Chapter 20 — The Royal Necklace
The necklace had been missing since the kidnapping.
Amara had assumed Rourke's men had taken it with everything else.
She was wrong.
Two days after Alexander learned her identity, a messenger arrived at the inn carrying a small package recovered from a merchant near the harbor.
The man claimed he had purchased several pieces of jewelry from a sailor months earlier.
Only recently had he heard that representatives from Azania were searching for a missing woman.
One piece had attracted attention.
Alexander opened the package in his room.
Inside lay a necklace of gold and dark blue stones, centered by an elaborate royal emblem.
He knew immediately that it mattered.
He carried it downstairs.
Amara was sitting with Lela near the window.
“Do you recognize this?”
Amara turned.
The color disappeared from her face.
For several seconds she could not speak.
Then she crossed the room and took the necklace with trembling hands.
“My mother gave me this.”
Lela stood immediately.
“I thought it was gone.”
“So did I.”
Amara ran her fingers across the central emblem.
She had worn the necklace on the morning she escaped the palace grounds with Lela. During the attack, one of the kidnappers had torn jewelry from her body. She had never seen it again.
Until now.
Alexander watched her expression.
“This belonged to the royal family?”
Amara nodded. “It was made for my grandmother.”
That changed the importance of the object completely.
The necklace was not merely expensive jewelry. It was identifiable.
Proof.
Alexander sat opposite her. “The merchant bought it from a sailor. He remembers the man.”
Amara looked up immediately.
“Rourke?”
“No. Younger. Fair hair. He apparently seemed frightened and wanted money quickly.”
“Thomas?”
“Possibly.”
Amara's expression softened.
Thomas had helped them aboard the ship whenever he could. He had brought water, warned them about the sale, and promised to remember her name.
Perhaps he had taken the necklace.
Or perhaps he had recovered it after someone else discarded it.
“Where is the sailor now?”
“Nobody knows.”
Amara closed her fingers around the necklace.
“Then we find him.”
Alexander almost smiled.
Not can we find him?
Not should we?
Simply we find him.
“Already working on it.”
She looked at him.
“You anticipated me?”
“I've had considerable practice.”
The necklace created immediate excitement among the people investigating Amara's disappearance.
A local official arrived that afternoon accompanied by two men familiar with foreign diplomatic affairs.
They examined the royal emblem.
One recognized it.
“This mark belongs to the House of Adisa.”
Alexander glanced toward Amara.
She remained calm.
The official looked at her differently now.
Until that moment, Alexander's claim that the missing woman was Princess Amara had been extraordinary but largely unsupported.
Now evidence sat on the table.
The man asked carefully, “Your full name?”
Amara gave it.
“Your father's name?”
“King Adisa.”
“Your mother's?”
“Queen Nalia.”
He asked about the royal household, government officials, geography, and people known to have visited Azania.
Amara answered easily.
Then he asked a question about a diplomatic delegation that had visited her father's court several years earlier.
Amara not only remembered the delegation; she remembered an argument between two of its members over seating at dinner.
One of the officials smiled.
“I was there.”
Amara looked at him more closely.
Then recognition appeared.
“You were standing behind Ambassador Wilkes.”
The man's smile disappeared in astonishment.
“Yes.”
“You spilled wine on your sleeve.”
Alexander turned away to hide a laugh.
The official stared at her.
“That was never included in any report.”
“I should hope not. It wasn't a major diplomatic incident.”
Alexander failed to hide the laugh this time.
The atmosphere in the room changed.
There was no longer serious doubt about who she was.
The official stood.
“Your Royal Highness.”
Amara closed her eyes briefly.
Alexander recognized the expression.
She hated this already.
The man bowed.
Then the second official bowed.
The innkeeper, who had been watching from the doorway, nearly dropped the tray in his hands.
Within an hour, everyone in the building seemed to know.
The mysterious African woman traveling with Captain Whitmore was not a servant.
She was royalty.
Amara found the sudden transformation almost offensive.
That morning, people had spoken to her normally.
By evening, servants became nervous when approaching her.
The innkeeper apologized for the quality of her room.
A maid curtsied three times.
Someone offered to replace her dinner because it was “not appropriate for a princess.”
Amara stared at the perfectly good meal.
Yesterday it had apparently been appropriate.
She escaped outside.
Alexander found her near the stable.
“You disappeared.”
“I am hiding.”
“From whom?”
“Everyone.”
He leaned against the fence.
“You spent weeks trying to prove nobody could tell you what to do. Now apparently nobody knows what to say to you.”
“It is terrible.”
Alexander smiled.
“Don't laugh.”
“I am trying not to.”
“You're failing.”
“Yes.”
Amara looked at him.
“At least you're still annoying.”
“I consider consistency a virtue.”
That made her smile.
The necklace did more than prove Amara's identity.
It also provided a trail.
The merchant remembered where he had purchased it. Another trader remembered the sailor. A dockworker remembered a frightened young man asking about passage north.
The description increasingly sounded like Thomas.
More importantly, he had apparently mentioned Rourke.
Alexander spread the new information across a table that evening.
“If we find Thomas, he may be able to identify the people involved in your kidnapping.”
“And Rourke.”
“Yes.”
Amara touched the necklace now resting around her neck.
For the first time since her capture, something from home was physically with her.
It gave her strength.
“We find Thomas.”
Alexander nodded.
“And then?”
“Then Rourke.”
Alexander studied her expression.
There was no fear in it now.
Only determination.
Later, Amara stood alone before the mirror in her room.
The necklace transformed her reflection.
The dress was borrowed. The room belonged to a roadside inn thousands of miles from home.
But the necklace belonged to Princess Amara, daughter of Adisa and Nalia.
She touched the royal emblem.
For weeks she had survived by hiding that woman.
Now she no longer needed to.
A knock came at the door.
“Who is it?”
“Alexander.”
She opened it.
He looked at the necklace.
“It suits you.”
“It should. I have been wearing it since I was seventeen.”
He smiled, then became serious.
“A ship carrying your father's representatives is expected tomorrow.”
Amara stopped breathing for a moment.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
Home had suddenly become real.
Her family would know she was alive.
The nightmare might finally be ending.
Yet when she looked at Alexander, joy was accompanied by another emotion she did not want to examine.
Because freedom meant choice.
And very soon Amara might have to choose between the world she had lost and the man she had never expected to find.