23. Chapter 23
Michaela
I followed the stairs as far as they went, winding in such a way I kept second-guessing whether I’d made it out of the tower at all. Though I wanted to take them fast, bounce two at a time to get to Fitz that much sooner, the adrenaline started to wear off and every step sent a throbbing ache through my bones. I tried to take inventory as I moved, the cut on my hand, the scrape across my shoulder from the edge of the roof, and the countless bruises from the impact of my fall. It was a miracle I was alive and I couldn’t help but worry about unknown broken bones and possible internal injuries.
The final step emptied out into a small alcove with an arched door. From here, it would be easy. People had to be looking for me. All I really needed to do was find a member of security, alert them to what Sadie had done, and maybe crawl into bed and sleep off some of the pain. Oh, a bandage for my hand wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
I pulled on the handle of the door, nearly ecstatic when it gave way with a tug. There was a chance I was going to have issues with locks and doors for the rest of my life.
Voices turned the corner in the hallway beyond the alcove. They would be at the door in moments. What luck!
“Word is, he’s searching for the American.”
My hope perked up. Fitz was looking for me. I opened my mouth to speak, all I had to do was—
“You know the command, if you find her, eliminate her.”
I froze, pinned in horror. Did I hear him right? I pulled the door closed until it was only open a crack.
The second man continued, careful to keep his volume low. “We can’t have her ruining the plan, not when we are so close to success.”
They’d turned the corner, and their palace security uniforms became clear. The first officer thumped his partner’s shoulder. “Is there a bounty?”
“Yeah,” he laughed like his buddy should have known, “dead or alive.”
Satisfied, the other officer’s mouth curved into a sickening smile. “And considering who its coming from, I suspect the royal coffers will be quite generous.”
Without a sound, I pulled the door shut, unable to breathe. A bounty? The queen wanted me gone that badly? They talked like this was a shoot on sight order. Did Fitz have any idea?
He couldn’t.
If he knew, he’d throw them in the dungeon that didn’t even exist. In fact, he would build a dungeon just to keep them. No, this was a secret conspiracy, just like way too many other things in this country.
And at the heart of it was the queen herself.
My stomach twisted with unease, but I held silent until the security team passed by. When I was sure the hall was clear, I pulled the door open again and slipped through. I had no way of knowing which way to go. It wasn’t like the mall where they had a big map with an X to mark where I was in the scheme of things. I needed to make a choice, and I could only hope I was right.
I went to the left, away from the men who had taken my death so lightly. Despite my pain, I started jogging. I didn’t have time to wait around. I couldn’t trust anyone. Avoiding everyone was my only chance for survival. As I approached the next turn, I debated my choice and opted for another left.
Nervous, I turned and looked back the way I’d come, watching for a threat.
The hall remained empty, but that didn’t mean nothing threatened my safety.
After all, my path was highlighted along the white marble floors. Tiny dots of red that fell as I ran. A trail of blood from my injury that would surely lead right to me.
Fitz
I bowed to yet another Darling of Court. I'd gotten an earful from every jilted young woman who felt as though they should have been chosen in the competition. Tabitha of Princeborough Province had been no different, but handsy in addition.
I yelped as she passed behind me and seized the moment to grab a handful of my royal assets . Crazy what people would do when they thought they wouldn't be caught.
"Leonidas." Mother's terse whisper grated on my nerves as she slipped in beside me. "The people aren’t here to watch you dance with every maiden in the kingdom. They want to see you with your bride.”
“My bride?" I forced a smile into place. "Pardon my ignorance, but I wasn't aware I'd made my decision."
"By my count, there is only one woman here. I assumed—"
“You assumed incorrectly." My tone slipped until I took a moment to recover. "Until Michaela arrives, there is no decision."
"She better hurry. Your father's doctor is worried he won't be here much longer. I prefer to finalize this issue and be at his side until the end."
"This issue?" Was she referring to the small task of succession? She spoke as though she was assigning a chairperson to lead an event committee, not the next ruler of Nolcovia.
"And if I don't choose?" I'd dropped the smile. No longer willing to play her game. “What then? Will the world collapse? The country implode? What good are we doing anyway? Do we even matter? Is this monarchy relevant any longer? Would the people notice if we vanished or is this—"
"Hold your tongue." She’d put up with enough. "It is the law and tradition. One king succeeds the next before they pass on,” she drew closer, "and if you had listened to your parents months ago, none of this would have been necessary."
"None of what, Mother?” I dared speak back. “The competition or Michaela's disappearance?" I watched for her reaction, needing to know her part in it. The slightest dilation of her irises was the only indication, but it was enough for me to keep pushing. “Where is she? What have you done with her?"
"Leonidas, you've seen me all day, at what point would I have had time to abduct and stow some American trollop?"
"That's not a denial.” I ignored her slight to Michaela’s character and focused on the matter at hand. “You have servants, a security team, stars, you have my security team and all of the country at your disposal." I lowered my volume, careful not to make a scene. "You don't have to get your hands dirty, not when everyone else is obligated to fulfill your demands."
"I do not appreciate your tone."
"But the content, that's acceptable?"
Where was Bishop? Why hadn’t they found her?
"That's enough." Mother motioned to someone. "We had an agreement, Son. You will marry by midnight. Tradition will be upheld. You will rule Nolcovia."
I was so invested in proving my mother wrong, I hardly noticed her petite frame as she moved in close, as I was too busy fashioning the perfect retort.
"Your Majesty." Sadira's soft voice felt out of place in our argument. I turned to face her, and she quickly dropped her head and body out of devotion and respect. "I was requested, Your Highness."
"Yes, thank you Lady Sadira." I was surprised Mother didn't choke on the title. Even more bewildering was the familiarity in her tone. “Please, the prince is in need of a decent partner for the next dance.”
“Mother..." I wasn’t even close to finished with this conversation.
"Not another word, Leonidas."
Sadira spoke up bravely, offering me a way out. "If he doesn't want to, I'd rather not force him, Your Majesty."
My heart clenched. This gentle creature didn’t deserve my spite. "It's not that I don't want to but rather, I wasn’t finished speaking to my mother."
"Oh, I assure you,” Mother hardly held back her snicker, “we are quite done.”
I clenched my teeth, frustrated at the way she refused to speak to me as more than a child. But lashing out at Sadira would feel akin to kicking a kitten. She didn't have a cruel bone in her body. Not like the woman who’d birthed me.
"Lady Sadira," the first strains of the song started to fill the room, "may I have the honor of this dance?”
Her delicate nature turned cold as she set her hand in my extended palm. I pushed my feelings aside, determined not to let the poison from my anger with Mother influence my interactions with Sadira.
Still, as I led the maiden from Eshein Province to the dance floor, I couldn't help but bristle as I overheard my mother's parting words.
"Good boy."
Bishop
It was all my fault, really. When I thought about it, I couldn’t get around that singular fact. My mother’s snippy words kept prancing about my head. ‘No good deed goes unpunished, Bishop. So why start trying now?’
She was right, as always. I never should have come to Nolcovia. I had a lovely vacation site in Tuscany that would have helped me brave the cold months, or I could have stayed in the South of France. Lady Hilldeboard never minded if I spent weeks or even months at her villa, so long as I spent some of those months sunning myself near the pool for her ancient eyes to take in the view. But no, I gave up my cushy life to rescue my daft cousin from himself.
A lot of good that had done me. Originally, I’d been looking forward to the ball, mostly because I planned to charm a princess of a foreign country or aged aunt of a wealthy diplomat to see if I could garner a little favor with them before things became too serious. After all, commitment… no, thank you. Perks? Yes, indeed.
I’d tried commitment once and the entire thing had gone pear-shaped in record time by my count. I took it as a sign that I was simply not created for that type of lifestyle. Better to get what I wanted, leave them smiling, and move on.
Dempsey.
It wasn’t my mother’s voice in my head this go round, but rather an old flame rekindling in full force for a moment. Her dark hair that felt like satin, her bewitching eyes, her long fingers and the way they would curve around the back of my head as she leaned in to—
“All clear,” Kabir told me as he stepped free of yet another room. Curse the palace for having so many. This was taking forever. And to what end? If someone took Michaela, would they really be foolish enough to stash her in the same building where she’d been snatched?
“We’ll check up here.” I nodded to the next door. “I’ll help this time. It’ll go faster.”
“No,” Kabir corrected me quickly, “stay in the hall. We don’t want to miss something out here while one of us is in there.”
I frowned, annoyed I’d been relegated to menial tasks. Once more, I felt the guilt of it in my bones. I never stepped up so of course no one felt the need to ask me for more. Not from the guy who did his best not to do it.
“We’ll prop the door open,” I offered. “That way we can keep an eye on the hall but move twice as fast.”
Kabir’s eyes narrowed as if he hated the idea. Maybe he didn’t like being questioned. Slowly, he nodded in agreement. “Very well.” He disappeared into the room and returned hardly a moment later with a chair to keep the door from closing. “You take west, I’ll go east.”
And me without my compass…
Who talks like that?
I waited for him to walk, and I chose the opposite direction. I didn’t suspect we would find anything in these rooms. Countless as they were, no one in their right mind would hide their stolen goods, human or otherwise, in the palace. There was no room that could be held back from the royal guard. No lock that couldn’t be opened. No door that could be barred. They simply had access to everything. In fact, I snickered internally at the thought, if anyone was going to abduct and stash Michaela it would be…
I shook it off. That was crazy. Kabir had been nothing but supportive of Leo’s choice.
“Clear,” Kabir called from his side of the room. “What about you?”
“Clear,” I agreed, enjoying this little commando act I got to put on. I’d resisted the urge to start making hand signals and doing dive rolls in the halls, but just barely. It wasn’t often I got to play the part of macho man. I was more likely to be pretty boy than anything else. Not that I was complaining about my type casting. If the hat fit, after all…
I fell in line with Kabir as we exited and moved to the next room. With hundreds of rooms in the palace, the task felt insurmountable. But we had no choice other than to keep trying.
“You know what baffles me,” I started voicing my internal thoughts, “how did this bloke manage to not only overtake Michaela, who I know from experience is stronger than you’d expect, but also managed to take her through the halls undetected to some secret rendezvous?”
Kabir saluted at yet another pair of officers as they passed us, confirming my concerns over traveling beyond detection. It simply wasn’t possible. Any average bloke carrying a screaming, wailing banshee of a woman, like I knew Michaela would be, couldn’t possibly evade suspicion from a palace full of guards. Even if they knocked her out, everyone knew her face. She’d been plastered on screen and ads for weeks. After the earthquake, she became a national celebrity. There was no way anyone could move her through the palace undetected, conscious or not.
Kabir drew in a calculated breath before he took the next corner. “There are rumors of hidden passages in the palace walls.”
I scoffed. “News to me. They don’t tell those things to the problem child, you see. They’re more likely to disappear, leave me holding the bag, and say, blimey , at least the bloodline is protected.” I laughed to myself so I wouldn’t feel the pain of the truth. As much as Leonidas claimed he would abdicate before taking the throne without his precious Coco, I knew he wouldn’t. “But you’re security, shouldn’t you know?”
“You must not know your history.” His palm pushed the door open in one swing, acting as though he might catch someone in the act. Much to my disappointment, the room was empty. Frowning, Kabir finally answered me. “In the early years of the kingdom, there was unrest. King Drysden had married Nolcola, and because she’d saved the kingdom, many loved her.”
“But not everyone?”
“No,” Kabir confirmed. “Specifically, the security of the king. They were made up of those soldiers who’d fought with him in the war, and though her acts of bravery had saved them, she hadn’t been able to save their families from the bloodshed Sagure ordered. They blamed her, saw her as an outsider, and there were multiple attempts on her life, until King Drysden ordered the lot of them executed for treason.”
My stomach churned for a moment. The king’s own security turned against him? I considered the years I’d been employing bodyguards, and I was of little importance to the world. Yet, I trusted them with my life. More than once, they’d saved it, but only because I was willing to follow commands blindly and without wavering. They had my trust, and yet, what if I had given that trust to the wrong person?
What if my foes all looked like friends?
“Strange,” I tried to smother the feeling of unease, “I’ve never heard any of this lore before.”
“Yes, well, it’s not the sort of bedtime story royals tell small children. They need you to listen and follow orders to keep you safe. If you thought for a moment that your security team could mean you harm…” I didn’t love the way his voice trailed off. “But it’s standard in training our officers.” He pushed back the curtains, checking behind them, but for a moment he became bewitched by the night. He stared through the window, peering into the onyx darkness. “People want to hide the past, afraid of the effect it would have. But the truth is, history matters. It has a way of repeating itself.”
My lungs burned, reminding me I hadn’t taken a breath since he started talking. It was all too eerie. No lock that couldn’t be opened. No door that could be barred. My thoughts about security slithered through my mind, but this time I didn’t snicker. Not internally or otherwise.
Chills ran over my skin. Kabir had been supportive of Michaela and Leonidas from the start, but could it be an act? A way to stay close to the prince and monitor his movements? What better way to know the inner workings of the prince’s mind than to be in the inner circle of his life. And, in a sense, history was repeating itself, or at least trying to. Michaela was an outsider bound for the throne. Some would see it as a threat. But would they go so far as to kill her?
As we exited yet another empty room, I thought of all the time we were wasting searching this way. “I could break off, you know? Head to the tower or something. No one ever frequents that side of the palace; it would be a great place to—”
“No,” his sharp command cut me off, “protocol dictates we stay together. We only have three more rooms on this level, and then we’ll move to the next.”
I nodded slowly. “Of course. Protocol.”
There was another explanation for how someone could have transported Michaela and it had nothing to do with secret tunnels. If the head of the prince’s security had transported the unconscious maiden, no one would have batted an eye at him. If they were all under orders to eliminate her, they could carry it out, hide any evidence, and no one would ever know. Then as they were commanded to search, they could burn time, knowing full well that a search would prove fruitless.
“Are you coming?” Kabir asked, likely noting my slowed steps and hesitation.
“Yes.” I fell in line behind him. Last thing I needed was to tip off the one who might hold Michaela’s life in his hands. At the first opportunity, I would pull away.
When those we once relied on for safety betrayed us, everyone became vulnerable.
No one was safe anymore.