Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ELLA
My entire trip to Northandria has been a series of pinch-me moments.
And yet, I feel more nervous today than I have these whole past ten days.
Today, I have no stylist, no schedule, no etiquette lessons.
I don’t have any foreign names to memorize or blocking to remember.
Today, I’m just Ella, the girl from Virginia.
And I somehow have a date with a prince.
I take a deep breath in front of my full-length mirror and exhale slowly like I’m doing some kind of Pilates exercise.
But I’m not in athleisure or whatever it is all those influencers wear.
I’m just in jeans and my nicest sweater.
My own clothes, for once. And my hair is down, wavy and natural.
I didn’t even bother with contacts. My corneas deserve a break.
Will Archer still like me when he sees me like this?
Not that I have any delusions of him actually liking liking me.
But he at least likes me enough to voluntarily spend the morning with me, and to bother to send that note yesterday.
That should count for something, right? Casual or not, today’s appointment is one step beyond strictly professional relationship, for sure.
Someone knocks. I do my last, deep exhale.
“Coming!” I call out before realizing that it’s probably very much not royal protocol to holler at a prince. If it’s Archer on the other side of the door, of course.
I hold my breath just in case it is, and I march over and open the main door to my suite.
It is humanly impossible to be as handsome in a sweater and dark jeans as it is in a well-fitted evening suit. But somehow, Archer manages.
I breathe out of my mouth, a nervous teenager.
“Hi.” I smile.
“Hello.” He nods his head. There’s a small curve to his lips, probably his version of a smile. “Are you ready for our tour?”
“Do I need a brochure? Or headphones for my prerecorded audio guide?”
The curve grows. “Just a selfie stick, perhaps. And maybe a proper merch shirt.”
“I-heart-Northandria? It’s too bad I didn’t borrow my professor’s shirt. Her husband had one made for her.”
Now Archer frowns a little. “They actually make those?”
I laugh. “No, she’s just a huge Carvarell Compact fan, that’s all, so Mr. Reed had an I-heart-CC shirt made for her. I don’t think anyone is selling trademarked royal merchandise unauthorized.”
He relaxes a little and offers me his arm. It’s a gallant, almost outdated little gesture, but it makes my heart skip a beat anyway. I curl my hand around his elbow and follow his lead.
The first few twists and turns he takes me on are relatively familiar hallways.
But we’re probably halfway through the castle when he starts leading us up a small, rounded stairwell.
He heads up first, since we can’t fit in the narrow curve together, and I trail after him single file.
Only then do I notice that we’re completely alone.
“Is Sven not with you today?” I ask when we’re probably about two flights up. It’s hard to keep track when the walls all look the same and the floor landings and windows appear almost identical. Who knows if the double doors open to more rooms and hallways, or straight out into thin air?
“I can sometimes be unsupervised inside the castle premises,” Archer answers, his head partly obscured. I do catch glimpses of his chin. “Although I had to fight for the right to do it as a teenager.”
“Were your parents very protective?”
“Very, especially in the intervening years before Alya was born.”
“Did they become more lenient after she was born?”
“Towards her, certainly.” It could have sounded bitter, but I’m a bit relieved that it doesn’t. The Queen might roll her eyes at her daughter’s antics, but at least Archer seems mostly just slightly bemused. “Ah, here we are.”
He steps onto a landing and turns around to assist me off the unforgiving, triangular steps. Then he guides us around another corner and turns.
I catch my breath.
Stretching forward from where we’re standing is the most cavernous indoor space I have ever seen.
It rolls long rather than wide. But even if it’s only half the width of the new lecture hall at my university (which is still very, very spacious), the elongated ceiling, complete with stained glass windows and carved walls, bathes the space with a glow of hallowed awe.
This is the sort of great hall where ancient courtiers paid homage to kings and queens.
This is the kind of grandeur that inspires poets to write their ballads and odes.
I don’t even notice the various coats of armor and portraits that are lining both walls of the endless banquet hall until Archer points them out to me.
“I never liked memorizing all the names of these faces as a child,” he says, all while briskly walking me towards the middle of the hall. “But I’m glad the knowledge comes in handy now.”
He stops first in front of a large portrait of a grand-looking couple. I’m not a fashion history expert, but the clothes are reminiscent of pictures of European royalty around the time of the American Revolution, wigs and all.
“King Agmundr and Queen Erika,” he names them, “the first rulers of Northandria to have lived in Langford Castle. Agmund Stadium is named after him.”
“Oh.” Pride surges through my chest. So these were the rulers my ancestors shared this castle with.
There have been a few times my younger, curious self looked up the royal history of Northandria, but these paintings bring the people in those Wikipedia articles to life far more effectively than images on my laptop screen do.
And the fact that I am standing next to a living, breathing descendant of these rulers makes the entire experience even more surreal.
I study the faces of the portrait more closely past the historical outfits. “The King looks almost like you.”
Archer looks almost a little shy. “Some people say there is a family resemblance.”
“The coloring and the eyes, certainly.”
“Passed down through my mother.”
“Are you like King Agmundr in temperament too?”
Archer pauses. “It is hard to tell, given the irregularities of different historical records. Some sources say he was serious and headstrong. Some say he was introverted and withdrawn.”
“And you—what do you think?”
Archer looks at me for a long, lingering moment before turning back towards the portrait.
“I think he was likely a little bit of all those things. No one is ever one-dimensional like that. History likes to stereotype monarchs with epithets: someone was ‘the Great,’ someone was ‘the Pious,’ someone else might be ‘the Merry’ or ‘the Foolish’ or ‘the Brave.’ But no one can really be encapsulated in a single word. And when it becomes my turn on the Sapphire Throne, I’d like to hope that I would be known more as a person than as any one particular adjective. ”
I step closer and wrap a hand around his arm. He looks at me, and I smile at him. “I think that you’re probably right.”
He smiles. It’s a small smile. But it’s a legitimate smile.
And he carries that smile on him as he guides me down the hall to see a few more of his favorite portraits and suits of armor.
I don’t manage to remember everything Archer mentions.
But he talks about these people and places so naturally that I almost feel as if I am walking the hallway with them myself.
The minutes drift by. Maybe hours. And my feet are quite sore by the time we’ve made it all the way down to the end of the hall and back. It’s a good thing I didn’t bother with heels today.
“Are you ready for our next stop?” asks Archer.
I look at him in genuine surprise. “You mean there is more?”
“Of course.” The smile looks perfect on him. “We cannot possibly—” His eyes freeze when he sees the time on his own watch. I check mine and laugh. “Was that truly almost three hours?”
“You make a very informative tour guide.”
He seems pleased, if a little embarrassed, by the compliment. “At this rate, I doubt we can visit all my favorite places. But I suppose we can at least visit one more.”
“And where is that?”
“The cellars.”
“The cellars?”
His blue eyes twinkle. “Last I heard, it’s where a particular Sir Gerald Langford did a great service for the Northandrian people with his inventive skills. Certainly, we can’t forget that.”
It took all my self-control not to tackle him into a hug right then and there.