THE STUDIO HAD BEEN GIVEN a makeover. While discussing my engagement in front of an audience of friends, family, and staff members as I was broadcast live across the country wasn’t exactly the level of intimacy I’d been aiming for, sometimes a girl just has to take what she can get.
I searched the room, looking for Mom and Dad. I needed to see them, to see their smiles at my choice. If they were happy and calm, then I could be, too. But they weren’t here, yet. Kaden, however, was.
I watched from the door, seeing him stare across the room as if he’d been slightly bewitched. He spooked a little when I came up next to him.
“You okay?”
He cleared his throat and looked down at his feet, blushing. “Yeah, everything’s great. Just hanging out.”
I followed his gaze to see if I could figure out what he’d been looking at, and it instantly became all too clear. Josie had given up on elaborate hairstyles and excessive jewelry. She’d abandoned heavy makeup and showy gowns. Looking at her now—hair slightly curled, the hint of gloss on her lips, and an age-appropriate blue dress—it seemed she was finally stepping into her shoes instead of mine.
“Josie’s really pretty tonight,” I commented.
“Oh? I hadn’t noticed. But now that you mention it, yeah, she looks nice.” Miss Marlee, seeming breezy and peaceful, said something to Mr. Carter, and Josie laughed, the sound still a little too loud for my ears but pretty
nonetheless.
“Since you’re not on camera for the show, maybe you should go sit with her. It looks like she’s got an open seat.” I peeked down at Kaden, watching a little smile twitch onto his face before he covered it back up again.
“I suppose. I mean, I don’t really have plans to sit with anyone else.”
He walked over to her, straightening his suit the whole way, and I found myself dying to know how all that would unfold.
“Eadlyn.”
I turned to Mom’s voice, happy to see her coming over with open arms. “How are you feeling?”
“Totally wonderful and not at all terrified,” I joked.
“Don’t worry. Henri’s a good choice. An unlikely one, but very good
still.”
I peeked to the back of the room where Eikko was straightening Henri’s tie, and they spoke back and forth, their lips a jumble of shapes I couldn’t read.
“What’s funny, though, is there’s nothing to be jealous about.” I looked up at Mom, confused. “Jealous?”
“Earlier today when you were speaking to Marlee, you said you were jealous of what she did for love.”
“Did I say that?” I swallowed.
“You did. And I wonder why you’d be jealous of someone suffering to get to the person she loves when it seems like a very sweet boy is waltzing right into your arms.”
I froze. How could I spin this around?
“Maybe a better word would have been admire. It’s a very brave thing she did.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “If you want to lie to me, that’s fine, but I’d suggest you stop doing it to yourself before you find you’re in a position you can’t get out of.”
With that she walked on, taking a seat next to Miss Lucy and General Leger. The studio was usually cold, but I felt sure that the chill that went through me wasn’t related to the temperature.
“And you’ll wait right here,” the producer said, dragging Henri to stand beside me. “We still have some time, but don’t go running off. Has anyone seen Gavril?” she shouted to no one in particular.
Henri pointed to the tie that Eikko had just fixed. “Is good?”
“Yes.” I brushed at his shoulders and sleeves. I looked past him to Eikko, who had done an amazing job at pulling himself together. I hoped I appeared as calm on the outside as he did. Inside it felt like I was a sweater with a loose string being pulled and pulled until I’d be nothing but a knot on the floor.
I walked around Henri under the guise of double-checking his suit from all angles. I dropped my arm as I passed Eikko, and our fingers met in a kiss before I moved back to stand in front of my fiancé.
The thrill running up my skin was electrifying, so I clasped my hands together in front of me, focusing on the feeling of my engagement ring against the back of my fingers. In my periphery, Eikko’s figure disappeared through the crowd, presumably so he could find his own level of sanity in this moment.
“So,” I asked, facing Henri, “are you ready?”
He looked at me, his usually jubilant expression dim. “Are you?”
I wanted to say yes, and I could hear the word in my head, but I couldn’t
manage to work it down to my mouth. So I just smiled and nodded.
He saw right through me.
Taking my hand, he pulled me toward the back of the room, toward Eikko.
“En voi,” Henri said, his tone more solemn than I’d ever heard it. Eikko’s eyes flashed between us. “Miksi ei?”
“I am slow here,” Henri said, pointing to his mouth. “Not here.” He pointed to his eyes.
My breathing sped up, knowing my life was all about to fall apart, and terrified of what might happen after it did.
“You are love,” he said, motioning between us.
When Eikko started to shake his head, Henri sighed and picked up his right hand, pointing to the signet ring. And then he picked up mine, which still wore Eikko’s.
“Eikko, please explain to him. I have to follow through with my Selection.
Tell him he’ll never need to doubt me.”
Eikko rattled off my appeal quickly, but Henri’s expression remained undeterred.
“Please,” I pleaded, grabbing onto his arm.
His expression was incredibly sweet when he spoke. “I say no.” He picked up my hand and gently pulled off my engagement ring.
The room started turning fuzzy at the edges. I was minutes away from a live announcement, and I’d just been jilted.
Henri grabbed my face, looking deeply into my eyes. “Love you,” he vowed. “Love you.” Then he turned and clutched Eikko’s arm. “And love you. My good friend. Very good friend.”
Eikko swallowed, looking ready to cry from Henri’s words. Through most of the last two months, all they’d had were each other. Forget what this moment meant for me. What did it mean for them?
Henri pulled us both in close. “You being together. I make your cake!”
Despite my worries, I laughed. Looking into Eikko’s eyes, I ached to let go and give my heart the one thing it truly wanted. But I couldn’t get past my fear.
I scanned the room, searching for the one person I needed right now.
When I found him, I turned to my boys. “Wait here. Please.” I ran across the studio. “Daddy! Dad, I need your help.” “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to marry Henri. I want to marry Eikko.”
“Who?”
“Erik. His translator. I’m in love with him, and I want to marry him. And even though he hates having his picture taken, I want to take a thousand so I can put him on my wall and wake up to us laughing every day, just like you do with Mom. And I want him to make me doughnuts, just like his mom does for his dad. Even if I have to let out all my dresses. And I want us to find our own thing or maybe find out that our own thing is everything, because I feel like if I have him, even the stupid stuff would matter.”
He stood there, mouth slightly agape.
“But a word from you and I’ll never mention it again. I want to do the right thing, and I know you’d never let me do something stupid. Tell me what I should do, and I won’t question it, Dad.”
He looked up at the clock, his eyes still wide with shock. “Eadlyn, you only have seven minutes.”
I followed his gaze, and he was right. It was seven ’til. “So help me. Tell me what to do!”
After a stunned second, he turned back to me and pulled me out the studio door.
“We all know that you wanted to move fast because of Marid, and I think there’s some value to your line of thought. But you can’t let one bully decide the rest of your life. Trust me. You don’t have to announce anything today.”
“That’s not the point. I want to be with Eikko so much it hurts, but I’ve done so many selfish, idiotic things in the past that I fear the people won’t forgive me if I break even the tiniest rule. I can’t bear to let them down, Dad. I can’t bear to let you down.”
“Me? Let me down over a silly little rule?” He shook his head. “Eadlyn, you come from a long line of traitors. You couldn’t let me down.”
“What?”
He smiled. “Your brother running off to France was technically enough to start a war over. I think he knew that. Did it stop him?”
I shook my head.
“Your mother,” he said with a laugh. “She conspired with the Italian government to fund the Northern rebels, a move that would have sent her to her grave had my father found out.”
I stood there, stunned.
“And me? I’ve been keeping someone who ought to be dead alive for over twenty years.”
“The Woodworks?” I guessed.
“Ha! No, I forgot about them, though officially they were pardoned. It’s actually someone much more dangerous in the eyes of the monarchy.”
“Dad, I don’t understand.”
He sighed, looking up and down the hall, checking for spying eyes, before quickly unbuttoning his shirt. “I’m afraid there’s only one way to explain this.” He turned around and swiftly shoved his shirt down along with his suit coat.
I gasped in horror as I took in my father’s back. He was covered in marks, some wide, as if they’d healed without any treatment, and some skinny and puckered. There didn’t appear to be any uniformity to the marks except that they all must have come from the same cane or whip.
“Daddy . . . Daddy, what happened to you?”
“My father happened to me.” He pulled his shirt back on and buttoned it as fast as he could, speaking in a rush. “Sorry I never took you to the beach, honey. I just couldn’t do it.”
My posture sank. Of all the things to apologize for. “I don’t understand.
Why did he do that to you?”
“To keep me in line, to keep me quiet, to make me a better leader . . . he had a myriad of reasons. But there are only two of these beatings you need to know about. The first is one that happened after your mother proposed we eliminate the castes.”
He shook his head, almost smiling as he remembered. “She chose to say this on a Report while she was still in the Selection. Of course my father, who already hated her, saw this as a threat to his control. Which it was. Such a suggestion is treasonous. Like I said, it runs in the family. I worried he would punish her, so I let him take it out on me instead.”
“Oh, my goodness.”
“Indeed. That was the last beating I ever endured, and for the life of me, I’ll never regret it. I’d take it a hundred times over for her.”
I’d never known about that. All I’d ever known was that they took on caste elimination together. So many of the unpleasant details of their history had been glossed over. There was plenty of awful along with the wonderful.
“I almost hate to ask, but what was the other one I needed to know about?”
He snapped the last of his buttons and sighed. “The first one.” I swallowed, unsure if I wanted to hear this story or not.
“You see, my father was a very conceited man. He thought the world owed him everything because he was king. And, really, he had no reason to be unhappy. He had power, a wonderful home, a wife who adored him, and his very own son to carry on the line. But it was never enough.”
His eyes stared unfocused, and I watched him, still not understanding. “I always knew when his mistress was coming. He’d give my mother a gift earlier in the day, as if he was paying for his sins before he committed them.
Then, at dinner, he’d fill her wineglass over and over until she was ready to pass out. And, of course, she kept her quarters in the other wing. I assume that was his idea, not hers. I can’t imagine her ever intentionally separating herself from my father. Genuinely, she worshipped him.
“Anyway, I was eleven or so when I was walking through the palace and caught her leaving one night, hair a mess and a cape over her shoulders as if she could cover up what she’d done. I knew. I knew why she was there, and I hated her for it. More than I hated him, which was unfair. As soon as she was gone, I went to my father. He was in his robe, drunk and sweaty. And I said to him—I’ll never forget it—I said, ‘You cannot let that whore in here again.’ As if I could tell the king what to do.
“He grabbed me by my arm so hard he dislocated my shoulder. He put me on the floor and caned me across the back I don’t know how many times. I was so dizzy with pain, I passed out. I woke up in my room with my arm in a sling. As I came to, my butler said I shouldn’t roughhouse with the guards, that I was too young to consider them playmates.”
Dad shook his head. “I don’t know who got fired or worse to make that story seem legit, but I knew I was supposed to keep quiet. And I was so small, I didn’t dare risk telling anyone. As I got older, I hid it because of shame. And then, somehow in my head, I turned it into something to be proud of. I endured this suffering alone, without support, and that was something admirable. Of course, it wasn’t. It was stupid, but we make excuses for ourselves when we’re small.”
He gave me a weak smile. “I’m so sorry, Dad.”
“It’s okay. It’s made me a stronger person and, I hope, a better parent. I hope I’ve done right by you.”
My eyes welled. “You have.”
“Good. Well, to answer your question, a few years later I thought my father really had gotten rid of his mistress. As I said, I knew when he was planning to bring her, and I watched for him to go into the old routine and even snuck out several nights just to be sure. She was gone for months and months, and then, one day, there she was, walking down the hallway as if she owned the place.
“I was filled with so much anger at this woman, irate that she had the gall to show her face while my mother slept just around the corner. So I stopped her and told her something to that effect. She cocked her head and smirked at me, like I was a bug, like I was nothing. Then she lowered her face to my ear and whispered, ‘I’ll tell your little sister you said hello.’ And she walked away, leaving me completely gob smacked. I must have stood there for a solid
ten minutes, too stunned to move.
“Did she say that simply to make a dig at me? Did I really have a half sister I didn’t know about? I wasn’t going to beg her for answers, and it was clear that I couldn’t go to my father. It wasn’t until after he died that I could even attempt to look for her.”
He swallowed. “Here’s the thing, though. Illegitimate children of a royal family member are not allowed to live.”
“What? Why?”
“I think because they might cause a threat to the royal line. Civil war or political unrest does no one any good. Even now, look at the trouble Marid has made. So in the past we eliminated those threats as soon as they were discovered.” He said all this coldly, disconnected in a way.
“So did you kill her?”
He smiled to himself. “No. I was enchanted with her the moment I laid eyes her. She was just a child, and she had no idea who her father was. It wasn’t her fault she’d been born half royal. So I took her away from her mother, kept her near me, and have been protecting her ever since.”
He finally risked meeting my eyes. “Lady Brice?” I asked.
“Lady Brice.”
I didn’t know what to say. I had another aunt. And she’d done as much for me as anyone else in my family recently. More than some, really. I was indebted to her.
“I feel bad keeping her in the shadows,” he admitted.
“I know. If she has royal blood, I feel like she deserves more.”
“It’s not possible. And she understands that. She’s thankful enough to be here,” he answered. And though we both knew the truth of it, I could see we didn’t agree that it was satisfactory. “So you see, I have committed treason every single day for the last twenty years. Your mother has, your brother has. I dare say Kaden might be the only one who makes it out without ever breaking a rule.”
I smiled at the truth to that, dreading just how many Osten would destroy. “Break the stupid rule, Eadlyn. Marry the man you love. If he’s good
enough for you to approve of, then I certainly do. And if the people don’t, that can be their problem. Because who are you?”
“I’m Eadlyn Schreave, and no one in the world is as powerful as me,” I blurted without thought.
He nodded. “Damn right you are.”
The producer burst through the door. “Thank goodness! You have ten seconds. Run!”
