by Camille Rae
He wasn’t wrong. I did physically connect to the sound of that name. Was it the same magic language that Silas had told me about in the library? I made a mental note to ask him.
“But how am I to lead when I know nothing about Laeris or Nos or the Rebellion or even my royal name? Don’t you think this a bit fast?” I asked, feeling suddenly desperate to get out of this new role.
He shook his head, pointing to the poster. “Right now, you are a leader only by symbol,” he said, and his words stung as though he had slapped me across the face.
He might have well said, Only the idea of you is useful to us.
The buzzing energy that I had come to recognize over the past few days coursed through me, and I could see that the room was getting brighter, though I wasn’t sure if I had anything to do with that.
I wanted to lunge for the table and tear up the posters. I wanted to reach across the space between us and wrap my hands around his neck. I wanted to storm out of the room.
Why did I have such a visceral reaction to him? It was as though he was under my skin, taunting me.
He studied me, staring intensely at me. Then, he shrugged. “I thought the men said you were part of the pack,” he said, almost to himself.
“Maybe it’s just not your pack,” I countered.
His face hardened as he looked me up and down. “Lone wolves die, but wolves in packs survive,” he said, and I felt the threat flood over me, cold and edged like a knife.
But it did give me an idea.
I thought of the refugee camps I had seen in Nos and the shanty towns I could see from my chamber windows.
The Rebellion needed help, Loel had told me as much, and if I could help while I was here by being some strange symbol of hope, then I’d do it.
I would be a face. I would survive, and then when the right time came, I’d escape.
Surviving in Nos would be just as much a mental game as a physical challenge.
Escaping would be an even harder challenge.
I would be in the pack until it was time to become a lone wolf.
I took a deep breath, raising my chin, and said, “I’ll do what must be done.” It wasn't a lie. I just wasn't promising to do what he thought.
◆◆◆
I paced my bed chamber that evening, plotting. I had shown too much emotion with Theo, making myself vulnerable. I had to change tactics.
I would create a routine and lull them into a false sense that I was comfortable and content. I would meet with Theo in the mornings and be more obliging to what he suggested. I would have Loel join us, due to his royal knowledge. I would study with Silas, learning all I could about Laeris, finding out anything that might help me find Jude and escape once and for all. I would train with Lachlan and Cash and learn how to protect myself should the Wolves ever go against me and side with Theo.
Late at night, I would pace the corridors, letting them think it was only because I couldn’t sleep.
I couldn’t keep being distracted by my feelings for Loel, even when he came to me late at night.
I would get out of there and find Jude.
Chapter 18
Caia
I quickly fell into my new planned routine, and honestly, I didn’t hate my life in Nos.
I was on edge, but I also enjoyed myself, and tried my hardest not to feel guilty about doing so as I formulated my escape plan.
◆◆◆
I awoke, and dressed with Alivia and Maisy, and ate breakfast with Theo and Loel as we plotted the best way I could help the Rebellion.
It was decided that I would begin meeting residents, inciting all of Nos to rise up as we began to encourage all residents to join in the fight to take back Queen’s City. I would give a speech at the Harvest Festival, which marked the end of the harvest season and welcomed the dark days of winter. Theo wanted to march on Queen’s City in the early spring as soon as the weather turned and needed to rally the crowd to do so.
If I had to come up with a title for myself, it’d definitely be more along the lines of Lead Cheerleader.
Theo wasn’t joking when he asserted that I was a figurehead. A trophy for the Rebellion and not of much actual use.
We discussed public appearances I would have — important business openings, dinner functions, celebrations for key members of the society.
I hated every second of it, but kept my feelings under control.
For now.
I even kept my rage reigned in when Theo decided on a way that I would begin dressing.
“You must look the part,” he’d say, having Alivia and Maisy hold up key wardrobe pieces. I would almost always wear blue or purple, because they were royal colors, he explained to me.
I clenched my jaw and nodded, trying to stifle the feeling that I’d rather set myself on fire than dress in frilly blazers and poofy skirts.
◆◆◆
Loel and I set boundaries. He no longer came to my bedroom, and instead, we began having lunch together in the gardens. Sometimes another one of the guys or even Mika would join us, but mostly, it was the two of us, enjoying a bit of time away from the duties that threatened to take over my entire life.
Lunch had become my favorite time of day, mostly because it involved no talk of politics, Laerisian history, or the fact that I was a princess.
Sometimes I pretended we were just flirtatious friends back home, like a work crush I’d never act on, or a life-long friend I’d never ruin.
There was an undercurrent to our lunches, and I felt Loel’s desire in the way his gaze lingered on my lips, or how he made any excuse to touch me, even just brush his fingers against my hand as we were walking.
The gardens were sprawling and gorgeous, with flowers blooming even as the days grew shorter and colder. I was allowed to walk through them alone with Mika and I loved the moments of solitude, while also giving me the surreal experience of traipsing about a manicured garden with a wolf.
I pointed to a large fountain in the middle of the gardens.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that the Rebellion has so much money?” I asked Mika, and she looked back at me, obviously silent, maybe even a bit bored. I shook my head, sure I was finally losing touch with reality.
I felt uncomfortable openly criticizing the Rebellion to the guys yet, so it was nice having a confidante, even if she never shifted out of her wolf form. In fact, I wasn’t convinced she had a not-wolf form.
Questioning Theo was something I hadn’t felt comfortable with yet in front of the Wolves without knowing their true allegiances.
If it came down to Theo versus me, I honestly wasn’t sure whose side they would take.
Mika pawed at my leg, tilting her head.
“I’m glad you think it’s weird, too,” I said, jokingly.
◆◆◆
In the afternoon, Silas and I would go to the library and he’d try to teach me a bit about Laeris. I had learned from the first attempt that Silas did not take kindly to me giving anything less than 100% in our lessons.
“You must understand the history of Laeris to understand the present,” became a motto of these lessons.
I learned that Laeris was only one kingdom in a larger world, with five other kingdoms. Despite thousands of years of territorial wars, the last few hundred years had been relatively peaceful among the kingdoms. Laeris had also been peaceful until Elestra’s reign.
Laeris was the most powerful of the six kingdoms, and it served as a global power of sorts.
I learned the lineage and facts about the entire royal family, and one day, Silas reiterated the legend of the royals descending from stars.
He wasn’t clear on the specifics, but was convinced that Celestial beings truly did evolve from stars.
“But how is that even possible?” I asked.
“There are many things that might not make sense to you, because you come from a world without the acknowledgment of magic,” he said, pushing his glasses back on his face.
If this scholar coul
d entrust things to magical powers, I realized I’d have to learn to do the same.
“Do you think I’ll be able to ever do magic? Control it, I mean?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t see why not,” he said absently, flipping through the pages of the book to find something more about my great-great-great grandfather.
We took breaks every few hours and I’d write a summary of the lesson to recite back to him the next day. If he didn’t like my summary or I missed key points, he’d simply repeat the lesson until I got it.
But all I remembered from that lesson was his cavalier way of telling me that I may be magical.
◆◆◆
Afternoons were typically reserved for training with Lachlan and Cash. Some days we’d lift weights, some days we’d play games that reminded me of basketball or tennis, some days we’d go on hour long runs throughout the Citadel grounds. The running days were definitely the worst days.
One day, they let me teach them how to climb the wall, and we found a bed mattress to lie on the ground under us as we took turns trying to climb higher than one another.
It was only after I requested that they should teach me how to fight that they began teaching me offensive and defensive fighting moves.
If I was going to have to figure out how to hold a sword over my head like the poster version of me, I’d want to at least know how to use it.
We began to take a 50/50 approach to training. Lachlan made me stronger and faster, and then Cash taught me how to throw punches and block swords with my own.
I sometimes wondered if Cash was simply trying to kill me by the way he trained me. He’d attack and I’d panic until I was able to stifle the panic and block his attacks.
Despite the panic, I felt stronger every day. I could endure more. I was better able to see what the next move was before my opponent had made it.
As my fighting skills grew, I began to wonder more about my magic skills.
Would they ever show themselves? Did I have magic inside of me or would I have to study charms? If I was really a descendent of Celestial beings and if Elestra had powers, wouldn’t I?
Chapter 19
Caia
“We’re going on a campaign visit,” Theo announced, leading Loel and I out of his solar immediately after we had arrived in the morning. I had been in Nos for weeks, but the outing was my first field trip.
“To where?” Loel asked, falling in step beside me.
“We’re going to meet with the leaders of the Saddlers Guild,” Theo instructed, and I tensed, uncertain.
“Should we bring all of the Wolves with us?” I asked, even though it killed part of the strong, independent woman I had left inside.
After the last time we had ventured into Nos and the strange group of men approached us at the uta stand, I was ready to be a little more careful.
“We’ll have Loel, but maybe let’s bring Cash along. If not for guarding, then because he’s very personable with the tradespeople in town,” Theo said, not looking up from a piece of paper he was scanning as we walked.
Cash? Personable? Were we talking about the same Cash?
I looked to Loel with a raised brow, but he shrugged back.
I was proven wrong no less than twenty minutes later as we walked into a saddle shop on the aptly named Saddlers Street and Cash greeted the owner by name, the two of them clutching forearms like old friends.
I enjoyed the pungent smell of leather, walking slowly through the shop to admire the saddles on display. My boots clicked on the wooden floor, which made me feel a bit prissy among strong workers, and I cursed my Graces for making me wear a skirt that day, regardless of the fact that it was rather plain and looked kind of cute hitting just above my over-the-knee boots. Even with my fitted jacket, I felt more like a pop star than politician.
“Do you know much ‘bout saddles, Mistress?” Asked a woman I hadn’t noticed behind a workbench.
I shook my head, leaning to run my hand over a saddle on display.
“I only learned to ride recently, and I must say, I haven’t gotten over the soreness,” I said with a grimace, and the woman gave me a smile.
“Well, then ye were not ridin’ in one of Marna’s saddles,” she said with a wink.
“Are you Marna? Do you own this shop?” I asked, my fingers moving over the intricately engraved design in the leather.
Marna snorted. “I am, but och no, my husband owns it, but it’s my designs and patterns he uses,” she said, smiling proudly.
“Doesn’t it bother you to let him get credit for your work?” I asked, my voice lower.
Marna shook her head. “I know what I know, as does he. And I never let him forget it,” she said, then gestured for me to follow her.
Well, if Theo wanted me to be a Princess of the People, I would start right then with Marna.
I glanced back to Loel, Cash, Theo, and the leader of the Saddle Guild, but none of them seemed to be paying me any attention.
I followed after the woman, walking through a small curtained doorway to a large back room. There were nearly a dozen people in the room, working on saddles at varying stages. Marna pointed out what people were working on — some were cutting leather, some were sewing pieces together, some were assembling what looked to be seats and horns and saddle skirts.
I realized some of the people in the room were children. I guessed the youngest I saw to be around eight or nine, her little hands holding a large leather carving knife with expertise.
Every time Laeris seemed familiar, something strange to my own experience back home sent me reeling.
“My daughter,” Marna said, putting her hand on the child’s shoulder and beaming at me with pride.
I held my tongue about her age, trying to convince myself it was actually a nice way to pass down tradition. I was still so stuck in the ways of my world. I couldn’t completely write off how things were done in Laeris just because I disagreed with them, right?
“Annika, say hello,” Marna chided her daughter, who was ignoring us, concentrating on her work instead.
“Are you the Princess?” Annika asked me, finally looking up.
“I might be,” I said, feeling skeptical myself.
“You don’t look like a princess,” Annika said, scrunching up her little nose.
Marna hissed and gave her daughter a small swat.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and gave the girl a kind smile. “Why do you think that?”
“You don’t have a crown. Or any powers,” she said, giving me a shrug and then looking back to her work.
She wasn’t wrong.
“The crown is really heavy, so they don’t let me wear it outside of the Citadel,” I said with a straight face, and Annika’s head snapped up as her eyes met mine to try to tell if I was joking.
Of course, I was joking, they weren’t just giving away crowns in the Rebellion. Though I was sure they could afford it. Somehow…
I could hear raised voices and I turned, walking back towards the curtain. I stayed in the other room so that I could listen without the men stopping their conversation in my presence. I might have been dubbed the Princess of the People, but Theo wasn’t sharing all of his secrets with me yet.
“We refuse to meet this demand,” the Saddle Maker said, crossing his arms.
Theo looked bored. “You will meet this demand or you will be out of work. Who else do you make saddles for? No one but me, Gideon. Ten thousand saddles by the end of the winter season. Figure it out,” he said flatly.
Ten thousand saddles sounded like a hefty number for a small saddle shop. I bit my tongue to avoid interrupting something I didn’t know enough about.
Cash’s expression was hardened, but even I could tell he was irritated with Theo, too.
“Giving us a deadline like that is preposterous,” the saddle maker said, his face turning red with anger. “I would have to be making fifty saddles a day. We can finish four on a good day.”
“Perhaps we can come up wit
h a compromised plan,” Loel said diplomatically, and my heart thumped a little faster with pride that he would try to smooth things over even in front of Theo. “How many saddles do you think you’ll be able to make? You, plus the guild.”
“Me? Maybe eight hundred. With everyone working at optimum conditions, maybe five thousand, but we just don’t have the resources. Winter is our hardest time here in Nos,” the Saddle Maker began to say, but Cash shook his head.
“We’ll give you any resources you may need so that you are best set up for success,” Cash said, and Loel gave a small nod.
A flicker of movement at the shop’s open entrance caught my eye, and I caught a flash of a woman dressed all in white with glowing, pale hair.
My heart skipped a beat.
Flora.
I tip-toed to prevent my boots from making too much noise, skirting the edge of the store as the men hashed out details. Cash and Loel were handling everything and I had no idea what I was even brought along for, but if I wasn’t immediately needed, then I could at least check out my Flora sighting.
I walked out into the lane and looked back and forth, finally spotting the White Woman as she was turning a corner.
I pressed through the crowd, pushing through packs of merchants and shoppers.
I followed Flora down a smaller lane, then an alley, then another and another, and finally, with one quick glance over her shoulder to ensure I was still behind her, she stepped into a cobbler’s store.
I walked in after her, the bell over the door jingling with my arrival. The room was bare, save for shoes on display, and completely empty of people. I looked around, but Flora was nowhere.
I turned, about to walk out of the store to ensure I had walked into the right one, when a flash of light from the corner startled me. I gasped, seeing Flora standing near a display of simple clogs.
