CHAPTER 22 #2
"No. I think it's morally questionable at best and emotionally abusive at worst. But I'm old and dying and I've spent twenty years regretting that I didn't protect my daughter better.
I wasn't going to make that mistake with you.
" She leaned forward. "You can hate me for it, Betty.
You probably should. But I needed you to have security and status and the power that comes with being royal.
Because the world is dangerous and cruel, especially to women, and I wanted you to be protected. "
"I was protected. My parents protected me."
Pain flickered across her face. "Tell me about your adoptive parents."
"Why?"
"Because I've spent twenty years wondering who raised my granddaughter. Who gave you the childhood I couldn't." Her voice broke. "I need to know if you were loved."
The raw vulnerability in her voice made my anger falter. This wasn't a manipulative monarch. This was just an old woman who'd lost her daughter and was trying to understand what had happened to the granddaughter she'd never known.
"I was loved," I said. "My parents are wonderful people.
He's a high school teacher, she works at the library.
We didn't have a lot of money, but we had enough.
They took me to the ocean every summer, taught me to ride a bike, helped me with homework even when it was subjects they didn't understand.
" I smiled despite myself. "Mom makes this terrible meatloaf that I pretended to like for years because I didn't want to hurt her feelings.
And Dad tells the worst dad jokes in the history of humanity.
He once spent an entire dinner making puns about bread. Just bread."
My grandmother was crying silently, tears streaming down her face.
"They threw me a surprise party for my sixteenth birthday even though we couldn't really afford it," I continued.
"Invited all my friends, made a cake from scratch, gave me this ridiculous tiara from the dollar store because I'd mentioned once that I liked sparkly things.
They stayed up all night when I had the flu freshman year.
They drove six hours to visit me at college even though gas was expensive.
They're not perfect, but they loved me. They still love me. "
"Thank you," she said. "For telling me that. For letting me know she, that you, had a good life."
"Despite being kidnapped and having my entire identity stolen?"
"Despite that. Yes." She wiped her eyes.
"I've spent twenty years consumed by guilt and rage and grief.
Wondering what happened to you, if you were safe, if you were happy.
And now I know you were loved by good people who gave you what I couldn't." She took a shaky breath.
"That's worth something. Maybe not everything, but something. "
We sat in silence for a moment. I looked around at the photos of my mother, at the life I might have had if things had been different.
"She looks happy in these photos," I said. "My mother. When she was young."
"She was happy. She loved horses, loved reading, loved making everyone laugh. She had her mother's stubbornness and her father's optimism." My grandmother smiled through her tears. "She would have loved you, Betty. Would have been so proud of who you became."
"Even though I make coffee for a living?"
"Especially because of that. Catherine hated the formality of royal life. She would have thought it was wonderful that you did something normal and honest." She paused. "Though she also would have been horrified by the lies I told you about the marriage. She was very particular about honesty."
"Then why did you think lying to me was a good idea?"
"Because I'm not your mother. I'm a dying queen who's made too many compromises and too few good choices, and I prioritized securing your future over respecting your agency.
" She looked at me directly. "I'm not asking you to forgive me, Betty.
I'm asking you to understand why I did it and to please, please not let my mistakes destroy your chance at happiness. "
"My happiness? You trapped me in a permanent marriage to a man I barely know!"
"I facilitated an alliance that would protect both our countries and gave you the resources and status to live independently if that marriage doesn't work out." She leaned forward. "The annulment papers Archibald gave you, do you still have them?"
"How did you know about those?"
"I'm dying, not dead. I still have sources." She smiled slightly. "He loves you, you know. Truly, genuinely loves you in a way I haven't seen him love anyone. And yes, he lied to you too, and that was wrong. But he's trying to fix it. Trying to give you the choice I took away."
"By offering to destroy the alliance and leave Solmarina vulnerable to Russian aggression? That's not a choice, that's emotional blackmail."
"No, dear. Emotional blackmail would be me begging you to stay married because I'm dying." She paused. "Which I am absolutely about to do, by the way. Stay married to Archibald. Tear up those annulment papers. Give yourself a chance to be happy with someone who clearly adores you."
"This isn't about me being happy. This is about you wanting to see me settled before you die."
"It's both." She didn't even try to deny it.
"I want you settled and safe because I love you and I'm selfish and I don't want to spend my last year worried about what happens to you after I'm gone.
But I also genuinely think Archibald is a good man who will treat you well if you give him the chance. "
I pulled out my phone and found the photo I'd saved, the news article about Princess Anastasia, beautiful and sophisticated and everything I wasn't.
"What about her? Viktor brought her to the palace, showed Archie what a real princess looks like. Someone who actually knows how to do this job."
My grandmother took the phone and studied the photo. "Anastasia Nikolaevna. Lovely girl. Completely wrong for Archibald."
"How do you know?"
"Because she's Russian-adjacent, which means she's politically radioactive for Mediterranean alliances. And more importantly, because Archibald doesn't love her. He loves you." She handed back the phone. "Don't let Viktor's manipulations make you doubt that."
"Viktor." I sat up straighter. "Speaking of Viktor, I need to tell you something."
I told her everything. The sabotaged luggage, the switched speech, the music room incident, the Italian lesson materials, the destroyed rooms, the threatening messages. All of it.
Her expression grew darker with each detail, her hands gripping the armrests of her chair with white-knuckled fury.
"Someone in my palace," she said when I finished. "Someone with high-level access has been trying to destroy you."
"Archie thinks it's coordinated. The timing is too perfect, the incidents too well-planned."
"Who has that level of access?" She was already running through possibilities, her mind sharp despite her failing body. "Who knew your schedule, had access to your rooms, could manipulate palace systems?"
"We have a suspect list. Viktor is on it."
"Viktor." She said his name like a curse. "My chief advisor. He will rue the day if it turns out he has done this."
"There's someone else too. Count Alessandro. He was asking questions, showing up in strange places."
"Alessandro." She considered this. "He's been pushing for increased Italian influence in Valdorian affairs. Ambitious, certainly. But working with foreign actors to sabotage you?" She shook her head slowly. "Both have the means and opportunity. But Viktor has more to gain from a failed alliance."
"What do you mean?"
"Viktor opposed your marriage from the beginning.
He wanted Valdoria to pursue closer ties with Russia instead of the West. I overruled him.
" Her voice was bitter. "If he's behind this, he's been positioning for exactly this outcome, making you look unsuitable so he can push for a Russian alternative. "
"Princess Anastasia."
"Exactly. Destroy your credibility, create scandal, make the marriage appear to fail, then offer a ready-made solution that serves his political agenda.
" She stood, moving to the window with slow, pained steps.
"I can't confront him directly. Not yet.
If he knows we suspect him, he'll either go underground or escalate. And I'm too ill to fight that battle."
"What do we do?"
She turned back to me. "You and Archibald need to catch whoever is doing this. Gather evidence, build a case, prove it definitively. Then we can act."
"And if it's Viktor?"
"Then I'll remove him from his position and make sure he never holds power in this region again." Her voice was steel. "No one threatens my granddaughter and keeps their job. Or their freedom."
I believed her. This dying woman would absolutely destroy someone if they'd threatened me. I had one final, awful thought.
"Do you think Viktor was involved in my kidnapping when I was a baby?”
"Wouldn’t that be convenient?" My grandmother's voice was tired.
"But no. Viktor only came to court twelve years ago.
The intelligence services have found connections between a separatist group and Russian funding, but nothing that leads to your kidnapping specifically.
Whoever orchestrated your disappearance, they planned it long before Viktor had any power here. "
"So, we'll never know who took me?"
"Probably not. The people who might have talked are dead or vanished.
The records are gone. After twenty years.
.." She spread her hands. "Some questions don't get answers.
I've had to make peace with that and so do you.
Be careful, though. Whoever is doing this is dangerous.
They've escalated from property damage to direct threats.
They won't stop just because you're on to them. "