The Princess in the Opal Mask (12 page)

I pull up short when several guards, who had been standing in front of a tall statue, unsheathe their swords and start running after me. Suddenly, I’m pushed from behind, and for a moment, I’m flying forward. I hit the stone floor with a
thud
and a guard lands on top of me. “I’ve got her!” Wolfram shouts. “Run like that again, and I’ll gut you like a pig,” he says to me.

My lip has split on the hard floor, and I taste blood in my mouth as the guards yank me to my feet. When I look up, I see I’m standing in front of a statue of Eleanor the Great. She holds two large, colorful opals in her hands.

The circle of guards around me parts for Lord Murcendor; his dark eyes are glowering. “Take her back to her cell,” he commands. “And be careful with this one. She is not right in the head and has an unhealthy obsession with Princess Wilhamina. Pay no attention to whatever lies she may tell you.”

L
ord Murcendor returns to the Guardians’ Chambers and dismisses me. “I would like for you to wait in your room. Lord Quinlan, Lord Royce, and I need to speak privately.” He motions to my mask. “We will also need you to put that back on.”

I obey and tie the mask back on my face. I leave the room, but as soon as the door closes behind me, I sink to the ground. Lord Murcendor told me only of Elara’s existence. He said nothing of my father’s plan to bring her to Allegria once I had left the kingdom. I bring a shaking hand to my mask.

All this time, has my father been counting the years until he could marry me off and be reunited with my sister? Did he ever wonder if he had made a mistake, if he should have sent me away and kept her instead? Given how quickly he has intended to hand me over to the Kyrenicans, I assume he must.

I think back to Rinna, the person I loved most when I was a child. Once she saw my face, did my father decide it was better if she—like the midwife before her—was sent abroad, so she couldn’t one day identify Elara?

On the other side of the door I hear the low rumble of the Guardians’ voices. No doubt they expect me to obey Lord Murcendor’s orders and return to my room. All these years, the Guardians and my father have always required my obedience, and I have always given it.

Yet what if this time I didn’t?

I rise and approach a maid passing through the hall. “Do you know where I can find Patric, the palace guard? I need to speak to him about our training sessions,” I add hastily in case she says something to the Guardians.

“He’s usually standing guard at the western turret this time of night,” she answers, and hurries away, looking relieved to get away from me.

I see no one as I make my way down the corridor and up the staircase spiraling to the top of the turret. When I find Patric, he is staring out the window. For a moment I study him silently. His face is shadowed and his jaw is set in a firm line as he watches the sun set over the kingdom. My stomach lurches. I haven’t seen him since the attack. I sent word to him that I was not ready to train because of my ankle. But in truth, I have been too scared to face him.

“So this is where you spend your nights,” I say as I walk over to him.

Patric jumps and draws his sword, but sheaths it when he sees me. “What are you doing up here?”

“I have just come from a meeting with the Guardians, and I thought well . . . I just wanted to see you,” I finish lamely.

“A meeting discussing plans to depart to your future    husband’s country?” The coldness in his voice is unmistakable.

“Yes,” I answer, aware that I cannot tell him the full truth. “I should have told you the terms of the peace treaty. I am sorry.”

“That’s it? That’s your apology?” he says. “Do you have any idea how it felt, hearing of your betrothal? Don’t you think that was something I might want to hear from you, Wilha, and not from your father, as if I was just another guard?”

“I know I should have told you, but I was afraid,” I answer, and my voice sounds desperate. “I didn’t want our time together to end. And it doesn’t have to, not yet. Lord Quinlan is seeking guards for the journey. You could volunteer and—”

“Volunteer?” Patric looks as though I have slapped him. “You want me to escort you to your husband’s country? Would you like me to witness your wedding, as well? Shall I stay long enough to watch you give birth to his child?”

“No, that is not what I meant!” I reach for his arm, but he draws back. “I just . . . I wish things could be different.”

“Don’t you think I wish things were different, too?” he answers, his green eyes blazing. “That I could untie your mask and see the girl who—” He turns away and grips the edge of the window.

I step closer to him and take a deep breath. “You could untie my mask. If you want to . . .”

At this, he seems to forget his anger and turns to look at me, surprised. “It is forbidden. You know this.”

“No one has to know. For once we are alone, and I would never tell anyone. None of the rumors are true—”

“I have
never
believed the rumors—”

“—and I promise, no harm will come to you.” I place my hand on his and he tenses. “Please? I have to go to Kyrenica. Neither of us can change that. But before I go, I want you to look at me.” I take his hand and place it on my mask. “Please? I want you to see me. Just this once, before I have to leave.”

His hand moves up and tangles in my hair. I read the temptation in his eyes. But just as quickly as it came over him, his expression hardens and he drops his arm. “Let your new husband look at you. I will not.”

He turns away and looks out the window. When he speaks again, his voice is hollow. “I cannot see you anymore. If you wish to continue your training, I will assign someone else for your remaining time in Galandria.”

I wait, hoping he will turn back and tell me he has changed his mind, and that he really does want to see me. When he does not, I pull a gold ribbon from my hair and place it next to him on the window sill. “Something to remember me by,” I say quietly. “If you care to, that is.”

Before I descend the stairs, I look back at him one last time. Patric is still looking out over the city. The ribbon next to him stirs in the breeze like it is unwanted and already forgotten.

S
even minutes sealed my fate. Seven minutes sentenced me to a life with the Ogdens. Seven minutes separated me from the life I could have had. The life I
would
have had if I had been born first.

I spend a dark night in my cell, trying to sort out my thoughts. It seems that I’ve always been viewed as a disposable daughter. Hidden away, when my existence was judged as too much of an inconvenience. And now that they feel their precious Wilhamina is in danger, they see me as nothing more than a body to take the arrows for her.

In the morning, I awaken to the sound of my cell door clanking open and Wolfram thrusting a mug at me.

“Breakfast,” he grunts and leaves, slamming the cell door behind him.

I slurp down the broth hungrily and tell myself it won’t be long until he returns with bread and cheese. But hours pass, and no one comes. I think of the last thing I ate that wasn’t stale or moldy. The apple tart I hastily gobbled on my way to the prison . . . how many days ago was that?

That day in Eleanor Square, Cordon had been calling out for me to be careful. When Gunther struck me and carried me away, did Cordon try to stop him? Or did he turn away, happy that he and Serena’s problem—
What to do with Elara?
—had been solved?

After what seems like almost a full day later, Wolfram finally opens my cell again. “Get up,” he says.

Like yesterday, a bag is dropped over my head and I am led through a series of twisting halls. Only this time the air seems to grow darker and thicker with each turn. Finally we come to a stop and a voice that I recognize as Lord Mur-cedor’s dismisses Wolfram.

The bag is yanked off my head and I instinctively raise my hand to shield my eyes. But it’s unnecessary because I’m in a dark room lit by only a single candle sitting on a wooden table. Lord Murcendor and Lord Quinlan sit at the table with a large feast spread out before them.

“Please, join us,” Lord Quinlan says, sipping from a golden goblet inlaid with opals. He gestures to an empty chair.

I look from Lord Quinlan, the candlelight glinting off the jewels he wears, and into Lord Murcendor’s dark gaze. “Where is the other Guardian?”

“Lord Royce is the Guardian of Trade and has business to attend to.” Lord Murcendor inclines his head to the empty seat. “Sit down.”

I take an unsteady step forward. My head swims at the smell of roast lamb and my stomach growls.

“Hungry?” Lord Quinlan says.

“What is this place?” I ask, ignoring him.

“This is where we take those accused of treason,” Lord Murcendor replies.

“Treason? How is it I’m accused of treason?” I ask as I sink into the empty chair in front of the two Guardians. Now I’m a traitor, as well as the Masked Princess’s twin sister?

Lord Murcendor fills a goblet and pushes it toward me. “Drink,” he commands. “You are in no danger here.”

I suspect I am in the most danger of my life. I wouldn’t put it past either of them to poison me right here. But if they truly want to send me to Kyrenica, then they wouldn’t hurt me. Not yet, anyway. Not while they still need me.

I gulp the wine. It tastes bitter and I nearly spit it out. I wish they would offer me water.

From across the table Lord Murcendor watches me with his dark eyes. “I have something for you.” From under the table he produces a brown satchel.
My
satchel.

“I believe you will find everything in order,” he says, handing it to me.

I open the satchel, hardly daring to breathe. Inside, just as I hoped, is my mother’s book. And so is my dagger.

I reach in and slowly tighten my hand around it and look up. Lord Murcendor has a dagger of his own, and it’s pointed at my neck. “Your property was returned to you as a gesture of goodwill. But I would think carefully before you try anything foolish again.”

I glance around the room and see there is only one exit. No doubt Wolfram is just on the other side of the door. I release my grip.

“Tell me, the man you knew as Travers,” Lord Quinlan says, “did he ever say anything to you of his purpose in locating you?”

Instantly I become stone. My face is a mask, as impenetrable as the one Princess Wilhamina wears. “Is Mister Travers not his real name?”

“No. It is not.” Lord Quinlan looks at me suspiciously and says no more. He is waiting for an answer.

It’s all I can do to keep my eyes from straying to my satchel. If they returned the book, then they must not realize it came from my mother. “He said nothing to me. I never had a reason to doubt that he was anything more than a schoolteacher,” I lie, and tuck my satchel under my chair, safely out of sight.

“I find that hard to believe,” Lord Quinlan says. “All those weeks in Tulan and he said nothing to you of his plans?”

I decide to give him a portion of the truth. “In the tavern, the day he was taken, he was talking crazy and said he had wanted to tell me something but that he had waited too long. He said something similar in the dungeon, before the guards took him away. But he was sick with fever by then, and I assumed he had gone mad.”

“He was not mad, at least not completely,” says Lord Quinlan. “Mister Travers was a spy working for Lord Finley.” He pauses and stares at me expectantly.

“I don’t know who Lord Finley is or what he would want with me,” I say, but I can’t help remembering Mister Travers’s words.
Lord Finley wasn’t sure where she was, but we knew if we watched him close enough, we’d eventually figure out where he hid her.

“Don’t you? Lord Finley was a former Guardian. He was, in fact, the fourth Guardian who was summoned to the palace the day you and your sister were born. Over the years, it seems his devotion to the king died. He had been plotting to overthrow King Fennrick. What others outside this room do not know is that he did not plan on claiming the crown for himself, but for another.”

“Who?” I say.

“You.”

Me?
The wine, combined with gnawing hunger and lack of sleep is making me dizzy. Lord Quinlan’s features blur together, making him seem like a bejeweled slug.

“It makes sense, does it not?” he says. “Replacing one Andewyn with another? After all, it was out of fear that something very much like that would happen, which caused you to be sent away in the first place.”

“What have you done with them?” I ask. “Where did you take Mister Travers and Lord Finley?”

“I took them here,” Lord Murcendor speaks up. “I had a nice talk with Travers and Finley, and they both swore on their lives they hadn’t had enough time to tell you of your true identity. Appropriate, as it was their lives we eventually took from them.”

I feel nauseous, and not just from lack of food. I swallow back the bile rising to my throat.

“We had been under the impression we had captured all of Lord Finley’s supporters,” Lord Quinlan speaks up. “This of course, was before the assassination attempt in Eleanor Square.”

At this, Lord Murcendor opens his mouth as if to disagree, and then seems to reconsider and closes it again.

“We know Lord Finley intended to place you on the throne,” Lord Quinlan says. “What we don’t know, is if you decided to join them.”

“Absolutely not,” I answer. “He never asked me to join him, and I never agreed to anything. I have no idea if some of Lord Finley’s men were behind the attack. But I do know I had nothing to do with it.”

“I see,” Lord Quinlan says. He stands up, walks to the door, and opens it. Wolfram enters, holding a lit candle.

“Light them,” Lord Quinlan commands.

Wolfram nods. He raises his candle and begins to light torches mounted along the room. As the light grows, pictures on the stone walls come into focus.