophronia muttered sulkily.
“Only to prove her identity to the people,” said Victor smoothly. “The citizens of Rodica need to know. More importantly, can Debbie’s dragon be released?”
“Oh, aye,” said Sophronia. “I brought my special heartsease balm. That’ll do it in a twinkle.”
Victor gently touched Debbie’s shoulder. “Are you ready for this? Becoming a dragon... It’ll be a big change in your life.”
“I know,” Debbie replied. “But now that I know it’s possible, I want to do it. Something about it just feels so right.”
“That’s because you’ve been a dragon all along.” Victor’s hand caressed a path from her shoulder to her bulging belly. “And so is our baby. My two precious dragons.”
Debbie turned to Sophronia. “It won’t hurt my baby, will it?”
The old Wisewoman shook her head, looking horrified at the very thought. “Not a chance! Why, your wee babe will kick up his heels at a good flight! Not right for a dragon babe to be born without ever having flown in the womb.”
Debbie offered Sophronia her shoulder. The old woman withdrew a small clay jar from her capacious bosom, then unstoppered it. A sharp scent like herbs and pepper wafted up. Sophronia scooped up a dollop of transparent ointment in her stick-like fingers and began to rub it into Debbie’s birthmark.
>
Debbie’s skin tingled and prickled. The ointment didn’t hurt, but it felt very hot. She could almost feel her pores opening to absorb it, as if her very skin wanted to draw it in.
As the old woman continued to massage it into her skin, the heat spread from her shoulder to suffuse her entire body. Her blood ran hot in her veins. It was as if she had a fever, but she didn’t feel sick. Instead, she felt more well than she ever had before, as if she’d been mildly ill all her life without realizing it, and had finally been healed.
Sophronia stepped back. Debbie looked down. The ugly stain that she’d spent her life hating was gone. In its place was a single glittering silver star, the mirror image of Princess Eugenia’s.
“It really is a lucky star,” murmured Victor. Raising his voice to echo across the vast chamber, he cried out, “Behold! Princess Debbie of Doru, now Princess of Rodica, trueborn royalty and dragon shifter!”
The crowd shouted as one, “Hail Princess Debbie!”
Debbie managed to curtsey to them. Her head was spinning with everything that had happened. The Lord Chamberlain had tried to murder her, she was a secret princess, she was a dragon-shifter, and her ugly birthmark was actually a lovely beauty mark. And she wasn’t American. And Princess Eugenia was her twin sister. She supposed she ought to try to do some sisterly bonding right now, to make up for lost time.
“Hey, Princess Eugenia,” Debbie said. “We should get together and... um...” Her imagination came to a screeching halt. As far as she knew, the only things Princess Eugenia did for fun involved math, economics, and finances. We should check out the stock exchange?
Aunt Augusta rescued her. “There is a charming tea house near the palace. You should go and enjoy tea and cakes together.”
Both Debbie and Princess Eugenia perked up at this suggestion.
“I love tea,” Princess Eugenia said.
“Perfect. I love cakes.” Debbie patted her belly. “Especially now.”
Slowly, everyone dispersed. Princess Eugenia went off with Radu and Sophronia. Aunt Augusta dismissed the gawking onlookers and went to take a nap. At long last, Victor and Debbie were left alone.