The King's 100

by Karin Biggs

  I didn’t know what would happen when I saw my mother. Would she immediately try to take me away to Capalon? Try to convince me to join some sort of revolution? Or…what if she was bait for some grandiose plan for the king to capture me?

  I grabbed Paris Marigold’s ID and put it my dress pocket too, then flung my arms around Layla.

  “Woah there princess, you okay?”

  “Um…yeah. Happy New Year.” I looked around the room but didn’t see Genevieve. “When Genevieve gets back, will you tell her I said Happy New Year too?”

  “Sure…where are you going, Paris?”

  “Nowhere. I’ll be right back.”

  “You better. Don’t forget our deal.”

  I must have looked at her with a blank expression.

  “I need to avoid kissing my duet partner because…”

  “Bad things will happen. Right. Deal. I’ll be right back, Layla. Goodbye.”

  She waved goodbye to me through the mirror and I turned to head out the door, but my heart fluttered with fear.

  What if my mother takes me away from the Mansion and I don’t get to say goodbye to Ari?

  I took a step forward, then another.

  It would be for the best.

  I came to Mondaria to find my mother, not a drummer.

  I paced the hallway next to the East Courtyard. What would I say to my mother when I saw her? Was it safe to acknowledge that I knew her in case somebody saw us together?

  I heard footsteps approach, but the face didn’t match the one I had in mind. “Darden, you need to leave. I’m meeting somebody here.”

  “Well, I’m meeting Genevieve here.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to tell her who you were?”

  “After our conversation last night, I changed my mind. You need to go. The note I left her told her to me here.”

  “What note?”

  “The notes I’ve been leaving her in the dressing room.”

  A weight pressed against my chest as electric currents sparked my brain. “The ones attached to the lavender roses?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Darden, you’ve been leaving those notes at my chair! I switched seats with Gen at the beginning of the Season because of Layla. Agnes probably never updated the seating chart. And the roses…why would you leave her the Queen of Capalon?”

  “Queen of Capalon? Lavender roses are symbolic for love at first sight. I got the idea for the notes after your showed me the one from the Harvest Ball.”

  The messages of the notes resurfaced in my mind. “Genevieve has a solo?”

  “Yeah, she has a quick dance routine with a disappearing candle while the rest of us are resetting backstage.”

  I shook my head and lifted his final note to his face. “This isn’t your handwriting.”

  “Yes, it is.” He nodded and lowered my hand. “It takes me forever to write that well, but it’s me.” He laughed. “I’m actually relieved. I’ve been a mess since I wrote that last note. Actually, I’m not ready to tell her. I was just feeling oddly brave this morning.” He met my eyes. “But Paris, if you’re the one who’s been getting my notes, then who did you think you were meeting?”

  The photograph burned inside my dress pocket. “I thought…I thought…” I couldn’t breathe as the weight on my chest grew heavier and I realized how clearly the notes pointed to Darden.

  “Paris, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just need…” I darted away from Darden and ran outside into the courtyard, tearing his final note to shreds and tossing the pieces into a frozen fountain. My palms pressed against the rough edge of the fountain, letting the heat from my body radiate against the cement. Sucking in deep breaths, I fought to calm the fire that roared in my rib cage.

  Evelyn was right; the belief my mother would still be alive was foolish. Capalons didn’t belong in Mondaria. Unfolding the photo from my pocket, my mother’s gentle eyes met mine. I wanted to scream at the woman in the picture. Why couldn’t she have left her dead body behind like my father? If we had buried her body, I would never have set foot in Mondaria and believed in something as childish as a secret admirer’s note left for the wrong person. The only Paris Marigold would have been the smiling girl from the identification card I found in the creek. I never would have befriended kids who were my enemies. And I never would have fallen for a boy who loved a girl I could never be.

  My shaking fingers started to tear the corner of the photo, when my mother’s eyes found me again and something Layla said weighted my sorrow even heavier.

  You always come back for the people you love.

  My mother didn’t stop going to the Annual Lands Assembly because my father didn’t want her there—she stopped going because she wanted to stay home with my sister. She never went anywhere with him after we were born because she didn’t want nursery drones raising us—she wanted to raise us.

  And if she were truly still alive, she would have already been back in Capalon. She wouldn’t have made use of her time devising a plan to overthrow Mondaria and prove her love to me—she would have been fighting to get back to my sister and me because ‘you always go back to the people you love.’

  I sucked in a breath to fight the threatening tears when footsteps fell on the gravel path behind me. “Darden, I said leave me—” but then the scent of lavender, peppermint and lemon tickled my nostrils. I held my breath, clinging to one final ounce of hope as I turned.

  “Good evening,” Queen Marisol said as she eyed the photo in my hand.

  I failed to curtsy or offer her a formal address.

  She stepped forward to pass me on the path but I stopped her with a question, which bordered on a verbal attack. “Have you always worn that mix of oils?”

  She turned her face, just enough to speak to me through her periphery. “One year at The Lands Assembly, I was pregnant at the same time as our enemy queen. She saw I wasn’t feeling well and offered me a vial of oil. I had my herbalist recreate it and have been wearing it ever since.” She let out a soft laugh. “I’ve never told that story to anyone.”

  My father hated my mother’s fascination with herbs and scents. He hated anything that only had anecdotal evidence, rather than concrete scientific facts. But for me, her oils gave life to an otherwise stale and sterile world. Being close to the queen, my nostrils determined that the scent was slightly off—too much lemon. An imposter scent that I wasn’t able to previously detect.

  Accepting that there was no longer a case for my mother to be alive, my brain lit up with logic. “You recognized me from my solo performance in the auditorium. Then you told Maestro who I was, and he came up with the idea to say he saw me in the photo. But why the secrecy? Why didn’t you just tell the king?”

  She pursed her lips and for a beat I thought she might walk away but she turned to face me. “She was my kingdom’s enemy. But she was kind to me and…I felt I owed her a favor.”

  Our eyes locked and I should have thanked her but my throat felt swollen with anger. I didn’t want to hear any more about my dead mother or my stupidity for believing she was still alive.

  As if sensing my uneasiness, she nodded. “Happy New Year.” She continued on to the entrance of the Ballroom Wing, when the door to the hallway opened behind me.

  “Paris! We’re lining up!” shouted Layla.

  I tucked my mother’s picture back in my pocket and followed Layla up the stairs to the dressing room. I took a final look at myself in the mirror. After posing as a Mondarian for nearly three months, I had nothing to show but a sparkling gown and brown hair.

  “You okay?” asked Layla.

  I nodded.

  She hugged me and wished me a good show. “Shopping trip to the Village tomorrow?” She whispered, “Last one before you leave?”

  “Yes,” I said with a weak smile. But I wouldn’t be going to the Village. And I wouldn’t be performing in the Winter Showcase. New Year’s Eve would be my final night in Mondaria and my final time to perform as a singer
on the King’s 100.

  I entered the Stardust Ballroom for the final time, focusing on the small details I would never experience again—the hum of a hundred conversations happening all at once, the taste of sugared berries mixed with a buttered crust and the way my arm hairs tingled when the drummers symbolically pounded on the door for the king’s entrance.

  I closed my eyes, not wanting to find Ari among the drummers. I planned to leave the court like a card in a magic trick—my only purpose having been to fool my spectators and go back into my original deck where I belonged.

  The stage lacked the king’s head table that normally sat atop the stage. Instead, the king and queen sat at a round table with a few hand-picked VIPs, giving room for the King’s 100 to perform for their New Year’s guests. The drummers took their positions below the front of the stage as the magicians performed their New Year’s Eve set on stage. I acted surprised by their choreographed finale of flaming hands. Reese and Layla climbed the stairs to sing their duet, which served as the other singers’ cue to leave our tables and make our way to the stage. When their duet ended, I met Reese center stage to take my spot for the traditional countdown and kiss before the final song of the night.

  I stepped closer to Reese, prepared to ‘solve all my problems with a kiss’ as Layla had said, only to feel him peel away and disappear off the stage. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him retch into a potted evergreen.

  I stood on stage front and center, looking like a smiling idiot without a partner. The maestro’s eyes narrowed on me as he shouted some curse words in my direction, causing the couples on either side of me to break their stance and look at me. His head disappeared from my periphery and I decided I would applaud when the kiss was cued, hoping it would look like a planned move. But then the couple to my left stepped back as a court man walked between them to stand next to me.

  I felt my fake smile fade.

  Of all the court men Maestro Leto could have chosen from, he picked the one person I had been trying to not kiss since setting foot in Mondaria.

  Ari.

  Ari looked at me with wide eyes and he asked me something but my attention had to refocus on Maestro. We stared at the back of the maestro’s head as he addressed the audience and cued the drumroll. The countdown began when Maestro turned to face the singers. “Hold her hands, Ari!” he shouted.

  Ari grabbed my hands after he looked at the couple next to us, mimicking their stance. My heart rate increased with every count.

  “Five, four, three, two, one, Happy New Year!”

  The couples beside us pulled each other into a choreographed kiss as the audience raised their champagne flutes to the stage. I looked at Ari, neither of us moving a muscle.

  Maestro shouted through a smile. “Kiss her, dammit! Kiss her!”

  Ari looked down at Maestro, then back at me, wrestling with his next move. He dropped my hands and placed his palms on my waist. He closed the distance between us, so I felt the heat of his body through his tuxedo. His fingertips tensed against my dress as his eyes darted back and forth, searching for answers on my frozen face.

  No, I pleaded. Please don’t make me kiss you when all I want to do is leave this kingdom and forget you.

  But then he sealed his decision by pressing his lips to mine.

  I closed my eyes, shutting out the light of the room and drinking in the taste of Ari’s lips. Feeling lighter than air, I curled my fingers around the smooth satin of his lapel, anchoring myself to his body. I was suspended in time, where midnight was the only hour. The curtain within me opened fully, replacing my dark, crimson blood with liquid gold.

  Ari gently removed his lips from mine to look at me with a soft gaze and a parted mouth. The magicians released silver foil confetti, cloaking us in our own private sanctuary. The rhythm of our breathing dampened the sounds of the outside world as we stared into each other’s eyes.

  Then Maestro shouted something, causing Ari to step back and dissolve our sanctuary. The sounds of clinking glasses and laughter hit my ears as my hands floated in front of me, desperate for their warm resting place to return.

  I took my position for our final song, standing still and holding my court smile like a poised statue. Tears dotted my cheeks, and I imagined the light danced off the moisture, making my face sparkle. I mouthed the words to the song, but I thought something completely different; an admission of the unthinkable and wanting it so deeply that giving up my life in Capalon felt like the easiest decision I would ever make.

  I wanted nothing more than to be with Ari Novak, the black-haired drummer from Badger River.

  Maybe I had known all along that the second I tasted his lips I would be hooked and never able to leave him. And maybe I didn’t find my mother, but I found something else alive within me that I would have never found in Capalon. I battled with a constant intersect of logic and emotion, but with my curtain open, I no longer had to avoid combining both worlds.

  “For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne—”

  I can never go back to Capalon.

  “We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.”

  I can never go back because I’m undeniably in love with a Mondarian.

  King Orson gave his final remarks to the audience and when Maestro cued our exit, I followed the singers offstage as Mansion employees handed us one-size-fits-all jackets. We moved outside into the cold where we were to hand cups of hot chocolate to guests as they filed onto the terrace to watch the fireworks display.

  I found Ari handing off steaming cups to two elderly guests. He picked another cup off the long table beside him then met my eyes, taking me back to the first day I met him when he was a stranger from my enemy kingdom and I was a princess in hiding.

  A firework exploded in the distance, signaling the start of the show. The crowd and other court members watched the following hiss, crack, and boom in awe, while Ari’s brown eyes failed to tear from my gaze.

  I stepped forward, ignoring a guest’s question about the dairy content of the hot chocolate.

  Ari extended a cup to me. “Hot chocolate? It’s no Dan’s but I’m not supposed to—”

  “I have to tell you something,” I shouted over the next boom.

  Ari’s joyful face turned serious as he processed my expression and set the cup back on the table. I signaled for him to follow me down a narrow set of steps at the back of the terrace. The steps led to a path encased in tall hedges and spat us out into a gravel circle, where a gigantic statue of a bronze moose stood in the center.

  “Look at that,” Ari said, smiling up at the statue. “We finally found the moose.” He turned to me, expecting to see my shared joy for our accidental discovery. “Hey, what’s wrong, Paris?”

  Breathe. Focus. Breathe.

  No.

  Just breathe.

  Let go. Let go. Let go.

  I clenched my fists and stared into his concerned eyes. “I know I’ve been pushing you away, and I wanted to say…I’m so sorry.” I reached for his hands, no longer able to fight the urge to touch him. “The truth is…I lied when I said you were just my friend. I want so much more than your friendship because…I’ve developed romantic feelings for you, Ari.”

  Ari’s eyes searched for truth on my face. “So, you’re not into Reese?”

  I shook my head. “Only you. It’s always been you.”

  “I knew it,” he said with his sun-bursting smile that warmed my soul. He dropped my hands to place his fingers at the base of my neck and rest his thumbs against my temples, pulling me closer. My hands clung to the open zipper of his coat and I considered the option to not tell him the truth of my identity—to let the moment of our closeness last for the entirety of the fireworks display and beyond. Lean in for one more kiss and forget the chilling reality that hid behind a few simple words.

  But the curtain had opened and could no longer hide things like lies or tears.

  He brushed my cheeks with his calloused thumbs. “Why the tears for suc
h a happy occasion?”

  My breathing hitched. “Because of what I’m about to tell you.”

  His brows creased hard lines across his forehead. “What is it?”

  I reached up for his hands, bringing them down between us. “Ari, I meant it when I said I’ve never felt more myself when I’m with you. And I know I want nothing else but to be with you, but…I also want to be honest. Which is why I need to tell you who I really am.”

  I winced as three loud booms exploded in the black sky.

  Ari kept his focus on me.

  I shut my eyes.

  Just breathe.

  My eyes flashed open. “I’m not Paris Marigold and I’m not from Mondaria.”

  He cocked his head to the side.

  Let go.

  I forced out my words. “I’m Piper Parish, Princess of Capalon.”

  Ari’s grip on my hands loosened. “I don’t understand.”

  I released his hands and let my coat fall to the ground, ignoring the biting chill of the winter air across my skin. “Chip, state my identification on speaker.” I extended my wrist toward Ari.

  “The subject before you is Princess Piper Parish, sister to Queen Evelyn, the current ruler of the kingdom of Capalon.”

  Ari’s eyes popped at the sight of my blue, glowing wrist. He took a step back. “You’re the Capalon princess? But how…”

  “I came here to find my mother after receiving a note back at our Compound that said she was living in the Mondarian king’s Mansion. But I know now that she’s not alive, and I was a fool for believing that note in the first place. My plan was to leave tonight, but after kissing you, I—”

  “You’ve been lying to me this whole time?”

  “Only my identity, Ari. Everything I feel for you is real. I—”

  “You’re Capalon. And you’re the princess.” He turned and ran his hands through his black hair. “I don’t believe this.”

  I reached for his arm. “We can still be together, I just—”