ROYAL ROMANCE

by Victoria Hart

  We walked out of class, and everything was normal. Until it wasn’t. There were screams. Someone shouted that a bomb had gone off. Later, we’d find out that it was only a homemade bottle rocket, like something set off on the Fourth of July. No one was hurt, but a lot of people were scared. And the writing was, unfortunately, quite literally on the wall that day. I walked towards the sounds, despite everything I’d been taught. I had somehow slipped my security detail for a moment, and moved towards the violence and fear.

  I saw the writing. I saw it in the bright red letters on the wall, and felt myself turn into a squeamish mess, as though it was really a dead body.

  And there was a wound, but not in a person. It wasn’t in flesh; it was a wound on something much deeper, something that couldn’t be touched or healed. This wasn’t a wound anyone could fix, because there was nothing to stitch up.

  VIVA DEMOCRACY. DEATH TO MONARCHY.

  It chilled me like nothing ever had. It was written in violent, sharp strokes, like the anger and hatred in the person who’d written it had bled into the letters themselves. My mouth went dry, and my hands clammy with sweat. This message didn’t have my name, but it was aimed at me specifically. Death.

  Death?? Me? Really?

  Why?

  Heledia was telling me they didn’t want me. And the worst part of all was that no one was there to hug me, or hold my hand. The one friend I had was nowhere to be found and I felt more alone than I ever had.

  Chapter 7

  Later, I would wonder about the way Carlo just happened to be absent when the little bomb went off.

  The homemade explosive didn’t hurt anyone. I don’t know whether it had been intentionally placed to make sure no one got hurt, or if it had been just a lucky coincidence that no one was standing close enough for it to be a problem.

  However, some people did get minor injuries in the panic that followed. After the blast, when people realized what had happened, there was confusion. Students were bumping students. People tripped and fell, and one or two people got stepped on by people who were trying to run. It wasn’t so much a reaction to the explosion that had already happened, but terror that there might be another one.

  I never had the chance to run, or trip. Hands closed around my upper arms from behind and I was dragged away. At first I was terrified that someone was kidnapping me. I didn’t have time to turn around and see who had me. In a flash I saw the way it was all going to end. An explosion, a bright sunny day, and a sudden stop. That would be that.

  But the hands that grabbed me and pulled me away were my own security people. They yanked roughly and I fought back, uttering a little shriek and kicking out. There was a grunt, and a man’s voice in my ear, saying, “We’re getting you to safety, Princess.”

  I stopped fighting and let them usher me away, but I was aware of all the others there – the regular people who had no guards to come and protect them. I had a team of people dedicated to making sure I survived things like this. I had an escape plan, somewhere to go where the entire army, if needed, would stand there and protect me.

  I scurried along with a guard on either side of me, their arms protecting by back, walking just a bit faster than my legs could comfortably go. We went through a basement door and down a concrete hallway, thrust from the warm glow of the summer sun into a narrow passage of artificial light and cold air. Behind us, I heard the door slam shut.

  We entered a room, a lecture hall, and that door was closed behind us as well. People fanned out, running up the long stairs at either side of the room to block the doors there, and stand ready.

  They moved me to sit down by the podium. I slumped in the chair, holding my backpack to my chest. The security team took up positions around me, talking to each other, talking in their walkie talkies. They were focused on closing the perimeter, on keeping me safe. I waited.

  I’d never been so scared in my life as I was in those long moments, waiting, and not sure what we were waiting for. Safety? Death? The painted red words I’d seen outside were stark in my mind’s eye.

  “The area is secure; the culprit is in custody,” a guard said, startling me. “It’s safe to move now. The car is waiting.”

  I didn’t need telling twice as a single hand on my back started me moving. My body felt stiff and cold, and I realized I was feeling the effects of shock. The sunlight, when it hit me, was a welcome comfort, and I looked forward to being back in the safety of the palace. I promised myself I’d get into my pajamas and curl up in bed for the rest of the day.

  In the car, behind the safety of bulletproof glass and metal, I checked my cell phone and saw the mass of text messages I’d missed from my mother. She’d called as well.

  I took a breath, and then another. By the time a few more security team members got in the car with me I was feeling a bit calmer, but my hands were still shaking.

  The car pulled away from the school.

  “You okay, Miss?” asked one of the bodyguards who was assigned to sit in the back of the car with me.

  “I will be,” I said, letting out a breath. “It’s a bit strange, to be so affected. Nothing physically happened to me.”

  “Well no one is going to blame you for being shaky,” he said. He was being more familiar than he was technically allowed to be, but I wasn’t complaining. I didn’t want to be alone right now.

  “Have you dealt with many situations like this?”

  “Me? No,” he said. “I’m new. My name is Vince; I got assigned the day you arrived here. So forgive me if I seem a little jittery too.”

  He did look nervous, and young. I smiled. He made me feel better – it was nice not to be the only new person in this entire situation.

  I’d underestimated just how much power the palace security had. The roads were cleared on our route back to the palace, all traffic moved out of the way like it was the apocalypse and we were the only ones left on the planet.

  It was eerie, but at least it was safe. One thing I was quickly learning was that safe did not mean easy or comfortable. It simply meant safe.

  “Her Majesty will be waiting for you, Miss,” one of the guards said. “We’re to escort you to her parlor.”

  “Okay. Fine. Yeah,” I said, as though I had a choice in the matter at all.

  It was a funny relationship we had with our security people. They obeyed my commands, they said yes, miss and no, miss to me but, if it came right down to it, they would do what they had to do to protect me, even from myself. It was their job. In times of crisis, they were in charge.

  The smell of the palace was familiar and comforting, so I took a deep breath in through my nose, but there was no pause in our brisk walking pace.

  “Are you alright?” she asked, immediately, on seeing me. We both knew I was fine. We both knew I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. But it wasn’t a question of formality, it was a question of family.

  “I’m okay,” I said. “As okay as I can be.”

  She gave me a sad, apologetic smile. She held me tight, and then took my face in her hands. At her touch, I could feel the tension start to drain away. It still lingered in my chest, in the clench of my hands. But she exorcised it from where it was pooling behind my forehead, where I could feel my pulse beating with each second that went by. She calmed me. I was a wild horse and she was the whisperer.

  All the same, I wanted what any scared person wanted – I wanted my mother. I was almost to the point where I wasn’t ashamed to admit how homesick I was. Almost.

  “Have you talked to your mother yet?” she asked, as if reading my mind. I felt myself blush at both my transparency and how childish it seemed.

  “I haven’t,” I said. “She called me, though.”

  “You should talk to her,” she said. “She’s already hounded me several times about wanting to speak with you. I assured her you were fine, but likely rattled. But mothers are a certain way.”

  I detected a hint of longing and maybe a hint of remorse. My aunt had never been a mother, and s
he likely never would be. Sometimes, like now, she seemed like a woman with maternal instincts and no one to mother. I would have to do, so I hugged her tightly.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I whispered.

  “I wasn’t the one in danger.”

  “Were they aiming for me?”

  “From what the suspects told us, they weren’t aiming for anyone; they just wanted to make a statement,” she said, gently brushing hair behind my ear. “They wanted to get your attention, my attention – the world’s attention – and they got what they wanted.”

  “That man at the party had a gun. It seems like he wanted more than attention.”

  “From what these people are telling us, that person acted alone and against their protocol. They don’t want an assassination, they just want a new government,” she said. “That being said, people can be desperate and do some crazy things.”

  I shivered. I’d read about revolutions in history. Sometimes they were the outcome of people starving, people being sent off to war, or incompetent leaders ordering their own people cut down by a firing squad. This was a group of college students with a desire for change, demanding a new form of government because they had the privilege to do so.

  That’s what this came down to. People with the privilege to speak out and speak freely will always find something to speak out about. They wanted to exercise their right because they could, not necessarily because they should. And so far these revolutionaries weren’t making a very good point. They were just scaring people around them and threatening our livelihood and way of life.

  “Call your mother,” Aunt Sonia said. “For everyone’s sake.”

  I smiled and pulled away. In my room I finally felt more relaxed, dropping my bag in the desk chair, and realizing how much tension had been stored up in my shoulders from lugging it around. I toed my shoes off and kicked them in the general direction of the pile, not worrying about the mess. I dropped onto my bed and hit the button on my phone to call my mother.

  She picked up on the second ring.

  “Are you okay?” she said immediately. “You’re not hurt? Why did it take so long for you to call back?”

  “I’m fine, Mom. No one got hurt. It was…more of a demonstration.” I frowned, thinking of the words painted in red.

  “A bomb went off.”

  “A homemade bottle rocket, more like. It was fine. Well, it wasn’t fine, but there was no attack.”

  My mother took a long breath and seemed to calm down. I imagined my father there, silent next to her, rubbing her shoulders and maybe whispering that things were going to be fine.

  I didn’t blame her for freaking out. I was half a world away, and she’d heard from our security people, and then the news, that there had been an incident – a possible attack on my life. These weren’t things parents normally had to listen for when their child went off to college. With Ben, all my parents had to think about was whether he was drinking too much, or missing his classes.

  I felt terrible for her, but there was nothing I could do. No one can control the conditions of their birth, and I was the daughter of a prince and the niece of a queen. She’d known this when she married my father, though that had been more a decision of the heart.

  Perhaps she’d hoped my aunt would have children and she’d never have to worry about her own being taken away from her to sit on an ancient seat with a crown on their heads.

  We talked for over an hour until the time difference finally caught up with her. She yawned her way through a goodbye, making me promise to call her the next day. I told her I loved her and then hung up the phone, alone once again in the silence and loneliness of my own bedroom.

  I did not go to class the next day; classes were canceled for the day to prove that the school was taking the situation seriously. It did make me a bit sad. I was probably the only student in history (with the exception of Hermione Granger) who was disappointed to miss classes.

  I didn’t like being trapped inside four walls. I woke up on my own, no one coming in to wake me to go to school. I opened the windows to the summer breeze. I brushed my teeth and pulled my hair back into a ponytail. I walked out into the hallway, still in pajamas. I wondered if that was okay, but this was my home. In my old home, I would walk out in my pajamas in the morning and I didn’t see any difference here.

  “You’re quite popular,” my aunt said. “Someone called you already.”

  “Huh?” I said, the spoon suspended in no man’s land between my cereal and my mouth.

  “A friend of yours called the palace, asking if you would be available today with school closed,” she said. “He used the private line so I assume he’s a friend of yours.”

  “Who was it?” I asked, having an idea who it might have been, but not wanting to sound too eager.

  “A young man named Carlo,” she said. “He’s in your discipline at school. Also in a few of your classes. He didn’t tell us that but we checked to make sure he wasn’t lying.”

  I rolled my eyes, but inside I was doing jumping jacks, ecstatic. He’d called me?

  “Did he say what he wanted?” I asked putting another spoonful in my mouth, trying to be casual about things.

  “Just that he wanted to make sure you were alright,” she said. “He mentioned he wasn’t on campus yesterday but heard about what happened and wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said you were fine and would give him a call back when you could,” she said. “Which I assume was the correct response.”

  “Yes. Yeah. That’s good.”

  My face was warm, and my aunt was smirking at me from behind her coffee and the morning newspaper, which had a giant headline on it about the attacks. I avoided her eye, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d caught me, somehow. I kept eating my cereal with dignity, like a queen would do. In my pajamas.

  As much as I wanted to, I didn’t rush to the phone when I finished my breakfast. I sipped my coffee, acting as though I had nothing particular to do, but inside I was ready to burst. I wanted to call Carlo back. I wanted to talk to him, and it had nothing to do with the bomb yesterday.

  I wanted to spend some time with Carlo. I didn’t necessarily want to invite him over to the palace – it was kind of a pain, inviting someone over – and then we’d have people watching is the entire time. But I also didn’t want to say no to the possibility of taking a walk with him in the gardens, under the sunlight.

  So I sipped my coffee with an air of laziness but my mind was buzzing with thoughts about what I should wear, and how much makeup I should put on.

  It was ridiculous. I was a princess; one day I’d be queen. I didn’t need to try to impress anyone.

  But I was also a teenaged girl, and I fell into the same traps that all girls fell into. I wanted to make the best impression I could for a boy I liked. He must like some things about me; after all, we’d built a nice friendship and he’d called to make sure I was okay after what happened yesterday. He was seeking me out, and that meant something. Unless he was doing it because of who I was, my station in life.

  I decided to try not to care if that was the case. I would still get to talk to him, get to know him.

  It wasn’t the same thing as having my true feelings reciprocated. I understood that, on some level. And even then I think I knew that something was wrong with the entire situation. Something was off. But I was too blinded by the butterflies and the possibility of finally being able to say I had a boyfriend, someone who was all my own.

  So I finished my coffee and set it down.

  “What are your plans for the day?” I asked my aunt, continuing my air of nonchalance.

  “Lots of long and boring things that will one day be your plans for the day, but for right now why don’t you go get changed and call this boy back before you combust,” she said, not looking up from the newspaper.

  If I was still drinking my coffee, I would have spit it out. I could feel my fa
ce flaming, but I cleared my throat and mumbled something in the affirmative. She smiled into the arts section of the paper and bid me a good day.

  I walked out of the parlor and tried to save whatever dignity I had left by walking calmly, not briskly, back to my room. It would be midday soon, and I didn’t want to miss my window. He could have plans later, he could make plans for the rest of the day. Everything could be ruined if I didn’t move fast enough.

  But, I reminded myself, he’d cared enough to call. He’d protected me in that first moment of panic at the party, weeks ago. He’d been the first to talk to me when we realized we were in the same college program. There was something important about him. Even if our relationship ending up not working out in the end, I felt sure we were destined to be some kind of friends, we were destined to know each other. And the possibility of a friend was exciting to me too. I would have someone who was all mine, no matter what.

  My hand shook a little as I pressed the numbers.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, it’s me…Cassandra.”

  “Oh. Hi. How are you? Are you okay? I didn’t want to disturb you or anything—”

  “Yes to all of the above; I’m okay.”

  I was smiling. He sounded so awkward that I imagined him fumbling, blushing. At least, I hoped he was blushing. I hoped he was nervous. I liked the idea that I could make a boy nervous.

  “That’s good,” he said. “I was worried.”

  “Everyone was okay,” I said, toying nervously with a loose string on my shirt hem. “They don’t think it was meant to be violent. Just to get people’s attention.”

  “Yeah well…” he trailed off. “Maybe.”

  There was a tone to his voice just then, a faraway echo that I didn’t quite pick up on because I was too busy waiting for him to profess his feelings for me, and then our college romance could begin. I’m still not proud of how childish I was, but everyone has their first big crush that they can’t quite get over.