“More than anything,” she said, her green eyes gleaming.
“Good. Then it looks like we’ve got a war to plan.”
Chapter Twenty
Instead of waiting for her to say anything, I started toward the back of the palace, intent on finding Rhys and Winston.
“Your Majesty?” the goblin cleaner I’d met my first morning asked as I came through the main foyer.
“Hello.” I tried my best to smile at her. “Have you seen Lord Sullivan and Winston come through here?”
“They’re in the library,” she said. “With the dryad.”
“Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything, Your Majesty.”
“If anyone asks where we are…”
“I haven’t seen you at all today.”
“Thank you.”
I hurried away from her and toward the library. Once there, I pushed the door open and slipped inside before closing it behind me, flicking the lock on the door after it shut.
“Allie?” Winston jerked his head up from the heavy leather-bound book that he, Mercedes, and Rhys were huddled around. “I thought you were with Jesse planning the coronation.”
“He doesn’t need me to plan a party,” I said. “I thought I’d be more useful here. With you. Figuring out how to depose the Fate Maker, and if need be, to start a war.”
Winston stood and began to pace around the room, opening the curtains and making sure each of the windows was locked. He came back to where our chairs were and sat across from me. “War?”
“I won’t let the giants and the trolls take any more children. And I refuse to be a puppet sitting on that throne while the Fate Maker rules through me. So I’m going to let them put that crown on my head, and then my first act as queen will be to overthrow Fate.”
“You’re going to make war against a goddess?”
“A goddess that no one has ever seen,” I said. “As far as I know.”
“You have a point,” Mercedes said. “The only people who even claim to speak with her are the Fate Maker and Esmeralda.”
“And Esmeralda just told me that she brought me here to end this, to end the rule of Fate. And that’s what we’re going to do.”
“We’re going to what?” Rhys asked. “Start a war because the magic cat said so?”
“No, we’re going to start a war because I said so. Me, the future queen. If we don’t fight back then the Fate Maker will just keep doing what he’s doing. I’ve seen my mother’s diary. She tried to stand up to him, and they just ignored her. I won’t let that happen again.”
“Wait, what?” Mercedes asked.
“My mother is the Lost Rose,” I said. “I found her diary. Someone named Piotr had taken the throne from her, done to her what the Fate Maker is trying to do to me. She was still queen but only in name. Even the nobles wouldn’t listen to her. She was a prisoner. That’s why she ran into our world.”
“She abandoned her people,” Rhys said. “She left all of them, all of us who ended up here later, she left this world and all its people to suffer.”
“They were going to hand her over to the trolls. He was going to kill her—while she was pregnant with me. And what do you want to bet that Piotr is the Fate Maker?”
“That would make sense,” Rhys said. “He has been the power behind the throne for a long time. And he has always been ruthless.”
“Ruthless might not be a strong enough word for it,” I said. “He used the threat of Fate to take my mother’s kingdom from her, and this is what happened.”
“The Fate Maker will not just give up his power,” Rhys warned me.
“I know that.”
“What will you do when the fighting starts?” he asked. “Will you run like she did? Will you find some way to go home so you don’t have to watch the carnage?”
“No.” I bit my lower lip and tried to keep from trembling. If we started a war, people would die. Me, my friends, any of us could die.
“You haven’t seen battle, Allie. None of you have,” Rhys said, his voice low and hoarse.
“And you have?” Mercedes asked, her voice nothing more than a croak. I watched as she leaned back against the table, staring at him, her eyes wide and her green face pale.
“I’ve fought bands of trolls when they’ve come across the White Mountains and into Nerissette. I’ve seen men die, and I know what battle sounds like. And I know that all you want to do when you’re faced with that is run. As far and as fast as you can.”
I took a deep breath in through my nose and let it out before I straightened my shoulders and met his gaze. “I’m not going to run.”
“No?” he asked.
“No. I’m not my mother. I will stay and see the war through. I’ll rid this world of the Fate Maker’s rule and the harvesting, all of it. No matter what it takes.”
“And you two?” He turned his attention to Winston and Mercedes. “Will you fight?”
“If it comes to it,” Winston said, “I’ll fight.”
“It will come to it,” Rhys said. “And people will die.”
“People will die no matter what we do,” I said. “At least this way they’re dying for a reason.”
“So be it,” Rhys said. “We fight.”
“We fight,” I agreed.
He dropped down on one knee in front of me and took out the dagger he kept strapped to his hip. “I pledge my loyalty to you, Queen Alicia, Golden Rose of Nerissette. I will give my life to protect you and the crown. If I should die in your service I only ask that you remember my sacrifice.”
“Uh—”
“You’re supposed to say ‘I accept your oath,’” Rhys prompted.
“I accept your oath,” I answered. “And if we lose then we lose together, and let Fate do her worst.”
“Allie,” Winston said, and I turned away from Rhys to look at him.
“We should go,” Rhys said, and then motioned to Mercedes. “Come on, Mer, we should go.”
“What?” Mercedes asked. “Why? We’re in the middle of planning a war.”
He looked at me and then at Winston. “We can plan later. We should go now.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Right, we should go. You two should stay here, and we’ll go.”
He tugged at Mercedes’s hand again. She still wasn’t budging. “Come on or I’ll be forced to kiss you again.”
“Wait.” I turned to him as he quickly ushered Mercedes out the door. “Mercedes is right. Shouldn’t we be planning a war?”
Rhys just rolled his eyes at me and then glanced at Winston. “Later.”
“But—” I turned back to Winston.
Before I knew it, he pressed his lips against mine, and I forgot everything I’d been planning on saying as I kissed him back. He wrapped his arms around my waist and then lifted his head, breaking our lips apart.
My knees started to knock together as my mind started swimming a million miles per minute. Winston had just… His lips and mine had been… I swallowed. Oh crap, I hadn’t had a chance to brush my teeth after lunch, and I’d had a really garlicky sandwich.
Was I supposed to say something now? Kiss him back? “What was that for?” I finally managed to ask.
“I want more from you,” he said. “From us.”
“What?”
“I want us to be together, as more than just friends. I thought you should know that before the war starts. Just in case.”
He let go of me and then stalked off, not meeting my eyes as he opened the door and slipped outside.
“Okay,” I said and gave him a brief nod, not sure what else I was supposed to say. He bowed his head and then shut the door between us with a decisive click.
I brought my trembling fingers up and pressed them against my lips. I was in the middle of declaring a war and Winston Carruthers had just kissed me. And it had been even more amazing than I’d always fantasized it would be.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Queen Talia?” I pushed open the doorway betwe
en the labyrinth and the mermaids’ pool. “Are you here?”
“Where else would I be, Your Majesty?” The mermaid queen slipped out of the water and moved beside the pond, keeping the bottom of her tail in the water, flipping it back and forth.
I kicked off my shoes and sat next to her, hiking my skirt up above my knees so I could put my feet in the shimmering liquid. I was surprised to find that it was warm like bathwater, not cold like a swimming pool.
“I never got a chance to come out here and swim with you. I wasn’t here long enough to come back.” I felt tears building up in my eyes. “Tomorrow we might all be…”
“We all might be what?” she asked.
“It’s just that my coronation is tomorrow night, and then there’s this thing. I can’t really say what’s going to happen, but I’ve been thinking about what you said when we met last time, and we never got a chance to have that swim.”
“Shhh.” Talia wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled my head down to rest against her collarbone. “We have plenty of time to swim together. Years and years to swim together.”
“But what if we don’t?”
“We have many years together still. I’m not so old that you have to cry for me yet.”
“It’s not you,” I said with a sniffle. “It’s just the coronation and everything. I mean, I went out into the city the other night, and there was a harvesting. The children were going to be sold to the giants, and they were begging and crying, and there was nothing I could do.”
“I know what a harvesting is, Allie.” She tightened her grip on me. “And I’m so sorry you were forced to see it.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I needed to see it. I needed to know the truth. Then I found my mother’s diary in the library, and the things inside it were just horrible. Really, really horrible.”
“Did you know I met your mother once?” she asked.
“What?” I shook my head, distracted at the change in subject. Talia had met my mother? Why hadn’t she told me that before? More important—why was meeting a mermaid another one of those things that my mother kept from me?
“Your grandmother brought her to the Sea of Gallindor for a holiday. She was…”
“She was what?”
“So beautiful,” Talia said. “She was the prettiest human I’d ever seen. She had these violet ribbons in her hair and when she laughed it was like the sea sang. When I heard she was lost I cried for her. I cried for the girl who’d come to our sea in her pretty violet ribbons.”
“She used to tell me stories about you,” I said quietly. “The mermaids of Nerissette. Great guardians of the Sea of Gallindor. She made them seem like fairy tales, but I believed them. I wanted them to be real. That’s why I became a swimmer.”
“Is it?” Talia asked.
“Yeah. Mom always wanted me to do things like fence and take judo, but I wanted to be a mermaid. One day we were at the pool, and one of the swim coaches was there. She told me about the swim team, and I just nagged and nagged until Mom let me join.”
“It sounds like you were very persistent.”
“I was such a brat. I didn’t realize that there was a reason she wanted me to learn to fight. Wasn’t there?”
“Yes.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Tomorrow I’m going to be crowned queen, and I have to stand up to the Fate Maker. But I’m so afraid.” The admission fell from my lips freely. I knew I was safe here with Talia.
“Afraid?”
“There are so many things I didn’t do. I didn’t go visit her one last time before we were pulled here. I didn’t hug Gran Mosely good-bye before I left for the library. I didn’t even make it out here to swim with you.”
“So you’re afraid of all the things you haven’t done because you think that if war comes the Fate Maker will win?” Talia asked. “That you will not survive?”
“Is that bad?” I sniffled and wiped my nose against the sleeve of my gown.
“To fear losing a battle?” Talia asked. “Or to be afraid of death? Only fools are not afraid to die, Allie, and you are many things, but a fool is not one of them. I have a question for you, though.”
“Yes?”
“Is being afraid to die going to stop you from going into battle tomorrow?”
“No.” I shook my head and then wiped my nose again. “I want it to. I want to say no, I’m the queen and you should go fight in my place, but I can’t. I can’t take the chance of losing Mercedes and Winston. If we never go home again they’re all I have.”
“So even though you might die you’ll still fight for the people of Nerissette?”
“I don’t have a choice. I won’t let him destroy this world in my name. Does the fact that I don’t have a choice in whether or not I go to battle determine if I’m a coward or not? Is it part of the equation?”
“It’s the only part of the equation.” She patted my shoulder again.
“That seems like a very screwed-up math problem,” I said with another sniffle.
“Now, I cannot tell you what the next setting of the sun will bring, but you said that you worried about never having the chance to swim in my pool, and that I can do something about. Turn around and let me see your laces.”
“Why?” I turned my body so that my back was facing her.
“Because we are going swimming.”
“I don’t have a suit.”
“So?”
The dress sagged around me, and she pushed at the material so it slid off my shoulders. I turned to look at her over my shoulder and smiled shyly. She smiled back, and I tried to ignore how pointy her teeth looked close up.
I stood and pushed the rest of the material down, stepped out of the dress, and then pulled off my slip. Once I was down to nothing but my underwear and bra I sat beside her again and put my feet back in the water, kicking them.
“You can’t swim there.” Talia slipped into the water, grabbing my hand as she went. I waded in beside her and sighed at the warmth surrounding me.
I let myself float on my back for a second and laughed before kicking off the dirt side of the pool, twisting into a backstroke. I covered the width of her pool in less than ten strokes and did a quick flip turn before swimming back toward the mermaid.
“That’s a rather unique way to swim,” Talia said. “You sort of remind me of a confused otter.”
“You think that looks funny?” I rolled over so I was on my stomach. “You should see the breaststroke or the butterfly.”
“What are those?” she asked. I began to do a quick breaststroke across the pool. I let my head dip down and took in a mouthful of water, spitting it out at her as she shrieked with laughter, splashing at me.
“I don’t know why you called that a butterfly. You look more like a frog.”
“That’s the breaststroke. The butterfly is even messier.”
“Show me,” Talia insisted, still giggling. “Show me how mortals swim in your world, Allie.”
I grabbed on to the edge of the pool and pushed myself forward, moving into an awkward butterfly stroke, pulling up as much water as I could to splash with each stroke. “Now you look like a young merchild trying to learn to swim without her mother.”
“Definitely not mermaid material, then?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Talia said and swam toward me in a loose-limbed freestyle. “Just different.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It’s not a bad thing,” she said. We both twisted to float on our backs.
“Tomorrow,” I said, watching the stars come out above us in the sky, “if something happens—”
“You will come tell me everything tomorrow night,” she cut me off. “Whatever it is that you think I need to know, tomorrow night you will come and tell me what it is.”
I didn’t say anything, staring up at the stars and trying to keep from crying like a little girl. Whatever my life had become since coming here, I no longer had any space in it for tears.
“When
the Sea of Gallindor was dying,” Talia began, her voice catching. “When the sea was dying, the Fate Maker came to tell us that it couldn’t be saved. I remember that my mother didn’t cry. She didn’t weep for what was to come. She never once fought against it.”
“What did she do?”
“She just hugged me, kissed my cheek, and watched while we disappeared. Even though we would never see each other again, I remember that she didn’t cry. She saw us safe, and then she returned to help the Sea of Gallindor die.”
“She must have been very brave.”
“She was a queen,” Talia said. “Even though I wore her crown, she was a queen, so she didn’t swim away and pretend it wasn’t coming. She faced the future head-on, with no tears and no regrets.”
“She must have been terrified.”
“I think she was, yes. But whatever happens with the setting of the sun tomorrow, remember this. You are a queen, and you will not falter because of your fears.”
We floated in silence for a while, and I watched as the sun set behind the trees. “Talia?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Why are you pacing?” Heidi asked the next day.
She spread out the dress I was supposed to wear to my coronation on my bed and smoothed the wrinkles in the skirt with her hands. “All you’ve done is pace around this room, muttering to yourself, since yesterday. What’s up?”
“I’m nervous.” I brought my right thumb up and started to chew on the nail, still pacing. “They’re getting ready to crown me queen. What if I suck at it?”
I didn’t tell her that it came down to more than my ability to wear a tiara, though. What if I announced my independence from Fate and the Fate Maker, and then we lost? What if he beat the crap out of us in no time? What if no one rallied to my side and they all fought for him instead? I was the queen, sure, but I was asking them to defy one of their gods.
“It doesn’t matter.” Heidi smacked at my hand as I passed, pushing it away from my mouth. “No one really cares what a queen does anyway. You show up, let them put the crown on your head, and then you wave in the parade.”
“I think it’s a bit more complicated than that.” Especially when you were about to wage a war—not that I was going to get into that with her.
Everlast (The Chronicles of Nerissette) (Entangled Teen) Page 18
