The Princess in the Opal Mask (31 page)

Wilha nods. A plan is beginning to form and I start calculating how little time we have if we are to prevent the city from burning.

I finish the last of the tea and stand up. “I’m going to alert Stefan. You’ll be okay here alone?”

Wilha hesitates, glances at Lord Murcendor’s body, and nods.

“Good. Have the passageway open and torches lit when I come back.”

T
he great hall has the air of a good party which has nearly reached its end. Candles burn low in the chandeliers and tired laughter mixes with the opening strains of a waltz. Many of the partygoers have removed their masks. Their once-crisp appearances are now rumpled and wilted.

“Finally you come!” Stefan says gaily, detaching himself from a group of men. His eyes stray to my mouth, and I can tell he’s thinking of our last kiss. “Now we shall have our dance.” He leads me to the dance floor, too merry to hear me protest. He pulls me close and whirls me around. “This is where you belong,” he says, beaming.

I can feel everyone’s eyes on us, so I smile brightly. Causing panic will not serve my purpose.

As we dance, I stand on my tiptoes and bring my lips to his ear, as though I want nothing more than to whisper sweet nothings. “Stefan, you must listen and listen well,” I say, keeping my smile in place. “A handful of men are camped out near Rowan’s Rock. They plan to set fire to the city at midnight. It is their intention that by destroying Korynth, they will force Kyrenica and Galandria into war.”

Stefan goes rigid. He glances quickly about the room and continues dancing, his arms tightening around me. “And you came by this information, how?”

I hesitate. “It was Lord Murcendor who told me. The men are acting on his orders. His actions are in no way sanctioned by King Fennrick—by my father,” I force myself to say. “Lord Murcendor is unwell, he tried to attack Wil—me—and—”

Stefan stops dancing. “He attacked you? Where is he? If he has harmed you in any way, then I swear I will—”

“That won’t be necessary,” I interrupt. “He’s dead.”

Stefan steps back and stares at me with an appraising look. “Dead? How, exactly?”

“By my own hand,” I snap impatiently, not caring that this in no way sounds like the actions of Wilhamina Andewyn.

“If he’s dead, then where is his—”

“We can deal with him later! You need to send guards to the docks now, before it’s too late.”

He looks at me a moment longer before nodding. “I will alert the guards. Until this is over, I would like for you to return to your chambers.”

I smile, in what I hope looks like serene obedience. “Of course, my lord. That is exactly what I planned to do.”

I
press my thumb to the embedded opal and the wall slides back. I grab a candle from a table and venture yet again into the passageway, and light the first two torches I come upon.

When I return to the bedroom, I slump to the ground and lean against the bed, my heart hammering in my chest.

By now James should have left the Sleeping Dragon and will be making his way to the castle gates, safely away from the docks. But what of Victor and Kyra? What of Galina? What of the hundreds of other people who live near the docks? People who may not have enough time to escape if the men are not stopped and the fire starts.

A fire started by men from my own kingdom, for the express purpose of pushing Galandria and Kyrenica into war. All these years, I have heard Kyrenicans called dogs. But now, more than anything, I find I just want to see them saved.

From the sitting room comes the sound of anguished moaning.

I freeze and my fingers move to my cheek, where Lord Murcendor tried to kiss me. My breath starts to come in ragged gasps.

Soft thuds sound from the sitting room, followed by the click of a door opening, and then closing.

It is a while before I can make myself stand up and creep over to the sitting room. Yet when I do, I discover that the place where Lord Murcendor had laid is now empty, his abandoned sword the only evidence that he was ever in the room.

W
hen I fling open the door to my chambers I find Wilha staring at the empty spot where Lord Murcendor’s body should have been.

“Where did—I thought he was dead?”

“I never said he was dead,” she replies, white-faced. “I said—”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll deal with it later. Grab his sword, we’ll need it.” I hurry into the bedroom. Wilha follows be-hind me, carrying the weapon. The passageway is open and a gaping black hole beckons me. I grab a cloak and pull it around me.

“What exactly do you plan to do?” she asks as we step into the tunnel.

“We’re going to try to buy the Kyrenican guards some time.” I lift a torch from its mount in the passageway.

“How will we do that? We can’t stop them all with just one sword. We are outnumbered, and they have more weapons.”

“But we have words. And we have legends and rumors. Put them together, and you have the most powerful weapon in the world.”

W
hen the tunnel wall slides away, I’m greeted with a blast of fresh, icy air. Wilha points to the edge of the cave.

“The men are just below there, at the base of the cliff. When I left there were about ten of them with more due to arrive.”

I hand her my torch and creep to the edge. Rowan’s Rock rises up in the distance, proudly battling the tide. To the north, the docks are eerily quiet. Deserted sailboats are tethered to port, and they float quietly on the water, like ghost ships. From far away I hear the sounds of laughter and carousing. It seems that anyone who’s still awake at this hour has moved to the west side of the city toward the castle.

Down below on the beach several men, about twenty in all, stand around a campfire and listen to another man that I believe is Garwyn. He carries a torch and seems to be giving instructions.

From the west I hear a screeching, whistling sound, followed by a loud
pop!
Fireworks are exploding in the sky. Facing away from the castle, I can’t see them, but the men below turn toward the cliff to watch, and I draw back further into the cave. I don’t want to draw their attention. Not yet.

“That was the signal for them to start,” Wilha whispers urgently.

“I know.”

I’m standing at the edge of a moment. The instant the first act of war is committed. Or the instant I prevent it. Don’t I know how one choice, one moment, can echo across time? Eleanor Andewyn dropped the First Opal. Aislinn Andewyn chose to betray her twin. The ripples of both these women’s actions continue on today in my own life. And here now is another moment. A hundred years from now, how will it be remembered?

I think of the book Queen Astrid gave me. I still can’t reconcile myself to the fact that I’m an Andewyn, but I can understand this: Maybe the book was intended to be more than a feeble parting gift from a mother who gave me away. Maybe in its truest sense she intended the book to be a guide, something to help me set the course of my days. In this moment, maybe I can draw strength from Eleanor’s story, the peasant girl who became a queen, and hope that her courage and determination will pass on to me.

“Light them!” Garwyn calls to his men, and they all step forward, each man producing a torch of his own. When the last torch has been lit, the men turn toward the docks.

As loud as I can, I yell, “Men of Galandria! Why have you come to wreak havoc upon my city?”

The men stop. They look up toward the cliff, and I draw back into the cave. I don’t want to be seen, not yet. For now I prefer to be a voice in the darkness.

“Who said that?” comes Garwyn’s voice.

I don’t answer, and in the silence another man replies, “It came from there—from the cliffs. I
told
you I heard something earlier. Maybe it’s the spirit of Queen Rowan herself.”

“Don’t be a superstitious fool,” Garwyn retorts. He raises his voice. “I say again, who said that? Show yourself.”

“Stay back,” I whisper to Wilha. I flip the hood of my cloak up and step slightly forward. “Men of Galandria! Why have you come to wreak havoc upon my city?”

“There
is
someone up there—look. I see a shadow!”

“I know your plans,” I call down to the men. “I know you mean to destroy this city and bring war to this land and to your own homeland. Yet what you cannot know, what you couldn’t possibly know, is that the man who gave you this order is dead.”

Silence meets my cry. And then, “She’s lying. Moran, go up there and shut her up.”

“I’m not going up there. What if it really is Queen Rowan’s ghost?”

I step back and whisper to Wilha. “Give me his sword.”

Wilha hands it to me. My arm immediately drops to my side and the sword clanks to the ground. “This is heavier than it looks,” I say, cursing.

In the torchlight I see Wilha smile. “I know.” She picks up the sword again—seemingly with ease—and as we stare at each other it occurs to me that maybe I’ve misjudged this quiet girl. The same girl who, now that I think about it, somehow managed to scale the cliff to reach this cave. The same girl who fled the castle and learned to survive in the city on her own, something I wasn’t so sure
I
could do.

“I hid the letter from Patric in one of the velvet boxes,” I say suddenly. “It’s there waiting for you when . . . this is all over.”

“Thank you,” she says.

We continue staring at each other, but I look away first. “Throw the sword down to them,” I tell her.

Wilha hands me the torch, and I fall back into the darkness of the cave. She steps forward, raises the sword above her head, and hurls it down to the rocks below. She returns and takes the torch from me.

I step forward. “Lord Murcendor, the man who gave you your orders, is dead,” I call down to the men. “I offer you his sword as proof.”

The men begin to argue. Two of them blow out their torches. And amid their bickering, the sound of horses clattering is carried along by the wind.

“I say again,” Garwyn calls, “who are you?”

I remove my cloak and hold out my hand to Wilha. “Give me the torch.”

I step to the edge. The ocean roars and a blast of wind hits my face. “I am Princess Wilhamina Andewyn, descendant of Queen Eleanor the Great, great-great granddaughter to Queen Rowan the Brave, whose presence still haunts these cliffs, daughter to King Fennrick the Handsome, future daughter-in-law to Ezebo, king of Kyrenica, I am, simply, the Masked Princess, and if you do not lay down your torches I will curse you. You, and every last member of your family.”

Illuminated by the campfire and torchlight, I can see the expressions of the men, their shocked, fearful faces as they take in my mask and dress.

“How is it that she’s here?” cries a man with a Kyrenican accent, hysteria drenching his voice. “She’s supposed to be in the castle.”

None of the men seem to notice that the sound of galloping horses has drawn closer. “Are you surprised?” I call down to them. “Is it because you thought me dead? Easy prey, for a man such as Lord Murcendor? I tell you the truth, he is dead. Dead, by my own hand, for I killed him myself.”

“That’s not possible,” Garwyn calls, though I can see doubt beginning to cross his face. “The Masked Princess is nothing more than a frightful and ugly girl, if the rumor can be believed.”

“It can, though not the one you speak of.” The sound of horses galloping comes to a halt. Behind the men, who stand transfixed while I speak, I see shadows creeping toward them. “It is true that I can curse, but I can also bless.” I pause and hope that the men—especially the Kyrenican men—are still listening. “So I say to you now, lay down your swords and I will bless you. For just as my ancestor Eleanor Andewyn built a great dynasty, I intend to build an even greater Kyrenican dynasty with the Strassburgs. For a century our two kingdoms have been at odds. But starting tonight, can we not begin moving toward a lasting peace? I ask you again, will you lay down your swords? Will you join me, in protecting a kingdom that I have embraced as my own?”