Royal Rescue

by A. Alex Logan

  “And where’s that?” Omar asked.

  “Somewhere I can be useful,” Gerald said. “Not for being a prince, but for myself. For what I can do.”

  “The guardians,” the dragon said thoughtfully. “The former guardians. Not all of them have lives to go back to, now. And many of them, many of us, are injured. Physically or…otherwise.”

  “They need a refuge,” Omar said, immediately understanding. “A sanctuary. And someone there to oversee it. To treat their wounds or purchase supplies or negotiate with humans on their behalf.”

  Gerald’s breath caught in his chest. He looked at his friends, at Omar and the dragon, and saw them looking back at him with care and concern. “You think…you think I could do that?”

  “I think it would be perfect for you,” Omar said. “Don’t you? You’re good with animals, and more, you’re good with the guardians. You’re good at helping them—you treated the dragon’s wounds! It would be somewhere where you, you specifically, would be incredibly useful, because of your skills and because of who you are. Don’t you think the guardians know who’s responsible for freeing them? They’ll trust you.”

  Gerald could almost picture it. A little house somewhere, with Wisp and the cats and the more magical animals as well, somewhere where he wouldn’t be the disappointing youngest prince of Andine. The only catch was… How can I take care of anyone if I can’t walk? The chair’s all right here, where the ground is flat and smooth. I couldn’t cross a field in it.

  “I’d have to get out of this chair…” he said hesitantly.

  “You will,” Omar said confidently. “You were walking before, remember. And you’ll have help, too, if you’ll take it.”

  Gerald looked at him harder. “You’d come with me? Even knowing I won’t ever marry you? And what about your own crown?”

  “I want to be with you. I’ve told you. As friends, as platonic partners, as whatever you want to call us. My parents are more open-minded than yours. I’m not the heir; they’ll let me go where I want and keep my title at the same time. I don’t even think they’ll mind if I don’t marry, to be honest. If they get worried about it, I can always tell them it’s a long engagement. Like, long.”

  “And I’ll come too, of course,” the dragon said. “You’ll need transportation and a translator.”

  “There,” Omar said with satisfaction. “I guess it’s settled.”

  Gerald was smiling too broadly to reply.

  WITH A SOLID goal in mind for after the end of the showcase, something worthwhile Gerald could really see himself doing, something he wanted and not something he was being forced to do, most of his bad mood melted away. He no longer looked down at the showcase with resentment, annoyed despite himself that the other royals were finding something he didn’t even want. He even let Omar persuade him to come down and join the crowd on the third day—the day Omar was performing.

  “Nedi wouldn’t let me out of it,” he said, smiling. “She said even if the two of us have reached some sort of arrangement, it’s against the rules for us to say so officially until the end of today, after all the groups have gone.”

  Nedi was particularly insistent they follow the rules or, at least, appear to because she had agreed to let the Council of Ten come to observe for the day. “Everything’s gone surprisingly smoothly so far,” she told them. “We’ve had a few minor incidents, but only minor ones. Certainly nothing worse than what happens out on the quests. I think we’re ready to let them see how well we’ve arranged everything. And if some of the couples make their engagements official tonight while the Council is here, so much the better. They’ll see this isn’t simply a bit of fun, it’s really serving its purpose.”

  “And if they see me?” Gerald broke in. “When they see me, I should say. What do I tell them about this?” he asked, waving at his chair.

  “Tell them it’s none of their business,” Erick advised bluntly. “I’ve learned not to pry into your affairs. They can too.”

  “Yes, well, we’re trying to be diplomatic,” Nedi reminded him. “Gerald, you’re going to be staying near Omar anyway, I assume?” At his nod, she said, “Well then, you can just sit in the audience then, in one of the standard chairs, and they won’t be any the wiser.”

  “You can always tell them the truth,” Omar suggested. “Not all of it, I mean, it’s probably better not to mention the dragons. But you can simply say you were in an accident, you’re healing, and you don’t want to talk about it. They’re trying to be diplomatic too. They’re not going to pry. Just be polite about it.”

  “It’s not only the Council,” Gerald said. “I don’t want anyone staring at me. I’ll go, but not in the chair. I’ll sit in the audience like the others.”

  “We better get going now, then.”

  The dragon obligingly lowered Gerald to the amphitheater floor and Omar and Erick helped him limp over to Omar’s station. Even knowing it was too soon for Calin’s latest round of ointments to have an effect, Gerald was still disheartened by the stiffness in his leg. I can’t run a sanctuary if I can’t walk, he reminded himself.

  “Stop it,” Omar murmured in his ear, quietly enough that Erick wouldn’t hear.

  “Stop what?” Gerald asked, equally softly. Omar raised his eyebrows, as if to say, Really? and tapped his lip, a reminder he knew Gerald’s tells, the lip-chewing that gave away his anxieties. Omar might not know exactly what Gerald was worrying about, but he knew he was worrying about something.

  “Here we go,” Erick said cheerfully. “You’ll want a spot in the front, I assume. Is this good?” He hardly waited for a response before getting Gerald seated and then turning to go. “I’ve got my own performance… Maybe you’ll come watch mine later, huh?”

  “Try not to make anything explode,” Gerald advised as Erick hurried off.

  “Hey, my show’s probably safer than this one!” Erick called over his shoulder. “Try not to impale anyone, Omar!”

  Omar rolled his eyes. “I only impale people when I intend to,” he said. “If I impale anyone, it’ll be deliberate. And if I don’t, that’ll be deliberate too.”

  It wasn’t long before the other royals started flooding the amphitheater. Gerald was struck by how loud it was; it was one thing to hear it all from above, and quite another to be down in the middle of it. Everywhere he looked there were pairs and trios chattering away, although he couldn’t imagine how they could hear a single word of the conversation. The noise was oppressive.

  It’s no worse than a big banquet back home, Gerald told himself impatiently. People talking over each other, music, clatter, it’s all the same. It only seems so much worse because it’s been so long since I’ve had to deal with it. I’m not acclimated.

  He tried to ignore the crowd and the noise and the colors and focus on Omar. He looked calm and confident on his stage, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet and waiting to attract an audience. He was wearing the traditional long tunic and burnoose of the Yevin desert, and the loose, flowing fabric hid the knives Gerald knew were secreted all over in hidden sheaths. Even knowing where to look for some of them—Omar’s wrists, ankles, and the small of his back—he couldn’t find any evidence of them. If it weren’t for the targets scattered around, there would be no indication at all his performance would be weapons-based.

  Gerald was heartily relieved Omar would be fighting targets and not another royal. Even knowing Omar’s temperament was much different from Lila’s, he hadn’t been sure he would be up to watching actual combat, even in an exhibition. He had spent years avoiding the practice courts in Andine, not only as a participant but as an observer. His habit of disappearing whenever the court hosted a tournament had been one of the many reasons why his relationship with his mothers had frayed. Gerald was told over and over he was tarnishing Andine’s reputation by neither participating nor joining the audience, that he was being disrespectful to the visiting combatants. But he simply couldn’t bear to be anywhere near it.

  It was differ
ent with Omar. He’d seen Omar draw his knives before, and it had never been to show off or to bully or intimidate. It had been as protection, as assurance, as safety. This is only a show, Gerald reminded himself. It’s only targets. It’s like archery. The bow, the only truly solitary weapon, was the only one Gerald had any real ability with. It was also the only one he’d never had to face Lila with; they shot at targets, not at each other, unlike when they had been taught swords, staffs, and hand-to-hand combat.

  A small crowd had accumulated while Gerald was lost in thought, and when there were half a dozen other bodies in the seats, Omar bowed to them and began his performance.

  There was no fanfare, no introductory speech; Omar came up out of his bow with a knife in his hand and he launched into a pattern dance, swiping, slashing, and stabbing at invisible opponents as he moved nimbly across the stage, all lethal grace. Gerald caught his breath and watched entranced as Omar moved through a series of increasingly complex pattern dances, incorporating kicks and punches, blocks and dodges, and a varying number of knives. Only after he had traversed the small stage several times and thoroughly captured the attention of the audience did he move into the second stage of his performance.

  The blur of motion slowed and stopped, and Omar held up his hands, empty once more. His chest was rising and falling rapidly as he caught his breath, but he otherwise seemed as fresh as when he had begun: he wasn’t red-faced and there was only a slight sheen of sweat across his forehead. One or two of the observers began to clap, thinking the show was done, but their applause stopped abruptly when Omar spun and threw a knife—plucked out of a hidden sheath with no one the wiser—at a target the size of a playing card across the stage.

  It struck dead center.

  Again and again, Omar combined sleight of hand with impressive accuracy as he made knives of all shapes and sizes appear apparently from thin air before sending them soaring and spiraling into targets in all directions. At the end of it, there were an even dozen knives sticking out of various surfaces and even Gerald was left wondering where, exactly, all of them had come from.

  There was a moment of hesitation after the last knife struck home and stayed there, quivering. Then, when it was clear Omar really was done that time, the audience—which had swelled noticeably from the original half-dozen—broke into enthusiastic applause.

  “Amazing,” Gerald heard one prince say to another. “I wouldn’t want to come across him in a dark alley.”

  “Oh, I might,” the other responded archly, his tone of voice causing the first to burst into laughter.

  At least half of the audience dropped a token into Omar’s jar before moving on to another show. Gerald watched them leave their names with a mixture of jealousy and anxiety that surprised him, torn as he was between thinking, Omar won’t even look in the jar and What if he does? and I’m the one who insisted he had to be sure I’d be enough and What if I’m not?

  Oh damn…Gerald realized. I might not want to marry him, but I don’t want anyone else to, either!

  Omar hadn’t watched to see who dropped a token in his jar. He smiled and bowed to the audience when he finished, but then he turned away, unconcerned by their reactions, focusing instead on retrieving and re-concealing his knives. With that done, he hopped off the stage and slipped into the empty chair next to Gerald.

  “What did you think?” he asked.

  “That was amazing,” Gerald said. “And you know it. You’re fishing for compliments.”

  “I think a deserve a few,” Omar said, grinning. Gerald rolled his eyes but smiled back.

  “That really was great,” Gerald admitted. “You made it look so…elegant. I mean, knives, weapons in general, you don’t think of them as being pretty. You think of them as being brutal. Deadly. And you looked deadly, but not brutal. Dangerous, but controlled, you looked completely in control of yourself, of your body…” He trailed off, embarrassed by his enthusiasm.

  Omar was beaming. “Thank you,” he said, simply, sincerely. “I know how you feel about weapons, so that means a lot.”

  “I’m not the only one you impressed,” Gerald said, nodding at the jar of tokens.

  “Yeah, but you’re the only one I wanted to.”

  Gerald ducked his head, blushing.

  BY THE TIME the lunch break rolled around, Gerald had watched Omar’s performance four more times, and he hadn’t lost any of his fascination with it. The last show was as impressive as the first one, even though the signs of exhaustion were starting to show around the edges when Omar wasn’t in motion.

  “Thank goodness I don’t have to do that again this afternoon,” Omar said. “I would hate to have to face Erick if I got tired enough to really hit someone in the audience. You ready for lunch?”

  “Yeah,” Gerald said, unable to keep the slight hesitation out of his voice.

  “What?”

  “Just…” He gestured at his leg.

  “Oh, Gerald, no one’s looking. No one will care, anyway. You can lean on me.”

  He hesitated, but Omar was right. Everyone was concerned with finding their own lunch. And so what if they stare. They’ll be gone in a few more days. So will I, he realized. He quickly shut down that train of thought—thinking about the upcoming confrontation with his parents would be a surefire way to lose his appetite—and focused instead on Omar, who was still glowing with happiness and pride even under the sweat and tiredness. He held out a hand and let Omar pull him to his feet. Leaning against him, he limped across the amphitheater to a nearby ground-level cavern where a horde of piedlings was serving food and drinks.

  One of them caught sight of Gerald and glared. She dropped her ladle to stride over and snap, “Sit down this instant!”

  “Hi, Calin,” Gerald said meekly. Omar hurried him to the closest table, and he sank into a chair. “It was a very short walk,” he tried.

  Calin sniffed. “I suppose you’re going to spend the afternoon walking around the showcase.”

  “Erm, well, I hadn’t really thought about it…”

  “You have to see more than just me,” Omar said. “There’s a lot of talent here. I can get your chair,” he added, half to Gerald and half to Calin.

  “No, I need to start walking again,” Gerald said. “You’re the one who told me to build up my strength,” he reminded Calin.

  “I’ll get your canes,” she sighed. “But don’t overdo it! Omar, you watch him.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  But when she returned with the canes at the end of their meal, Gerald had to beat back an almost overwhelming sense of self-consciousness in order to take them. I have to start practicing again. I have to be able to move around if this sanctuary idea is going to turn into anything real. And I have to get over my embarrassment about it or I’m never going to be able to face my parents. The idea of limping up to them with a pair of canes was an awful one, but the idea of rolling up to them in a chair was so much worse. They’re already so disappointed in me. None of this is going to help.

  “Gerald? Penny for your thoughts.”

  Gerald brushed it off. “They’re not worth that much.”

  Omar cocked his head. “What are you worrying about now?”

  He said it lightly, good-naturedly, but the question still made Gerald flinch, the “now” echoing in his head, emphasizing he was always worrying about something. The worry never changed, only the subject of it. It’s a wonder he’s not sick of me yet, Gerald thought bitterly.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just…nothing.”

  “All right,” Omar said, not believing him but willing to let the topic drop. “Let’s get going, then. What do you want to see?”

  “Whatever you want to show me.”

  That turned out to be quite a lot. Gerald lost track of all of it: concerts, singing, juggling, pottery, painting, calligraphy, acrobatics and tumbling, a debate…

  He was almost relieved his leg and his canes gave him a built-in excuse not to participate. I can’t do anything like this. E
veryone else is so talented. I’m…not.

  On the other hand, he could have done without the stares. Royalty, as a rule, was healthy. They all had the best nutrition, the best medical care, and if there was ever an injury, illness, or weakness that couldn’t be cured by mundane or magical means, it was carefully disguised and hidden behind a façade of royal perfection. Gerald was throwing a wrench into that façade by being out there with his canes prominently displayed. People who hadn’t given him a second glance that morning, when he was seated and therefore in stealth mode, were now openly watching him limp along the aisles. If it hadn’t been for Omar’s reassuring presence at his side, Gerald would have made a hasty retreat some time ago.

  As it was, with Omar jokingly offering to stab anyone who bothered him, he stuck it out for several hours. But by the end of the afternoon, Gerald was exhausted. Omar had been solicitous, making sure he sat down frequently and didn’t walk too far or too fast—not that anyone was moving quickly in the crowds—but it was still a lot for his first day back on his feet. He hadn’t said anything about the growing ache in his knee and hip, not wanting to ruin the day and unwilling to once again complain about something, even though he knew he was making things worse by ignoring it.

  “You’re going to get me in trouble with Calin,” Omar said conversationally when they stopped to watch a glassblowing princess. Her booth was covered in finished pieces, polished bowls and globes and intricate little statuettes. A little rearing horse caught Gerald’s eye and he leaned over to look at it, careful to keep his balance—the idea of falling into the stall and breaking all the beautiful glass was enough to keep him at a distance—and he had to drag his attention away from it when Omar spoke.

  “Hmm? What?”

  “You’re limping more and pretending you’re not. Let’s go back. We’ve seen nearly everything but the weapons stuff now, and it must be about closing time anyway.”