Maybe that was why I adored him so much. He reminded me of simpler times. When I was with him, the rest of the world seemed to melt away. The concerns of my people that weighed down on my shoulders, the impending war on our norther borders—I could forget everything when I was with him.
But how long could this all last? We were almost caught yesterday. And I was sure my excuse of working with Oliver on another charitable cause was starting to grow old and tired. I didn’t exactly have anything to show for it. If someone asked me what we were working on, I’d likely freeze and stumble over my answers—a surefire way of exposing my relationship with Rodrigo.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, anxious.
How long were we going to be able to keep this up? Someone was going to find out about us, whether Rodrigo and I came out publicly or if someone oversaw us together. There was really no way for me to tell, but the end result was inevitable. In all cases, this sneaking around for quick make-out sessions and mini-dates at Oliver’s had to end.
Option A: Rodrigo and I could reveal our relationship together in a controlled manner. We wouldn’t be able to control the reaction that came after, but we’d at least be able to keep our story straight and keep people from speculating.
Option B: Someone could see us together and expose us before we were ready. I really didn’t like this option. Not only would it put the Royal Family on the spot, Rodrigo’s reputation could be at stake. He mentioned how he wanted to go off and study to become a lawyer. What if he was the gossip of the university? What if his future clients didn’t trust his discretion? I couldn’t bear to see that happen to Rodrigo.
There was, however, a third scenario. It left a bitter taste over my tongue, left my guts tying themselves up in preemptive knots.
Option C: We could break up.
I sighed and nervously picked at the fabric of my jeans.
I remembered how crushed I was when I thought my white knight stood me up at the Christmas party. The disappointment and embarrassment had my insides burning. That was when I didn’t know Rodrigo’s true identity. Now that I knew, now that I finally had him back in my life, how could I possibly lose him again?
I’d be devastated.
Running my fingers through my hair, I grumbled to myself quietly, “Crap. Crap, crap, crap.”
All three options wouldn’t end well. There was no way it could. Best case scenario, Rodrigo and I come clean to our parents. Father would inevitably freak out, Senator Sabatino would probably start yelling his head off, Mother would tell me that I was crazy for following my heart, and Mrs. Sabatino would probably have a cow.
Worst case scenario, everybody would get hurt.
Rodrigo would get hurt.
I didn’t want that to happen. I needed to figure things out before it was too late.
Out in the hall, I heard a clamor of voices. They sounded panicked, hurried. Their worried cries were then followed by a loud stampede of echoing shoe clicks against the hallway’s polished tile floors.
“Has anyone seen the Princess?” Brandon asked.
Any other day, I would have remained silent and kept to myself in my library. Everybody everywhere needed me, so I got very used to determining what I needed to react to and what I didn’t. There was something in his voice that irked me, though. There was so much urgency and fear that it sent a sharp chill crawling through my veins.
I rose from my mountain of throw pillows and made my way to the door, poking my head around the frame.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Brandon quickly grabbed me by the hand. I almost recoiled in surprise. The only person who I wanted holding my hand wasn’t currently here.
“We need to get you to safety,” he said, tripping over his own tongue.
It was then that I noticed the trickle of blood dripping down from his forehead, down his cheek. His eye was red and swelling, the early signs of a terrible bruise. Someone had cracked Brandon’s lip, likely thanks to a well-placed blow to the face. His knuckles were red and speckled with dried blood.
A wet, sticky lump lodged itself in my throat. “What’s happened?”
“His Majesty the King, he–”
Goose bumps spread across my arms and up the back of my neck like vicious wildfire. “What’s happened to my father?”
“There’s no time to explain, Marina. Quickly, you have to–”
A massive, eardrum-shattering explosion rocked the palace. The violent crack of descending rumble and the sharp crunch of fracturing glass made my ears ring. My heart was beating so quickly in my chest that it could have fooled machines into believing that I was flatlining.
Brandon tugged my hand hard, forced me to follow. My legs felt like jelly, so it was a miracle he managed to drag me anywhere at all.
“It’s a coup,” he shouted at me as the angry roar of voices echoed against the hallway walls. Behind me, the sound of a marching mob grew in volume. Voices belonging to at least a hundred men and women filled the palace with their angry, coordinated chanting.
“A coup?” I repeated in horrid disbelief.
“This way!” he declared, pulling me into a room.
The room was mostly vacant, unfurnished. It served no real purpose in terms of defense. The flimsy lock on the door wouldn’t be able to hold out against a group of angry, very pissed revolutionaries. To the untrained eye, this room was a dead end.
In reality, it was a hub.
This room served as a central convergence point for all of the secret passages scattered about the palace. There was a hidden door behind the large bookshelf against the southmost wall. To the north was a large framed painting, which once again hid a secret entrance. There was another hatch beneath the shag rug beneath our feet that led to the palace’s winding basement. A section of the east-facing wall could actually be pried open to gain access to the escape tunnel, which would lead me directly to the concrete bunker located beneath the royal gardens.
Brandon shifted the wall, pressing on it with a hard shove before sliding it open.
“Get going, Marina. The Queen is already in the bunker.”
“And Father?”
He shook his head, face so pale I thought he was on the brink of passing out. “Last I heard, he was injured by Senator Sabatino.”
My heart severed its connection to my aorta and then jumped into the pit of my stomach. “Injured?” I whispered, squeaky and shaking uncontrollably.
“The Royal Guards have already apprehended the Senator, but I don’t know about the King’s condition. Please, Princess, you have to get going. There’s still a mob on the loose.”
Dizzy and sick as I was, I managed a curt nod. Brandon was right. If I stayed here any longer, I’d be caught. If they were willing to use explosives, force their way into the palace, hurt their King, they’d probably have no qualms about harming me or those who stood in their way. Even though my brain was wracked with worry for my parents, I needed to focus on saving myself first.
“Come with me,” I pleaded.
Brandon gave me a good shove over the threshold, shaking his head. “I can slow them down. You have to get out of here.”
“Brandon, please–”
He pulled the wall closed in a hurry, cutting me off. “Get going!” he shouted at me, voice muffled by the thick wall between us.
Too nervous and antsy to argue any longer, I did as I was told.
My advance through the dark, narrow passageway was slow. I had to feel around with my hands outstretched to get a sense of my surroundings. When I was a little girl, I used this exact network of tunnels and tight halls to make my way around. Whenever I wanted to bail on my tutor, or whenever I wanted to play hide and seek with Rodrigo, I’d use these secret paths to my advantage.
Rodrigo.
His father hurt mine. I always knew Senator Sabatino to be an outspoken, passionate man. The guy was born to be in politics. He was confident, well-spoken, and had the ability to drive morale in a way Father never could. I di
dn’t use to think badly of Senator Sabatino, even when his views started to change and he slowly began to resist and resent my father. The world of politics was ever-changing, always shifting like thin ice over a large lake. Currents dictated the way politicians carried themselves, at times more cautious than others.
But the fact that he actually laid a hand on my father? That was too far, even for him.
Maybe that was option D: Senator Sabatino would do something absolutely insane resulting in the permanent destruction of any chance I had with Rodrigo.
What was going to happen to us after this? There was no way I could tell my family that I’d been seeing Rodrigo in secret now. Everything was ruined. Any dreams I’d had of a future together were now dashed, scattered before me like the thick layer of dust that covered every surface I touched.
I walked into cobwebs so many times that I lost count. I nearly lost my footing a million times. Stumbling about in the dark, I could hear strangers angrily shouting through the thin walls of the palace.
“Down with the Crown!” people chanted mindlessly.
“Steal everything you can! We can probably sell it.”
“Think of all the things we could buy!”
“Where’s the Queen and Princess? Somebody find them!”
No matter what I heard, I kept shuffling. I didn’t need to see these intruders to know what terrors they were bringing down on my home. I heard everything I needed to. Expensive curtains were ripped, priceless antiques shattered, walls and doors were bashed apart beyond repair. I was relieved to hear the Royal Guard sprinting in, fighting and yelling at these so-called revolutionaries as they attempted to regain control.
By some miracle, I made it out into a cool, open room. I found myself face-to-face with a large steel door. Judging by the roots slithering down the sides of the walls through the cracks in the concrete ceiling, I must have been just beneath the fountain in the royal gardens. There was a dampness in the air, a muggy heat despite the winter chill.
I walked straight up to the door. There was an electronic PIN pad just to the right of the latch. Only members of the Royal Family and select members of the Royal Guard knew the code to get in. Reaching up, I shakily entered the code.
7. 10. 1573.
It was the day in history that my great ancestor, Queen Marionne, landed on the shores of Brooklandia to claim it for her people. With her wisdom and highly sought-after guidance, the nation would emerge was one of the strongest and oldest the world had ever seen. Brooklandia had survived centuries through war, plague, and famine. No matter what time threw at us, we remained. Brooklandians were a resilient kind of people, powerful in all the ways that mattered.
The PIN pad beeped at me three times while a little green light blinked. Five separate locks clicked open before I was finally able to twist and pull the latch, gaining access to the emergency bunker on the other side.
“Marina!” Mother gasped, immediately pulling me into a tight hug. “I was so worried about you. You’re not hurt are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Mother. Where’s Father?”
My mother turned, worry written into the knot of her brows. I followed her line of sight to discover Father lying on the bunker’s sofa, a member of the Royal Guard crouched down beside him to tend to his wound. An ugly patch of red stained the fabric around his right shoulder where he’d apparently been run through with some sharp object, likely a knife. Oddly enough, Father didn’t look too worse for wear.
“I’ll kill him!” he spat, lively as ever. I had a feeling he was going to be alright, despite the deep puncture. “Sabatino, I’ll kill that bastard. I swear I will! Mark my words, this is treason! I’ll have his whole family arrested. Right down to his second cousins twice removed!”
My throat closed up. The walls of my stomach were shredding themselves into ribbons. My legs were shaking so hard I thought I was about to topple over.
“Father,” I said cautiously, “please calm down. There’s no need to–”
“Every last one of them!” he hissed. “If I lay eyes on a Sabatino, I swear I’ll kill them with my own two hands.”
My heart seized in my chest. Why was this happening? What were we going to do? I was torn between my feelings for Rodrigo and my family. It was eating me up inside. Whatever minute possibility Rodrigo and I had together in the future had now been pummeled into a fine powder, irreparable.
My bones ached. My brain throbbed. My eyes were dry and itchy.
This could have gone differently. Rodrigo and I could have been happy had our families been on better terms. It was a shame, really. I could see myself falling in love with him.
And now I knew it was downright impossible.
13
Rodrigo
It happened fast. Too fast.
One second I was chilling out with Oliver at his studio waiting for Marina to show up, and the next thing I knew, word of an insurrection against the King led by Father reached my ears. He’d apparently run the King through with a knife, though his condition at this point remained a mystery.
I hurried home immediately, hoping to find my father and mother there. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe those mad rumors were just that—rumors, empty words. I didn’t want to imagine the chaos, didn’t want to believe that Marina might have been caught in the middle of everything.
To my dismay, I found Mother packing everything in sight, stuffing clothes and useless knickknacks and pictures and cushions into five massive suitcases in the living room. Her hair was a mess, frazzled strands sticking out this way and that. Her cheeks were puffy and red, her eyes were swollen from crying. It was jarring to see Mother so disheveled and out of sorts. I’d always known her to be a proud, well put-together woman. Seeing her in this delirious, heated stated unnerved me to no end.
“Pack your things,” she snapped at me, jerking her thumb over her shoulder to signal toward my bedroom. “We’re leaving.”
“Leaving?” I echoed in disbelief. “What? Why?”
“Shut up and pack. They’ll be here any minute.”
“Who’s going to be here any minute?”
“Rodrigo,” she hissed. “Enough talk. I’ve got a car waiting for us downstairs and two tickets to Allendes. We leave on the first train out.”
“Mother, calm down. Just tell me what’s going on. Would you–” I grabbed Mother’s hands, halting her frenzied packing meltdown. She pulled away violently, like I’d burned her with fire.
“Listen here, boy.” She was practically seething. “There’s going to be an investigation. When the Royal Guards show up, they’re going to take us into custody.”
“But we didn’t do anything wrong.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line and paled. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
My mouth fell open slightly, appalled. “What did you do?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Mother, just answer my question.”
She set her jaw, tendons in her face visibly tensing. “I planned it.”
“What?”
“I planned everything. I used to work at the palace as Marina’s tutor, remember? I knew every single strength and weakness of that place. Your father may have been the one to carry the plan out, but I was the one who fine-tuned every little detail. When the Royal Guards show up, they’re going to take me and throw me in jail just like your father. That’s why we have to leave now.”
“No, I'm not going anywhere,” I protested.
Marina’s here.
“They’ll arrest you too.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“They won’t care. You’re guilty by association.”
I shook my head. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not going to leave.”
I’m not going to leave Marina.
“They’ll interrogate you. They’ll twist the truth until you can’t tell which way is up. Trust me, Rodrigo. You’re one of us, and that’s all the proof they need to incriminate you.”
“Mother–”
“Especially because you’ve been sneaking around with the Princess.”
I froze where I stood, mouth fully open in a combination of shock, horror, and embarrassment. “You… You know?”
My mother rolled her eyes and scowled. “Now I do.”
I wanted the floor to fall out from beneath my feet. It would have been less painful.
“But how?” I grimaced.
“You weren’t exactly subtle. You’d come home incredibly late smelling like women’s perfume. You’d spend an obscene amount of time with that Oliver guy, which told me you were either seeing him or someone who happened to be hiding out there too. And guess who just had an article written about them in the papers concerning her charitable projects.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to convince myself that if I couldn’t see my mother lay the truth bare, it wouldn’t happen.
She snatched a copy of the newspaper off the kitchen table. The pages were crinkled and disorganized, but she had no problem finding what she was looking for. Mother read aloud: “‘Princess Marina and fashion designer Oliver Smith have been collaborating together on some truly spectacular works for almost a month.’” She crumbled the pages in her fist and let them fall to the floor. “Do you have any idea what this means? The King will probably find an excuse to execute you.”
“We care about each other,” I snapped back. I was tired of being yelled at, treated like a child. “We belong together.”
Mother scoffed, “Not anymore. Do you really think the King is going to let you anywhere near her now?”
No words came to mind. I was left speechless, my tongue and the back of my throat terribly dry. The thunderous beat of my adrenaline-filled heart left me deaf. Reality was finally starting to sink into my bones. As much as I hated to admit it, Mother was right. I’d never be allowed within a thousand yards of Marina after what my father had done.
I clenched my fists into tight balls. The mounting pressure behind my eyes was excruciating. My molars were clenched so tight I could hear them squeaking against each other in my skull. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to look her in the eye after everything that’d happened. Her father, the King, was hurt because of mine. Whose side was I supposed to take? Where were my loyalties supposed to lie?
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