The Wrong Prince

by C. K. Brooke

  Geo scanned the scene. The expansive room was curiously empty; perhaps the guards had been summoned to the dungeons to combat the intruders? He offered up a silent prayer for his father’s men. As much as he longed to battle at their sides, he’d made the journey for Dmitri. Besides, he trusted the knights were capable.

  A wide, welcoming staircase expanded to the next floor, and Geo considered it. “What about this one? We’ve not tried it yet.”

  Lucie’s forehead furled. “It leads east.”

  He pointed to the left wing, where the second story continued. “We can turn north.”

  She mounted the stairs in response, and Geo followed, resting a hand at her back as they hurried for the landing. “Geo?” Her voice was soft as she turned back to glimpse him. “When this is over, do you think...? Oh,” she gasped, interrupting herself.

  Geo barely had time to glance behind at the cause of her surprise when the woman ripped the pendant clean from her throat. Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she took aim and hurled it with might.

  The prince turned in time to witness the purple stone strike a gray-uniformed soldier in the eye. The man howled and toppled backwards down the steps. He landed with a crack in a twisted heap at the base of the stairwell.

  Lucie watched in satisfaction. “He was about to clobber you. Always knew I had to keep that rock handy.”

  Geo gaped at her.

  She tugged his arm, dragging him up the last step. “Lu,” he panted. “Your necklace.”

  “We’ve no time.”

  He wiped the hair from his eyes. “Yes, but isn’t it quite important to you?”

  “Not as important as you,” she insisted, steering him across the upper hall.

  CERISE SCUTTLED OUTDOORS TO THE balcony. Her lariat remained draped around the balustrade, but an obstruction of guardsmen was assembled on the grounds beneath, appearing to be searching the area. She backed into the shadows, her heart skittering. What the…? They had certainly not been there earlier.

  Cursing, she returned inside to the chamber. The king’s body lay accusingly on the bed, although she’d done nothing to him. The knocking sounded again, jarring her.

  “Devil be damned,” she spat, feeling for the dagger at her garter. Making up her mind, she jaunted to the door and slung it open. A young girl greeted her in the hallway, plain brown hair cropped in a modest bob, her innocent face white as wool.

  “What do you want?” Cerise demanded, pulling the heavy stone door shut behind her, lest the child view the spectacle within.

  The youth looked mildly perplexed. “I seek an audience with His Majesty,” she declared.

  “At this hour?”

  She tucked her hair behind her ear, feigning a casual shrug. “I heard he has trouble sleeping at night. So do I. I thought we could…talk.”

  Cerise stared at her. “Who are you?”

  “I should be the one asking you,” countered the girl, betraying a hint of sauciness. “I live here, after all.”

  Cerise whipped the dagger from her garter and positioned it at the maiden’s throat. The youth inhaled, staring down at the blood-speckled blade. “Then perhaps you know where to find the Tybirian Prince, Dmitri Straussen,” purred Cerise.

  The young woman’s chin quivered, but she fixed Cerise with a hateful glare. “I would never tell you. If you wish to harm a hair on his head, then you will have to kill me first.”

  Cerise laughed in surprise. She’d not expected that response. “Harm him?” She lowered the dagger. “Young lady, my intent is to save him.”

  The girl trembled, still watching her warily. “S-save him?”

  Voices carried from the end of the hall, and Cerise glanced up in alarm to spy a pair of shadows emerging around the corner. But the features that drifted into focus were, thankfully, familiar. She grinned. “Ah, and what fortuity. Here come the champions now, the Crown Prince’s brother and fiancée, respectively.”

  The young girl’s eyes clouded. “Fiancée?” she whispered.

  The couple trotted to them, looking frazzled, and Cerise extended a hand in salutation. “Behold, Prince Georome and Miss Luccia. These brave souls have traveled far and wide to rescue Prince Dmitri.”

  Georome disregarded the introduction. “Cerise,” he implored her. “We’ve little time. They know we’re in; they’re battling in the dungeons as we speak. We must find my brother and get out.”

  The shorthaired girl only looked at Luccia, crestfallen confusion apparent upon her finch-like face.

  Cerise wrapped a hand around her slender forearm. “I’ve somehow reason to suspect this little maid can help us.”

  DMITRI KNELT ON THE FLOOR, carefully revising the last rune. He emitted a slow breath. He’d done it! He had actually….

  The man raised his head. Had he heard footsteps? He strained to listen for more, but all seemed silent again. Perhaps he was imagining things. After all, the evening had been dreadfully lonely without Pavi’s routine visit. She’d supplied him with extra food the previous night, to sustain him through a day without her return, for her plan was to approach the king at present.

  Dmitri had naught to do but write to calm his nerves. Yet all the while, he wondered how things were faring, or had fared, between Pavola and her uncle. Had Ira at least agreed to speak with her? Had Pavi been able to discover whether the king continued to wear the little silver—?

  Voices.

  He was sure he’d heard them this time. Dmitri restacked his papers with haste. Those bloody soldiers weren’t coming for him tonight, were they? His muscles tensed. They couldn’t kill him now; not before he and Pavi had seen their plan through! Either way, he decided, he wouldn’t go without a fight.

  The door bowed open, and Dmitri bated his breath. Instead of the tall, bulky shadows he’d been dreading, however, it was only the same dainty figure he’d come to adore. “Pavola,” he exclaimed, delighted and relieved by the unexpected visit. “You came! How did it go?”

  At once, he noticed something peculiar. She seemed to behave strangely, and did not come as close as usual, only pausing a fair distance from his cell. “Uh...fine.”

  Dmitri stepped to his door. “Well. Great!” He smiled, but she hardly looked at him. “Guess what? You’ll never believe this but—my novel!” He held up the completed pile of filled pages. “I’ve finished it!”

  She barely reacted. “Your Highness, you are being rescued. By your brother and, um….”

  Her words were drowned out by a blend of chattering newcomers pouring into the room. The candlelight revealed a plump woman, a vaguely familiar girl, and—

  “Geo,” Dmitri gasped, dropping his novel to the floor.

  The younger man was ecstatic. “Dmitri?” Dmitri laughed as his brother flew to the cell, appearing both pitying and astonished. “You’re alive!”

  “Thanks to her,” Dmitri beamed, pointing at Pavola. She only retreated into the shadows.

  Geo rattled the bars. “How in hell are we going to get you out of here?”

  At this, Pavola glanced up, looking as though the answer should’ve been obvious—an expression with which Dmitri had become well acquainted. “Er…your axe, Your Highness?”

  His brother appeared to have already forgotten the weapon. “Oh! Right.” He grinned, wielding the blade overhead. “Stand back, old boy.”

  Dmitri backed up, covering his ears as Geo’s axe met the iron with a shrill clang. Strike after strike the young man delivered, but to no effect. The iron was barely chipped.

  Dmitri lowered his hands from his ears. “Pavola, I’m assuming you weren’t successful in obtaining the king’s key?”

  “I…” she started to say, but the strange woman with the bouncing scarlet locks startled.

  “The king’s key,” she exhaled, ruby eyes wide as she reached into the bust of her dress. “But of course.” Dmitri was abo
ut to ask Geo who, exactly, she was, when she withdrew a metal object from her brassiere.

  The Crown Prince recognized it at once. “That’s it,” he breathed.

  Geo and his other female companion exchanged looks of incredulity. “Where did you get that?” he demanded of the redhead.

  The plump woman winked, handing him the key. “My mission was accomplished,” she said cryptically.

  Geo awarded her a tremendous smile, and wasted no time in shoving the key into the lock. He gave it a turn, and the rusty door squealed open. In disbelief, Dmitri stepped out.

  The brothers embraced. “I can’t believe you did this,” Dmitri told him. “How did you get here?”

  “We left the moment you were taken away.” Geo gestured to the girl beside him. “Lucie and me.”

  Dmitri gathered up the pages of his novel. “Lucie?”

  “Yeah. You know…” His brother coughed, suddenly appearing uncomfortable. Perhaps the odor and dreariness of the tower was already getting to him. “Your um, bride-to-be?”

  Dmitri straightened, finally recognizing the darker complexion and cascading tresses of his betrothed. “Oh.” The room became painfully warmer as he tried not to stare at Pavi, who remained in the corner, watching the floor. “Uh, Geo,” he tempered his voice, “d’you think I could have a moment with Pavola…alone…before we go?”

  His brother looked impatient. “This is a break-out, Dmitri, not a sendoff party. The king is dead. We need to hurry.”

  Pavola’s sharp gaze fell upon him. “The king is dead?”

  Dmitri, too, was dumbfounded as Geo led him across the anteroom. “Please,” he asserted, “I just want to say goodbye.”

  “Dmitri,” his brother sighed, impatient.

  “Just go,” Pavola urged them coolly.

  Dmitri felt his lungs strangle. He halted his flustered brother in the doorway as the other women filed out, awaiting them on the wobbly landing. “Geo, it’ll only be a minute. She kept me alive up here all this time… I owe her at least that much.”

  Geo’s nostrils flared. “One minute,” he relented. “No longer.” With his elbow, he nudged the door half-shut behind him, joining his companions on the landing.

  Pavola stood motionless. How Dmitri yearned to embrace her, but detected he was less than welcome to. “I’m sorry about your uncle,” he began.

  She shrugged off the condolence. “I guess I never really knew him.”

  Tentatively, he held out his completed novel. “I’m…happy to leave this with you,” he offered, “so that you can read the ending.” He tried to smile. “I trust you to mail it back to me when you’re through.”

  She turned away, mutely declining him, and Dmitri lowered the pages, dejected.

  “Well.” She sighed. “I am glad that you’re free at last, and on your way to safety. You are lucky to have such a courageous fiancée who’d risk her life to voyage all the way up here and rescue you. She must love you very much.”

  Dmitri’s insides curdled.

  “And you know,” her voice hitched, “you didn’t have to pretend to adore me. Had you simply told me that you belonged to another, perhaps I still would have looked after you. Only, perhaps I would’ve done just that, and not wasted so much additional time.” Her glistening eyes pierced his. “Irreplaceable time, which I should’ve spent studying facts and reason—and things that are true and real—instead of poring over your frivolous storybook, which is naught but a useless, well-designed lie, as is every word that comes from your mouth, Dmitri von Straussen.”

  She permitted him no response as she turned her back and tearfully quitted the chamber. Dmitri was left staring at the spot where she’d stood, his chest hollow.

  GEO FIDGETED RESTLESSLY BESIDE LUCIE as the door cocked ajar. Out scampered the shorthaired girl, ducking her face from view. If Lucie didn’t know any better, she’d have thought the youth was distraught. But perhaps she was only projecting her own distress upon the girl.

  Lucie rested a hand on her narrow shoulder. “Please be careful,” she advised her. “Battle is waging on the lower floors.”

  The maiden paused. “I shall keep to my quarters, then,” she replied stiffly. “As I should have been doing, all along,” she muttered, resuming the steps.

  As soon as she’d gone, Prince Dmitri emerged, eyes somewhat bleary behind his lenses. Unsure of how else to greet him, Lucie dropped into an awkward curtsey. He smiled politely, and took her left hand. Fine flaxen eyebrows joined together as he examined the iron ring fastened around her wrist. While the chain binding her hand to Geo’s had been broken, the manacle itself would require a locksmith to release, once they arrived home.

  If they arrived home.

  “Interesting choice for a nuptial bracelet,” he remarked, and Lucie froze. The Crown Prince was speaking to her of nuptial bracelets? Right—they were still engaged. At her vacant expression, he provided another small grin. “I jest,” he verified, and kissed her hand.

  “Oh.” Lucie blushed as he relinquished her.

  “I, um…must extend my utmost gratitude,” he said. “I still cannot believe you journeyed with my brother all this way to rescue me. Never in my wildest imaginings would I have expected such a feat of you, Miss…Cameron?”

  “Camerlane,” grunted Geo, pounding his brother’s back. “Come on, people. Am I the only one with a pulse? Let’s move!”

  “About time,” said Cerise, although she appeared satisfied, following the men down the endless maze of stairs.

  Lucie accompanied them, her hand tickling where the Crown Prince had kissed it. She watched Geo’s broad back as they descended the steps, heat suffusing her face at the thought of what had transpired between them in the dungeon. What now? She wondered desperately. Her secret was out, and Geo had proclaimed his love for her in return. Yet, would she still be required to marry Dmitri?

  In spite of her heartwarming reconnection with Geo, she was beginning to feel increasingly wretched. After everything Dmitri had endured—abduction, imprisonment, and who knew what else?—did he deserve to lose his bride too? The man warranted more than a wife who could never love him, she reasoned. But how could Lucie administer the blow to him, and not to mention, to her father?

  And what would happen to Geo if she did? Would he be held responsible, publically shamed, scorned for his impropriety? Would the younger prince be accused of treachery against the heir to the throne? Such a crime was punishable by death!

  Lucie shivered, commanding her thoughts to rest. She had to focus on their flight down the tower. She could hardly see where she was going as the wooden steps converted into ones of stone.

  “Ouch,” murmured Cerise, and Lucie apologized for grazing her heel. They glided down, step by step, Lucie silently praying that no Llewesians would be present to greet them at the final stair.

  “Here’s the plan,” came Geo’s voice from the front of the line. “There’s a walled courtyard not far from this passage, on the ground floor. We’ll take that way out.”

  “If it’s walled,” countered his brother, “how will we escape?”

  Geo glanced over his shoulder. “Cerise, do you still have that lariat?”

  “Do you see a lariat?” she grumbled. “No. I left it behind.”

  Geo huffed. “All right, here’s another plan.”

  Lucie listened from the back of the procession as he devised a new exit strategy. Namely, it comprised of snatching anything and everything in the vicinity to use for a weapon, and wildly brandishing it while they escaped through the front door. “If we’re lucky,” he went on, “our men will have eliminated most of the guards from our way.”

  “I don’t know, Your Highness.” Cerise’s tone was doubtful. “I saw plenty of soldiers stationed outdoors.”

  Geo cursed under his breath. Lucie almost suggested the Atasi’s passage from the dungeons, but the idea wa
s far from practical. If men were still battling down there, it was unlikely their group could pass through and depart unscathed.

  “There’s another possibility,” offered Dmitri, although somewhat tentatively. “My…friend, Pavola, might know a way out. She’s been at Wintersea her whole life.”

  “The girl who led us up the tower?” Geo clarified. “But where has she gone?”

  Lucie recalled her brief interaction with the young woman. “She said something about keeping to her quarters.”

  Geo looked at Dmitri as they reached another landing. “Do you know where that might be?”

  The man was quiet for a moment. “I’ve not been there, obviously,” he said at last. “But she’s described the location to me in detail. I’ll bet I can find it.”

  “Who is she, Dmitri?” asked his brother, as Lucie wondered the same.

  The elder prince did not answer.

  The ground floor met them with a blast of echoes resounding down the corridors. Swords rang, men hollered, but thankfully, no one was in their immediate line of sight. Dmitri set off past the courtyard and veered right, the others jogging behind him.

  After filing by what appeared to be a series of servants’ quarters, they turned another corner and approached a vacant hall. All fell eerily silent. Dmitri slowed his steps, guiding them to a single door that hung ajar. The chamber within was dark.

  They crept inside. Moonlight gleamed through the window above a bureau piled neatly with scrolls and books, and the shadow of a camp bed, tidily made, rested at Lucie’s right. Dmitri went to the desk and gently thumbed through the scrolls. “These are hers,” he whispered. “This must be it.”

  “She isn’t here.” Geo tightened his grip around the axe. “But good thinking.” He indicated the window with a cock of his head. “Shall I?” He lifted the axe, but Dmitri gave him a funny look.

  “Why not check to see if it opens first?” he suggested.

  Lucie and Cerise exchanged tiny grins.

  Together, the princes unlatched the window. It bowed out, allowing ample space for a body to climb through. Geo extended a hand. “Brother, you first.”