Kennet put his hand over his heart in mock surprise. “I can hardly even fathom the idea. ”
“I thought as much,” I replied with a laugh.
“There is some good news though,” Kennet said. “I get to escort you to the Queen’s tea room. ”
“She has her own tea room?” I asked, following Kennet as he started to walk away.
“She’s the Queen. She has her own everything. ”
“Do you think that’s why she was targeted?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know why anyone went after her. I know I just said she has everything, but in truth it all actually belongs to my brother. She just has access to it. ”
That was essentially what Bayle had already told me. There wasn’t really any reason for anyone to go after Linnea, unless it was personal. But I’d been hoping that Kennet might be able to shed a different light on things.
“Do you share any of the Queen’s concerns?” I asked.
“You mean do I feel that someone is lurking around the corner waiting to nab me?” Kennet seemed to consider it, but when he looked down at me he was grinning. “How could I feel unsafe when I know I’ve got you here to protect me?”
“I’m here to protect the Queen. ”
“Technically you’re here to help the royal family, which does include me. ”
“You didn’t really answer my question though,” I said. “Do you think something is going on here?”
“I think that our guards have been horribly trained and commanded for years now,” Kennet said, and he seemed to be choosing his words with an unusual level of care. Normally, he’d say any little thing that flitted into his mind, but for once he appeared cautious.
“As a result of the guards’ ineptitude,” he went on, “it’s entirely plausible that something troublesome is afoot. But it would be near impossible to discern what is due to incompetence and what’s due to actual nefarious intentions. ”
“Bayle told me your brother has been reluctant to make changes,” I said. “If the guard is awful, do you know why that is?”
“The exact machinations of my brother’s mind have always been a mystery to me,” Kennet said with a sigh. “I do know that during his coronation speech, he promised to continue our father’s reign, upholding everything that he’d put in place. But why the King refuses to change in the face of all the evidence telling him it’s necessary…” He trailed off.
He stopped and turned to me, his blue eyes softening. “You have to understand. Our father was a very difficult man, and Mikko got the brunt of Father’s … difficulty. Mikko never learned how to stand up for himself, and he’s uneasy about change or responsibility. ”
“That doesn’t sound like a good combination in a King,” I pointed out.
“No, it doesn’t. ” Kennet smiled bitterly for a moment, but it quickly fell away. “Anyway, it’s not my place to speak ill of the King—either my brother or my father. ”
“Thank you for being so candid with me, my liege,” I said, since Kennet had been more honest with me about his family than many other royals I had encountered would be.
He stopped, turning to face me, so I did the same. “You know, you really don’t have to do all that. You can just call me Kennet. I feel like we are on a first-name basis. ”
“That seems like a very dangerous territory to venture into,” I said. “You are the Prince. I am a tracker from a neighboring tribe. It would be very unwise for the two of us to mingle, which is why it is for the best that we don’t reschedule our lunch … meeting. ”
“That hardly seems fair. ” Kennet scoffed. “I see absolutely no reason the two of us can’t be friends. ”
“There is that whole business where I could be jailed and you could be stripped of your title,” I reminded him. “That seems like a good reason. ”
“It’s only if we procreate and dilute the bloodline that the offense is punishable by incarceration. ” Kennet brushed it off, as though it weren’t a big thing. “There’s no law against us fraternizing. ”
“Perhaps I don’t want to fraternize,” I countered.
“Are you asking me to procreate then?” Kennet asked with a wag of the eyebrow.
“I think it’s best if we stop this conversation, and I get to my lunch with Queen Linnea,” I said. “It’s never good to keep the Queen waiting. ”
“Right you are. ” Kennet smirked, but he started walking again.
“Thank you, Prince,” I said as I followed him.
“Anytime, tracker,” he replied.
TWENTY-TWO
doubts
Sunlight flooded the tea room. The outside wall was domed glass, starting in the middle of the ceiling and curving down until it met the floor at the surface of the lake. The windowed wall was divided into three pie-shaped panes of glass, separated by ornate golden sash bars.
Since it was on the main floor, it was one of the few rooms in the palace that let in the warm spring sun. It shimmered on the lake outside, casting shards of light through the tea room like a disco ball.
The walls had wainscoting halfway up, where it met wallpaper covered in pale blue roses and light green vines. A chaise sat against the wall with an antique coffee table surrounded by several tufted chairs.
In the center of the room was a round table, directly underneath an elegant gold chandelier that hung where the glass met the ceiling. Piles of fresh fruit, trays of pastries, and an array of tea bags were spread out on a lace tablecloth. Delicate saucers and cups were hand painted with roses of pink and blue.
Linnea sat at the table with a raspberry tart in her hand, smiling at me as I came in. In her knee-length azure sundress, she reminded me of a little girl playing tea party and pretending to be a princess. But of course, she wasn’t playing pretend—all of this was real life for her.
Kennet had dropped me off at the door, promising to see me later, and then left me alone with the Queen. Her personal guard—who should’ve been in the room with her, or at the very least standing at the door—was nowhere to be seen, and I would have to remember to make a note of that when I returned to Kasper. The King and Queen should never be left unguarded.
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“I’m so glad you could make it!” Linnea said effusively and gestured to the empty seat across from her. “Sit, sit. Eat and drink, and we have so much to talk about!”
“Thank you, Your Highness. ” I sat down and added fruit and a cucumber sandwich to my plate, while Linnea began to rattle off all the reasons it was so great to have me there.
“Everyone here is so stuffy and dull,” she said with a dramatic eye roll and took the last bite of her tart. Today she’d gone for minimal jewelry, wearing only her large diamond wedding band along with white lace fingerless gloves. “Even the ones my age. ”
Since I’d known Linnea, she seemed far more excited about the idea of having a new friend to talk to than having a guard to watch her back, and I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that.
While I liked Linnea just fine, I didn’t want to be chosen for a job because she thought we’d make great pals. I was here to show my merits as a guard and to get to the bottom of what Konstantin had been doing here in the first place. But perhaps I could use the Queen’s need for a friend to get her to confide in me about what was really going on around here.
When Ridley and I had been looking for her before, we had suspected that she might be too demanding or childish for Mikko. Maybe she annoyed him, or he simply didn’t want to spend the rest of his life trapped in a loveless arranged marriage to her.
How Konstantin tied into a possible plan to do away with her, I had no idea. But maybe she knew something that could help.
“The King must be happy to have you back. ” I poured myself a cup of tea and watched for her response out of the corner of my eye.
“Yes, he’s thrilled!” Linnea laughed. “The first night we were back together, I didn’t think he’d ever l
et me go. He held on to me for hours and made me promise that I’d never leave him again. ”
“Really?” I asked, then hurried to correct myself so I didn’t sound quite so shocked. “I mean, he seems so … in control of his emotions. ”
“I know, I know. ” She laughed again. “It’s the craziest thing, because he’s such a big strong man, and he’s the King of an entire kingdom. A small one, but a kingdom nonetheless. You’d think he’d be so brave and tough, and oh he tries to be. But do you want to know a secret?”
I nodded. “Yes. I would. ”
Linnea leaned forward over the table, so I did the same, and even though we were alone, she whispered. “Mikko is terribly shy. Almost pathologically. ”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s really so sad. ” She leaned back in her chair and returned to her normal volume. “That’s why whenever he’s at dinner with people, he’s so quiet, and he seems so cold and stoic, but that’s not who he is at all. ”
“I never would’ve guessed that. ” I settled back in my chair, trying to run through all my encounters with the King.
“Before we were wed, I did not want to marry him,” Linnea confessed. “It had all been arranged since I was twelve, but with the age gap, we’d hardly spent a moment together before the wedding, and when we did he said nary a word to me. ”
“That sounds dreadful,” I said.
“It really was. ” She nodded, her transparent gills flaring slightly under her jawline. “I mean, it was just after my sixteenth birthday, and I wanted to fall in love, and I thought there was absolutely no way I could do that with this cold brute of a man.
“But the truth is that Mikko is one of the kindest, most loving, most caring men I’ve ever met. ” Linnea smiled, the soft, wistful kind that barely graced her lips—and her aqua eyes sparkled. “And as I got to know him—the real him—I began to fall madly in love with him. ”
“That’s … amazing,” I said, unsure of how else to respond.
She leaned forward again and lowered her voice. “It wasn’t until we’d been married for four months that we even, you know … shared a bed together. Mikko wanted to wait until I was completely comfortable with it. ”
“He sounds like a very honorable man,” I said.
If what Linnea said was true, then he definitely was. But I was having a hard time reconciling this information with the cold, aloof King I’d considered him to be.
Although, when the Queen had been missing, a different side of Mikko had emerged. He’d been visibly distraught and inconsolable. At the time, I’d thought it was all a melodramatic act, but if Linnea was telling the truth, he might have been so afraid of losing her that he’d let his guard down and shown his real feelings.
Of course, that made everything even more confusing. If Mikko hadn’t grown tired of or irritated with his wife, then why had anybody wanted to get rid of her?
Not to mention the fact that Mikko had thwarted our investigation when Linnea was missing. We’d wanted to interview guards and look at reports, but we were denied access.
“Have you talked to Mikko about what happened before you went missing?” I asked.
“I talk to Mikko about everything,” Linnea said, and with her love of chatting, I had a feeling that was very true.
That probably made them very compatible. She enjoyed talking, and Mikko was more of a listener, so they balanced each other out.
“Did he say anything about Konstantin Black?” I asked. “Does he know anything about him?”
“Everything he knows, he’s heard from you. ” Linnea shook her head. “He is grateful that Konstantin warned me to run away, though, and Mikko is relieved he wasn’t executed. Konstantin may have saved my life. ”
I rested my arms on the table. “From whom, though? Does Mikko have any idea who might have wanted to hurt you?”
“No. He’s tried talking to the guard, but the unfortunate truth is that he’s been very hands-off about most things,” Linnea admitted, frowning. “His social anxiety makes it so hard for him to interact sometimes, so he’s really left Bayle Lundeen to handle everything. ”
“Do you trust Bayle?” I asked.
“I don’t know. ” Her eyes widened, as if it had just occurred to her that she shouldn’t. “Do you?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure I trust any of the guards around here. It’s hard to tell who knows what,” I said.
“I know. ” She nodded. “What I said the other night about overreacting and running away, that was for the benefit of the guards. I have no idea who we can trust anymore. But to tell you the truth, I’d never considered that Bayle might be involved. ”
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“He’s the head guard, and this is all happening on his watch. Either he’s involved, or he’s too incompetent to stop it. ”
Linnea exhaled deeply and rested her chin on her hand. “Rune trusted Bayle and appointed him, and both Mikko and Kennet are loyal to him and seem to trust him. Their father was a terrifying man, and even after his death neither of the boys wants to defy him. But…” She chewed the inside of her cheek, pondering the situation. “You’re right, and I know you’re right. ”
“I know it’s tough for the King to go against what he believes his father’s wishes were, but the guard needs an overhaul to keep you all safe,” I said. “Whether your husband is comfortable with it or not, he needs to start taking control of his guards. If he wants to keep you safe, the King needs to be in charge. ”
Linnea nodded. “He needs to hear it from you though. ”
“What?” I asked.
I’d gone into this luncheon thinking that Mikko might be the one behind everything, or at the very least a participant in Konstantin’s plot. But Linnea had just turned that theory on its head, and now she wanted me to go to Mikko and tell the King he needed to get rid of his top guard.
“You’re an expert on these matters, and you’re right. ” Linnea pushed back her chair and stood up. “We should go now. He’s down in his office. It’s the perfect time for you to go tell him what you think. ”
“We should set up a meeting with Kasper, maybe even your grandmother and the Prince,” I suggested, since I felt unprepared to present my case to the King—especially considering I didn’t completely know what my case was.
“We’ll have a proper meeting later. ” Linnea waved it off. “Let’s go. ”
The Queen had given me an order, so I had to obey. As we walked downstairs toward the King’s office, Linnea chattered the whole way, although I’m ashamed to admit that I’m not entirely sure what about. My mind was focused on trying to figure out what exactly I would say to the King, and how I should phrase everything.
Linnea pushed open the door to her husband’s office without knocking. I was still lost in thought, but Linnea’s scream pulled me into the moment instantly.
Mikko’s desk faced the water, so his back was to the door. He was hunched over his desk, hard at work on something, so he didn’t see the man standing behind him with a sword raised above his head, about to strike and cut off the King’s head.
TWENTY-THREE
impact
Training kicked in, and I didn’t have to think—my body just sprang into motion. I ran at the man, knocking him to the ground and grabbing his wrist. I slammed it into the floor, forcing him to drop the sword.
He tried to crawl toward it, and the satin of his uniform made it easier for him to slip out from underneath me. But I knelt on his back, pressing my knees into his kidneys as I pinned him in place.
With one swift move, he tilted to the side and thrust his elbow up, hitting me squarely in the chin. It was just enough to throw me off balance, and he scrambled out from under me. He grabbed the sword, but I was already on my feet when he jumped up and pointed it at me.
There was a split second of shock when I realized who it was—Cyrano Moen, Linnea’s personal guard.
C
yrano tried to run at me. I dodged to the side, avoiding the blade of the sword, then I grabbed his arm. I turned him around, bending his arm at a painful angle, and he let out a yelp. If I applied more pressure, I would break his arm, and that caused him to release his sword again.
I took it from him this time, letting him go so he fell on the ground. Cyrano lay before me, panting, and I hoped this meant the fight was over. In the background, I heard Linnea crying and demanding to know why he would do this.
But he didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for the spare dagger in his boot.
“Drop it,” I commanded, and his hard blue eyes were locked on mine. He had to know I meant it, but there was a determined mania in his gaze that I didn’t understand.
He slowly got up, still holding the dagger, so I repeated, “Drop it. ”
“Cyrano!” Mikko’s voice boomed from somewhere behind me. “Do as she says!”
“I’d like her to make me,” Cyrano snarled, and then he lunged at me.
In my days of training as a tracker, I had run a sword through hundreds of dummies. They were built to have the same feel as a troll, so we’d know how much resistance a body would give and how much force we’d need to get the sword through.
Still, I can’t explain how different it felt, or even what the difference was, when I pushed the blade straight through Cyrano. It was easier than I expected—the flesh gave way, and when the bell of the sword handle pressed against his stomach, I felt the warmth of his blood as it spilled over.
The only light came from a desk lamp, casting too much of the room in shadows. Everything seemed to have an eerie, yellow hue to it, thanks to the way the light played off the reflective glass and the water outside.
We had turned, so the window was behind me, and the light bounced onto Cyrano’s face. It cast a shadow across his mouth and body, but his eyes were wide and I could see the yellow dancing in them, like fiery waves.
His eyes stayed locked on me still, filled with that strange mania. Not until the final seconds, when I was lowering him back to the ground and pulling the sword out of him, did the frenzied look finally give way. A glassy peace seemed to come over him, and he was dead.
Linnea ran over to Cyrano’s body, pounding on his chest and screaming, demanding why he’d want to hurt her husband. She’d never been anything but kind to him. How could he betray her like this?
Her words eventually seemed to fade away, becoming a distant foggy sound, like something from a dream. Mikko came over and pulled her off.
I don’t remember letting go of the sword, but I remember the sound it made, clattering against the floor. I didn’t move or speak until Bayle Lundeen came in, asking me questions.
I answered them as directly and simply as I could, but the words felt detached from me, as if they were coming from someone else. It was my voice, it was the truth about what I’d done, but it wasn’t me.
Nobody told me that I was acting strangely or that I didn’t seem present, so I must’ve been performing normally. I have no idea how long I talked to Bayle and King Mikko. It might have been minutes. It might have been an hour.
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