“I agree,” Trev said. “Our story needs to be that as a Council, we decided not to go after Adler. We need to say that none of us wanted to start a war.”
“I’ve heard rumors of Tolsten rebels. Perhaps we can also say we are waiting to see if Adler’s people challenge him,” Davin added.
Trev nodded at the king of Enderlin. “That’s good too. This is the story we have to use around our advisors, our families, our High Rulers, our friends. No one is to know about what we’re planning besides those of us in this room.”
“What about your commander?” Marx asked, looking directly at Drake.
What was with this guy?
Drake stepped forward. “I’ll be the operative we send from Albion, so you don’t need to worry about me.”
Trev looked back at him. They hadn’t discussed who they would send from Albion, but there was no way Drake would send anyone but himself. This mission was too critical, and he didn’t want anything to go wrong.
“Fine,” Marx muttered. “Besides this Rommel guy, who else in Tolsten do we have on our side?”
“Rommel said in his letter that he has a guard inside of Tolsten House whom he trusts and is working with. Some man named Officer Arco.”
“And,” Drake added, “there is a village north of Tolsten House that is willing to turn against Adler. Other than that, the operatives will be on their own.”
Davin rubbed his chin. “I’m in. I want those weapons destroyed.”
Marx shrugged. “Why would I get involved with Tolsten when I have no reason to?”
“No reason?” Bryant flared. “Up until a few months ago, I never had any problem with Adler or Tolsten, but Adler didn’t care about that. He targeted my daughter. Murdered her! All because he didn’t want my kingdom to align with Albion. He’s responsible for one of the biggest losses in my life. Who’s to say that he won’t target someone you love next?”
Hilton, Marx, and Reddick looked at each other. Trev and Drake had known that those three were going to be tough to convince. They all ruled their kingdoms as isolationists.
“We need to think about this logically,” Trev said. “In the past, we haven’t had anyone inside of Tolsten working with us. Now we do. As leaders, if we don’t take this opportunity to go after Adler, we’ll be endangering our kingdoms.”
Drake looked around the room at the last three kings. They seemed hesitant.
“I’ll do it,” Reddick finally said.
“Same with me,” Hilton answered.
“I guess I’m outnumbered.” Marx sighed. “Count me in.”
Drake let out a breath. The mission was on. Now the kings needed to come up with a plan.
3
Myka
Six Months Later
The Kingdom of Tolsten
August 2260
Princess Myka stared blankly at the breakfast plate in her hands, absentmindedly pushing clumps of eggs back and forth with her fork.
“More,” her father coughed out.
Myka lifted her fork to feed him another bite of food. She watched her father as he chewed. He’d been wearing his navy silk pajamas for two days now. Piles of white fluffy pillows were stacked around him in bed. She leaned back into her chair, glancing around the suite. Since the king had become too ill to leave his room, the staff had brought in a rectangular conference table so his meetings could continue as usual. The couches and chairs had been pushed against the walls to make room. An oversized maroon chair was now permanently placed next to his bed for Myka or, when she wasn’t around, nurse Blanch. His nightstands were littered with medicines, tissues, bowls to catch his vomit, and glasses full of water he refused to drink. The room was a vivid reminder of how much things had changed in the last few months.
It wasn’t just the king’s suite that had changed. The illness had changed Myka’s life too. Her morning and evening meals were now eaten by her father’s bedside. The already quiet Tolsten House had become even more removed from society.
She scooped a pile of eggs onto her fork and lifted it to her father’s mouth for another bite. He weakly opened wide enough for the food to be dropped in. One piece of egg fell off the fork, landing in the hollow space below his chin. Myka quickly set her fork down so she could pick up the soggy egg. Her heart broke a little as she wiped at the loose skin at his neck. It was hard to see her mighty father—the king of Tolsten—crippled by illness. Her father had hired a new doctor almost a year ago to treat him. Doctor Von said her father was plagued by the pre-Desolation disease, cancer.
Over the last ten months, ever since he had come home from the kingdom of Albion and that tragic wedding, King Adler’s health had declined. His once tanned skin had paled to a pigment Myka didn’t recognize on him, and the black strands of his usually thick hair had thinned. But the most significant change was the way his body drooped. Broad shoulders and toned muscles had been replaced with loose skin and gaunt features. At least his deep blue eyes hadn’t changed. It was a trait that they both shared. Myka bit the side of her cheek as she tried not to think about his sickness or how much she would lose if he didn’t recover.
The king’s declining health was a closely guarded secret in the kingdom of Tolsten. Her father didn’t want anyone to know about his condition. He said it would ruin his image as a powerful king among the other six kingdoms. To keep the secret, precautions had been taken. The staff who dealt with the king had been dramatically reduced. Most of the king’s meetings had been canceled. He now only met with Commander Stoddard and occasionally with a few High Rulers who knew the secret about his health. Her father’s secretary, Nolan, handled everything else. They had told the staff and the newswriters that the king was recovering from knee surgery and would be back to his old schedule soon. For now, people believed that excuse, but as the weeks went on and his health declined, Myka worried that they weren’t going to be able to keep it a secret very much longer.
She forced a smile and went to scoop up more eggs, but he shook his head. “I’m done.” He closed his eyes as he spoke. “What are you going to do today?”
It was the sixteenth day of the month—the day Myka always snuck out to go see Rommel and Joett. She had been secretly sneaking out of Tolsten House to visit the older couple for the last two and a half years. If her father found out, he’d be furious. His overprotective nature didn’t allow her to do anything, but now wasn’t the time to argue about that. She set the plate on the nightstand and sat up straighter. “The normal stuff. School and piano lessons and then I think I’ll ride Bronze around the grounds for a few hours.” Myka held her breath, hoping he didn’t ask any more questions. She didn’t like lying to her father, but she didn’t like being locked inside her house like a prisoner either. She decided to change the subject to avoid more lies. “I hear you have a meeting this morning with your secretary and Commander Stoddard to discuss the new procedures from the most recent Council of Essentials. The staff is buzzing about clothing dyes. They’re saying it’s only going to be a matter of weeks before they can start buying colored clothes.”
Her father’s eyelids lifted open. “Transportation and colored clothes for the working class. It’s ridiculous.”
Myka smirked. “Your advisors voted for those things at the last Council of Essentials. So technically, you voted for them.”
“Clarke and Duggless are idiots,” her father muttered as he situated his body to get more comfortable. “I should have sent someone else to the Council in my stead.”
Myka pushed a cheery smile onto her lips. “Well, you’ll be at the next Council ten years from now, and you can vote however you want.”
Her father’s weak gaze drifted to his nurse, Blanch. She mixed his morning medicines by the dresser.
“Yeah, I’ll be at the next one.”
The wobbly edge in his voice didn’t sound like he truly believed that, but Myka refused to give up hope. They had been trying some new herbal medicine and oils that she’d gotten from Joett. Joett had a way with natura
l concoctions. Her father’s doctor had dismissed the medicines from the start, saying that the king needed more than a few crushed herbs and plants to heal him, but the natural-based remedies had helped. Myka could see the difference. They just needed more time to completely get rid of the darkness that had taken over his body.
“Are you going to sit in on my meeting this morning, hear how the new essential items will be rolled out?” her father asked. He closed his eyes again like his eyelids were too heavy to hold up.
Normally, Myka wouldn’t miss a political meeting, but she’d already made plans to sneak out. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it today. I have a lot of school work to catch up on.”
“School work doesn’t compare to what you can learn in real life. If you’re going to be queen soon, you need to know what is going on in the kingdom.”
Myka didn’t like when her father talked like that. She didn’t like what the conversation implied. The only way she’d be queen soon would be if her father was dead. She shook his words away.
“I think it will be fine if I miss one meeting. I doubt anyone will even notice. It’s not like I’m allowed to say anything at these meetings anyway.”
He closed his eyes again. “You don’t need to say anything. You’re only there to learn.” He peeked one eye open, smirking at her. “I’ve been surprised, at the meetings you’ve attended, that you’ve been able to keep that sharp tongue of yours under control.”
Myka pursed her lips together, trying to bite back a smile. She glanced away from her father, determined to act like she was mad at him. “When have I ever had a sharp tongue?”
“Pretty much every time you don’t get your way.”
“I never get my way,” she huffed. If she had her way, she wouldn’t be stuck inside Tolsten House like a prisoner, but her father had said it was necessary for her safety.
Her father’s rule was that she was to have a guard with her at all times when she was outside of Tolsten House. Not outside, outside. Myka wasn’t allowed outside of the Tolsten House walls. It was her father’s way of protecting her. The thirty-foot exterior walls around the palace grounds were like a prison to her, and the worst part was that her father didn’t think that was a problem.
“Do you know how big the grounds are?” her father had asked four years ago when he had first instituted the rule. “You could ride your horse around in a circle for miles. You even have the woods to explore on the east and west sides of the property.”
It was true, the Tolsten House grounds stretched on for at least two miles in every direction, and there was a wooded forest surrounding it, and all of that had been exciting when she was a child. Now that she was eighteen, the grounds had lost their luster. She wanted to explore her kingdom beyond the walls.
“We need to ensure your safety,” her father had said, which was actually quite endearing. “It will only be for a little while until the political unrest between Tolsten and some of the other kingdoms fizzles out.”
That was four years ago.
It had been four years since Myka had accompanied her father anywhere, visited a High Ruler’s province, or had a party thrown at Tolsten House. Her father didn’t allow any of that anymore. And now that the princess of New Hope had been killed last year at her own wedding, things had gotten worse.
Myka had seen in the newswriters an article about the beautiful princess killed at the altar on her wedding day. She was young, only two years older than herself. But just because one princess in a neighboring kingdom had been killed, didn’t mean Myka would be next.
Even though her father’s rationale wasn’t justified, Myka would have to settle for her once-a-month secret visits to Rommel and Joett. For now, that was all she was going to get.
Her eyes darted back to her father, and his smile widened at her fake anger. It was good to see him smile—her resolve to be upset faded.
She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know why Commander Stoddard gets to speak in every meeting. Isn’t his job to run the king’s guard, not run the entire kingdom?”
Ever since her father had fallen ill, the commander hadn’t left Tolsten House. He was everywhere. She wouldn’t be surprised if Stoddard was crouched behind the chair she sat in at that very moment. She could imagine him slowly rising up, his bald head glistening with perspiration and his beady gray eyes doing that creepy squint thing that he’d perfected.
“Commander Stoddard is my most trusted man,” her father said.
Myka rolled her eyes. If she really was going to be queen someday, Stoddard would be the first person she’d get rid of.
“What’s that look on your face?” he asked, lightly squeezing her hand.
“I’m sick of Stoddard. He bosses everyone around, and he slinks around this place like he’s a vampire waiting to attack.”
Her father let out a weak sigh. “The commander is harmless and simple-minded. He’s not waiting to attack anyone or anything.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Stoddard gives me the creeps!”
“Your Majesty,” Stoddard said behind them as he walked into the king’s suite.
Myka jumped in her chair like she was a pre-Desolation jack-in-the-box. She inclined her head to the side. “Commander Stoddard, what a surprise.”
His menacing eyes zeroed in on her. “Princess Mykaleen, don’t you have lessons…or something?”
“Don’t you have your own home…or something?” she said with a syrupy sweet smile.
The commander’s expression turned smug. “Tolsten House is my home.”
Her brows creased together. “That’s funny. I don’t recall you being elected as king.”
Stoddard’s cold expression contradicted his laughter.
“My...ka,” her father hacked, “was just leaving.”
She glanced at her father, wishing for once he’d kick Stoddard out instead of her.
“I’ll see you tonight for dinner?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said, forcing a smile. She stood and smoothed the yellow skirt of her dress before she bent over her father and kissed him on the forehead. His skin was hot, searing her lips. She pulled back as a fresh wave of alarm spilled through her.
“Did you know he has a fever?” Myka asked as she turned to Blanch. The nurse’s auburn hair laid at her shoulders, curling at the ends. Lines framed the edges of her face, but Myka thought they came more from a lack of sleep than from her age. She still seemed reasonably young. She wore a gray long sleeve shirt with buttons down the front and a matching gray skirt. It was the same outfit every day, and Myka had wondered more than once if Blanch had several of those pieces or if they were was the exact same ones day in and day out.
“I’m fine,” her father coughed, flashing an apologetic smile to Stoddard.
Blanch stopped measuring medicine and looked at Myka. “His fever started last night, but I gave him some of—”
Myka’s eyes widened. She didn’t want her father to know that the medicine she’d been giving him had come from Joett, or else he wouldn’t agree to take it. There was a history between Rommel, Joett, and her father that all three of them refused to talk about.
Blanch quickly caught herself. “—the medicine, and it’s starting to go down.”
“See,” her father said. “I’m fine.”
Myka ignored him. “Give him some more this evening.” She glanced at the nightstand and Joett’s bottle. It was still three-quarters full.
“Let Von decide how to treat me. He’s the doctor,” her father croaked.
Myka straightened, looking down at him. “Doctor Von isn’t in charge. I am.”
Her father turned to Stoddard, a glimmer brimming at the edges of his eyes. “It looks like you and I can go rest. Myka says she’s in charge.”
Stoddard laughed in his fake way. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
She glared at the commander.
“Don’t worry, Princess Myka,” Blanch cut in. “I’ll keep an eye on the king.”
&
nbsp; She trusted Blanch.
Not Stoddard.
The nurse was working tirelessly to keep her father from getting worse. Myka hoped it was enough. She couldn’t lose her father right now. The kingdom needed him, and so did she.
Drake
Drake walked around the perimeter of Rommel’s rundown wood cabin. The exterior walls were barely visible, hidden by ivy that had strangled the structure’s edges for the last twenty years. His eyes followed the fresh wheel tracks and hoof prints that led down the dirt drive and onto the main trail. He’d arrived in the city of Denton last night and had been watching the old man all morning from the trees, trying to get a feel for who Rommel was and if the Council could trust him. Drake had seen his wagon drive off down the lane. He didn’t know where Rommel was going or how long he would be gone, but now was the perfect time to look around, do some investigating.
Drake thought the Council could trust Rommel, but when it came to important missions like this one was, he wanted to be sure. Rommel wasn’t the only reason Drake had come to Tolsten. He’d spent the first few days of his trip up north, casing out possible places for the operatives to hide. He’d also spent some time in the village that would be helping them. He wanted to make sure they understood how important their complete secrecy was. Before he went back to Albion, he still needed to check out Officer Arco—find out if he was a reliable ally. The actual mission wouldn’t take place for another month, but preparation was key.
It was Drake’s job to make sure nothing went wrong with the Council’s plan. Since the Council of Essentials, he had spent the last six months thinking about and planning the operatives’ mission. He was prepared for any surprise that this mission might bring. That was part of his job.
Myka
Myka rode her horse toward the west wall of Tolsten House with Officer Arco trailing behind. Her bag full of Joett’s supplies slammed into her back as the horse moved up and down, making her reconsider bringing so much stuff with her. A couple of weeks back, Myka had asked Cushings, the head chef at Tolsten House, to order a few things that Joett didn’t have access to, including aloe vera leaves and rare spices. The shipment from the kingdom of Cristole had finally arrived. Myka had to wait a whole week until the sixteenth when she could sneak out and give the items to Joett. And now, she couldn’t wait to see her reaction.
The Stolen Princess: A YA Dystopian Romance (Desolation Book 3) Page 2