by Riley Pine
Then we are inside a storage room. But this is no room full of cleaning supplies and rolls of bathroom tissue.
“Surgical supplies?” I ask as my brother flips on a light.
“You can’t leave like this,” he says, his eyes full of concern. “It’s a bad gash. If you keep bleeding you might lose consciousness behind the wheel, and—”
I clear my throat as he swipes items from the shelves. Hydrogen peroxide. Iodine. Gauze. A surgical needle and thread.
“I know you think I was drinking. That you need some bigger answer as to why I left with Victoria that night,” I say. “But you know the truth. You know she did not leave with me against her will. And you know that I never would have put her in harm’s way. If I’d known that storm was coming—that the streets would be so slick...”
His jaw tightens as he readies the materials. “She’s dead, Damien,” he says. “Don’t you think it was bad enough she wanted you instead of me? It doesn’t change the fact that I loved her and lost her twice in the span of one night. But I will not let you die for it.”
He puts on a pair of latex gloves and cleans the wound over my eye, but he won’t look directly at me. So I grab the collar of his shirt and force him to.
“I loved her, too, Nikolai. I loved her and lost her and wasn’t even allowed to fucking mourn her. At least you got that. And now you have Kate. And a baby on the way. I’m sorry for what I did, but I can’t change it. I can’t take it back. I get it,” I say. “I’m poison to anyone I love. I can’t seem to escape that. But you can at least acknowledge that I lost something, too.”
He raises a syringe. “This is gonna hurt.”
Then he stabs my skin with the needle, and I hiss through clenched teeth. But by the time he depresses the plunger, I can already feel the cool prickle of the numbing agent kicking in.
“And here I thought you’d sew me up without anesthetic,” I say. “Where the hell did you learn this little trick, anyway?”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Spend enough time with X, brother, and you’ll learn a thing or two.”
“He teach you lock-picking, too?” I ask as he begins to suture the wound.
Nikolai shakes his head. “Learned that when I was thirteen and wanted to get into the wine cellar for a little taste.”
I wince as the needle hits a piece of skin that isn’t quite numb.
“Sorry,” he says, and I actually think he means it. “But we need to get you patched up and out of here.”
“How do you know Juliet is safe?” I ask.
My brother’s jaw twitches, a subtle nervous tell. “X called and told me what happened after Juliet’s sonogram. He wanted to make sure Kate and I were safe since he knew we were here as well. He mentioned something about a live broadcast Nightgardin had prepared for this evening but assumed it had nothing to do with Juliet since she was safe.”
“But she’s not,” I growl.
Nikolai shakes his head.
“Three times I failed her,” I say. “Twice today—and the first time when they took her from me in Nightgardin.”
Nikolai’s eyes widen. “You remember?”
He ties off another suture, and I nod. “It’s my baby,” I say. “I have no doubt.”
“You love her,” he says with realization.
“Since the moment I laid eyes on her after the Nightgardin Rally. Though now, after what happened before they took her, she must think...”
“Done,” Nikolai says. “Eleven sutures. You lost a lot of blood, but the dizziness will hopefully subside soon.” He pulls something from his pocket and places it in my palm.
The key to the Alfa Romeo.
“I might have taken it for a little spin this morning,” he says with a wink. “It’s parked out back. Kate and I will call for a car to get home.”
“What makes you think I won’t fail again?” I ask.
Nikolai shakes his head. “It’s time I admit that I failed Victoria, too. I knew she was unhappy but refused to believe she could want anything other than what she was being offered—the chance to be queen. The monarchy is important, but it took me a long time to learn that other things rank as high.”
I chuckle. “Are you about to lecture me on the merits of true love?”
He removes the surgical gloves and crosses his arms.
“You’re the one living out the legend of Maximus and Calista,” he said. “Go rescue your queen, but please avoid the whole Lovers’ Leap part of the story.”
I grip the key in my palm. “I’ll never get past the Nightgardin gates in a fucking race car,” I say. “They’ll hear me a mile away.”
Nikolai’s phone buzzes, and he pulls it from his jacket pocket. He laughs softly as he reads the text, then turns the screen to face me. It’s a text from X.
Please inform Prince Damien that alternate transportation awaits him at the Rosegate and Nightgardin border. Good luck and Godspeed.
“How the hell did he—?”
“You know better than to question the inimitable skills of a man called X,” Nikolai interrupts.
“Thank you, brother,” I tell him, and then I’m out the door, racing for the stairwell because fuck if I’ll step into an elevator again.
And then I’m behind the wheel—a place that used to spell death and destruction, or at least my wish for them. I start the engine with renewed purpose, then glance in the mirror to check my brother’s handiwork.
I am beaten, bloodied and scarred—marked with reminders of the mistakes I’ve made.
But I am no longer broken without repair, not if Juliet still believes in me. I just have to get to her in time.
Good thing I know how to drive fast.
Juliet
A brown mouse furtively runs along the stable wall in the direction of the burlap feed bag in the corner. Normally the sight would fill me with fear, send me screaming in the opposite direction. But now I can’t even muster the energy to watch it climb up to feast inside the oats. It turns out there are far worse fears to face in this world than a marshmallow-sized rodent.
And tonight I shall be subjected to them all.
Nightgardin has never signed on to any international treaty banning torture. Despite decades of intense lobbying from human rights groups, the monarchy has steadfastly maintained the position that no outside body will ever regulate the kingdom’s operations. We are ruled by direct reign, although I had privately planned to make changes when I took the throne, to ensure our small country looked forward and embraced change.
But I never had a chance. My mother plans to rule forever.
A furious tear slides down my cheek, echoing the trickle of blood coursing down each forearm as I tear the flesh from my wrists. I won’t be able to instill any progressive changes. I can’t even free myself from these stupid ropes pinning my hands above my head.
There’s a tightening in my abdomen, a spasm of contracting muscles. It can’t be the baby stirring as it’s still far too small, but it’s a persistent sensation.
A flicker.
A flame.
As much as I want to give up hope and try to prepare for the horror to come, I can’t ignore the little warmth.
It’s love. Love for Damien. Love for the child we created in three nights of passion. Love for the potential we hold if only there is a way.
Even in all this darkness, love—a fantasy I never believed to be real—still exists.
I suck a shuddering gulp of air deep into my lungs and set my jaw. I have no idea how I will survive this night, but I have to try to believe. Even if the Black Watch does take my life in a few short hours, it can’t take the power of this love from me.
And that has to count for something.
A heavy march of combat boots on flagstones draws closer. They halt outside the stable.
Boom! Boom! Boom! comes th
e bang of a drum, the execution drum.
Four Black Watch soldiers enter my stable, their faces obscured by black ski masks. I’ve heard stories of Nightgardin public executions. They aren’t common, saved only for those who commit the worst offenses against the state. There were a few in my childhood, but I was never allowed to watch. At the time, I thought my parents were trying to protect my innocence. Now I realize that they simply didn’t want me in public. I was the princess intended to be kept out of sight and out of mind.
I wince when one of the guards removes a sharp blade from a scabbard, but they won’t hurt me away from the lights and cameras. Instead, he cuts my bonds and my arms collapse against my sides like two sacks of potatoes.
“She put up quite a fight earlier,” one tells the man beside him. “Sent Captain Augustin to the hospital to get stitches.”
I can’t restrain a smile at that news.
“We could muzzle her,” one growls.
The biggest one steps forward and cracks his knuckles. “Or knock her teeth out.”
“Enough.” A fifth man enters the stable. He’s got a puckered empty hole where his left eye should be and a large angry scar that distorts half of his face. “You have your orders. The princess is to be left unharmed until the broadcast begins.”
Ah yes. There is a twisted ritual to my death. Protocols must be preserved.
The man with the missing eye reaches out to grab my arm, and I spit in his face.
I won’t make this easy.
But he throws me over his shoulder as if I weigh nothing and begins striding away. Loratio, my stallion, stomps and huffs as I pass, but to no avail. I beat on the man’s back and shoulders, but I might as well be caressing him for as much as it seems to bother him.
Minutes later, we come to a stop beneath a platform draped in purple velvet and bearing the Nightgardin crest. Upon it are two high-backed chairs, one occupied and one empty. My mother is dressed head to toe in white, her face somber, her hair tied in a severe knot. She looks as pure and merciless as the Old Testament God.
She rises and steps forward. “Good people of Nightgardin, it is with a heavy heart that we gather here on this evening to bear witness to what happens to those who betray the kingdom. No one is above the law, from the farmer in the fields to our very own princess in the palace. A crime against the state is a crime against us all, and the penalty for treason is...death. Princess Juliet, as the Queen of Nightgardin, I condemn you to one hundred lashes for your crimes. After which your body will be burned, living or dead, in an attempt at purification. May God have mercy on your soul.”
The drum beats three times, and she takes her seat on a high throne. My father isn’t there. He must not have yielded. Perhaps he will burn tomorrow night.
The crowd is utterly silent. I feel the heat of thousands of eyes on my body. The quiet will not last long. I won’t be able to endure one hundred lashes, let alone fire, in silence. But I will not give my mother the show she desires.
“A word, Mother,” I call out, and the crowd stirs. They aren’t expecting this. No one talks back to the queen in our kingdom. “You might burn my body tonight, but there is a flame that you’ll never be able to extinguish, that of the love that I bear for my husband, Damien, Prince of Edenvale, and our unborn child whose life you will snuff out as well. Some fires burn too bright. May God have mercy on your soul for trying to stop true love.”
The uneasy murmurs in the crowd increase. Even the guards on either side of me seem uncertain what to do next.
Finally, Mother rises again. “Proceed,” she says in a tight, high voice. This isn’t going according to her plans. She expected me to meet my fate like a sacrificial lamb. Instead, I’ve shown her a boldness she never knew was there—a boldness I never knew I possessed until I met Damien Lorentz, banished prince of our sworn enemy, Edenvale.
I’ve been the good, obedient daughter for too long, and look where it got me. Now it’s time for me to be a strong woman who doesn’t go down without a fight.
“I said, proceed,” Mother says again, her voice rising, going hard and ugly. “Make it two hundred lashes, and anyone who hesitates can join her.”
That jolts the guards out of their stupor, and they begin dragging me toward the stake.
“This is murder!” I scream. “You are killing your own child—your own grandchild—for the crime of love when you know that’s not your true motivation. The only reason you are taking my life is for your own ambition. You are the guilty one.”
My words are brave, but my strength is no match for these men. They bind me to the stake, but no one meets my eyes. The drum beats louder and louder, playing my death song.
I lift my eyes to the sky in time to see a shooting star cut across the horizon. And here at the end of it all, without hope, but full of love, I whisper my final wish.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Damien
AS INSTRUCTED, I park the Alfa Romeo in a wooded area a few miles outside the Nightgardin border. Air travel would have been too noticeable, yet I fear none of that matters now. Even though I made it here faster than anyone should be able to drive, it still took hours—excruciating hours where I had to be alone with my own thoughts, imagining what that ruthless witch and her spineless king might be doing to Juliet.
Juliet, who thinks I forgot her.
Juliet, who thinks I cannot love her.
Juliet, who may not be alive by the time I get to her.
As soon as I exit the vehicle, something rustles in the brush up ahead.
I’ve been in a bar brawl or ten. I can hold my own if my hands are not bound behind my back or if I’m not clocked upside the head with a fucking pistol. But I didn’t think of obtaining a weapon before I hopped in my car and drove—my singular focus getting to my wife and child in time to save them both. I hadn’t really thought about the how.
The sound comes again; this time the entire bush shakes.
“Show yourself,” I say, readying myself for hand-to-hand combat.
A horse whinnies and my shoulders drop. I follow the sound, guided only by the light of the moon. On the other side of the tree is a white steed roped to a branch. A quiver of arrows and a bow are strapped to his saddle, and I outright laugh. Because this is X’s doing.
Who the hell is that guy?
Pinned to the quiver is a note as well.
Your Highness,
This is Maximus. He will obey your every command as he has been trained by The Order to be ridden by you and only you.
“How?” I ask aloud, then continue to read.
Do not ask how. You should know better than that by now. All you need to know is that you can trust this horse to get you to Juliet, and he, in turn, will trust you. Do not leave his side, and you will be safe.
I shake my head and chuckle, yet I know to heed X’s words. He saved Nikolai and Kate from our overambitious stepmother. He stopped Rosegate from using Benedict’s wife Evangeline to gain access to the map that leads to the spring—if it even exists.
With a bow, arrows and a hell of a lot of hope, I untie the horse, mount it and kick my heels against his flanks.
“Yah, Maximus!” I call, and we take off into the night.
* * *
My years of exile have taken me all over the world, but I always felt a strong pull toward Nightgardin, despite its differences with Edenvale. Perhaps on some level I was drawn to Juliet. Whatever the reason may be, it is why I’ve spent the bulk of my banishment years right here in these lands, which means I know them almost as well as I know the land of my birth.
We traverse the woods on the east side of the royal grounds because it is the only place where we can hide in the cover of dark. The royal square rests in the center of the gated lands. So all we have to do is make it past the east gate guards, and we’re in.
Easier said than done.
&
nbsp; Even if I can aim and shoot an arrow, I do not wish to strike first. Plus, they will all be armed with guns.
Maximus rears his head, impatient.
“Not yet,” I whisper, inching him closer to the forest’s edge. “Not yet.”
Then an idea takes hold.
I pat the pocket of my jacket and grin when I find what I hoped would be there—a lighter.
Nightgardin cigars are illegal in Edenvale, but hell if they aren’t the best. I don’t partake often, but when I do, I like to be prepared.
I tear off my jacket and then my shirt. I wrap the latter around the shaft of an arrow, near the tip.
“On my count, Maximus,” I say, praying that X’s words are true, that I can trust this steed.
I tie off the shirt, making sure it won’t give way. Then I set it ablaze.
“Three...two...one. Now, Maximus!”
He rears on his hind legs and sprints from the cover of trees. As soon as we come into the well-lit perimeter of the palace gates, I find what I knew would be there—the electrical transformer that powers most—if not all—the property that lies beyond the gates.
As Maximus gallops toward the gates at top speed, I ready my bow, aim and shoot.
Sparks fly, and the wooden pole on which the transformer rests catches fire. Guards run both toward it and away from it in mass confusion, and I notice that these are not the Black Watch.
I grit my teeth. The Watch, in its entirety, is in the square doing who knows what to my wife. My child.
My horse and I are steadfast in our purpose—making it to the gate.
A gate that is far too tall for him to clear. But he doesn’t slow, nor do I command him to do so because this is our only chance. Either we die on this side or die trying to get over it.
As shouts of “Trespasser!” and “Shoot!” ring out among the chaos, Maximus reaches the gate—and we fly.
Or at least it feels like we do.
Shots ring out, and I hiss as white-hot pain slices through the skin on my shoulder just as Maximus’s back legs clear the only thing barring me from my wife.
