Keys to the Realm, page 18
Evan inhaled a shaky breath. When he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. He just looked at her and looked at her. She looked at him and thought that maybe he’d returned to the castle for her.
She wasn’t sure how long they stood there like that before rain began to batter down on them, extinguishing the torches and plunging them into complete darkness. Gasping, she lifted her hand—
Her fingers grazed his—he’d reached for her, too—and quickly entwined hers with them. She pulled him in the direction of the concealed tunnel to her secret passage.
This was madness, reckless. Foolish. But she couldn’t enter the castle through the front door, dressed as she was. She definitely couldn’t get into her rooms; her guards wouldn’t let her. And she couldn’t leave Evan in the pouring rain. Not without speaking to him about why she was in men’s attire.
She shut the tunnel door after pulling Evan inside. Taking a match from her pocket, she lit the lantern that she kept hanging on a nail by the entrance.
“Princess, where are we?” Evan asked as he brushed back his wet hair from his face and looked around the small space.
She took his hand and dragged him deeper into the tunnel. When they were halfway to her chambers, Malin stopped and leaned against the wall. Suddenly exhausted, she slid down to the floor and hugged her knees. Evan crouched down opposite her.
“Are you alright, Princess?”
She nodded. “Just tired.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before leaving,” he murmured. “That’s why I came back.”
“To say sorry?”
“To say that I can’t—that none of us can stay in the Palace. It will cost us too much to travel up here. The people of the Outskirts have been kind enough to let us stay with them for less than what it would cost us to hire horses and carriages.”
“Transportation can be provided—but I’m guessing that you and the crew want to stay in the Outskirts.”
His lack of reply meant yes.
“Thank you for coming back to tell me, Evan. I appreciate it.”
“What did you need to see me about?” he asked tentatively. When Malin didn’t answer, he said, “To tell me off for repaying your kindness and generosity in such a rude manner?”
She chuckled sarcastically. “I should. I could.” She sighed. “But I’m too tired.”
She rested her cheek on her knees and her cap fell off her head. Her blonde tresses tumbled down, the only thing about her that was dry. The wet clothes were cooling her body after the sweltering two days. It felt nice.
“You disguised yourself,” Evan said slowly, “because you wouldn’t have been able to leave the Palace otherwise.”
“Something like that.”
“Thank you for bringing me here,” he told her in a lighter tone. “That rain... does it come down that hard all the time? It’s quite hot, too, for rain...”
“I don’t know. This was the first time I’ve been out on a rainy day. Well, night,” she corrected. “As the weather becomes cooler in the next two days, I believe the rain will be cold as well.”
The rain outside was getting louder and heavier.
“What did you want to see me about, Princess?” Evan asked again.
“I don’t know,” she told him. “I just wanted to see you.”
She heard him suck in a breath. “I didn’t return to tell you that the we can’t stay in the Palace.”
Malin raised her head to look him in the eye. “Then, why did you come back, Evan?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just wanted to see you.”
As soon as it was light outside, Princess Malin told him to leave the tunnel.
“You won’t be able to ride back to the coast now,” she said at the entrance of the sanctuary she’d brought him to. “The roads are all mud. And the rain is strong enough to throw you off your horse if you force the poor creature to ride in this weather.”
Evan nodded. “Yes, Princess.”
“You don’t have to call me that all the time,” she told him with a dismissive shake of her head.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Or that.”
“Yes, Princess.”
She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him. He grinned. The Princess rolled her eyes.
“You’re going to make your way back to the Palace, to the nice room I gave you, and stay there,” she instructed him in a strict voice, sounding much older than her age. Maybe that’s what she’d intended? “You can join your countrymen when it’s dry again. The sun dries everything out very quickly.”
Evan nodded. It wasn’t ideal, but he didn’t have a choice. It’s not the end of the world. From what his fellow guards had told him when he caught up with them yesterday, the information that Prince Wyett sought would grace their ears very soon. Everyone in the Outskirts was friendly and forthcoming—they’d reveal the truth that the Royals were trying to hide.
It wasn’t absolutely necessary for Evan to be out investigating. And staying at the Palace meant he could see Princess Malin.
I just wanted to see you.
Her words were still resounding in his head now. He hadn’t lied when he’d repeated those words back to her. The thought of leaving this strange Island without saying goodbye to her, without seeing her one last time... The thought had been unbearable, so he’d raced back in hopes of getting another chance to speak to her.
How lucky that she was the first soul he saw when he arrived at the Palace. How lucky that he recognised her. Of course, he did. He had seen those eyes of hers in his head all day.
She rode out to find me—
“So, do you think you can find your way?” she asked him, unbolting the tunnel door.
“Yes.” He had trained to remember routes and retrace them in blindfolds. I’ll be fine. “How are you getting back?”
But he thought he knew. This was a secret tunnel into the castle, most likely into her personal quarters. If she offered to lead him into her personal rooms through this passage, he wouldn’t agree. He couldn’t go into her room. She was Royalty. He was not.
“I think you know,” she murmured. “I’m trusting you to never compromise my safety.” She gave him a Princess’s stare.
Evan bowed his head. “I’ll never compromise your safety, I promise. You can trust me.”
“I don’t know why, but I do, Evan.”
She shook her head at herself. She thought she was being crazy. Maybe she was. They both were. Me, especially.
Before he could change his mind, he lifted his hand and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. She dragged in a ragged breath, her face instantly blotching with red.
Then, he exited her secret passage and ran into the pounding rain.
“You had an awful lot you wanted to discuss at the meeting, Father,” Leesha said, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. She hoped her smile looked natural.
“An awful lot has happened while I’ve been away,” her father replied.
“Which you have caught up on very quickly,” her husband said without looking at the Old King.
Leesha gave Parth a questioning look; he flashed her a bland smile.
A Council meeting on a Saturday morning was rare for Adgar, but her father had deemed it necessary. Yes, they had to talk about the Roshdanis, but Leesha had hoped to do that after the seabird had left their shores.
“I like to keep on top of things that are happening in my Kingdom.” The Old King dared Parth to respond to that statement by rising to his feet and squaring his shoulders.
Leesha didn’t always notice just how big and strong her father was. When he raised himself to his full height, he was a head taller and much wider than her husband. Parth was built well, too, but when he stood up and faced her father, he looked like a child in comparison.
“With all due respect, Father,” Parth said, “this is no longer your Kingdom.”
The Old King lifted his chin. “It is no more my Kingdom than it is yours,” he told Parth. “Adgar belongs to no one but is home to all its people. The King or Queen”—he flicked his eyes down at Leesha—“merely guide and protect the land.”
“And that’s what we’re trying to do,” Parth insisted. He walked around the table to his father-in-law while saying, “By increasing the size of our military, we will be—”
“The current size is more than sufficient,” her father snapped. Parth was nose-to-nose with him now. “No Island has dared attack us since the Vijkantis came into power—”
“Are we really going over this again?” Leesha shook her head.
The majority of the meeting had revolved around the expansion of Adgar’s armies. She agreed to reconsider her decision about recruiting more soldiers. Parth wasn’t happy, but most of the Council had agreed with her father. He had a point. There really was no threat of invasion.
She rose to her feet, forcing the men to step back a few paces. Still, they eyed each other with distaste. She couldn’t believe Parth was showing such hostility towards her father. He hadn’t shied away from arguing with the Old King during the meeting, either.
The twins’ decision to not marry Tyross, jointly or otherwise, had annoyed her husband, as had the Council’s vote to abolish the recently implemented security measures in the castle. When the Old King had phrased it as “close monitoring”, Leesha couldn’t overrule the vote. It would have given the impression that she wanted to spy on her Court.
In all honesty, she really didn’t understand why Parth was so interested in what people did around the Palace. She wasn’t. As long as they weren’t plotting against her, they could go wherever they wanted, do what they pleased.
Parth is going to be very difficult today. Or maybe not. When her father had asked him at the start of the meeting if he’d finished writing to Prince Wyett, he’d said that he hadn’t. Hopefully, he’d be busy with that and stay away from her until his mood became less sour. The sooner he writes that letter, the sooner the seabird will be on its way.
Leesha had been pleased to hear that the northerners wouldn’t be staying in the Palace after all. Apart from that Reet fellow. She had a feeling that Evanson Reet wanted to snoop around the castle, learn as much as he could about Aaryana, and be present for when the reply to his Prince was ready. His fellow Roshdanis were probably speaking to the commoners.
“Yes, Leesha,” her father barked at her. “We will discuss it again. Why do you need to think about this? We don’t need to expand our military. Everything at the Royal Academy should return to how it was.”
She agreed, but Parth had been most adamant on this change compared to everything else he’d suggested since her coronation. In fact, he’d recently started commenting on how Adgar needed more warships, better ones. Bigger ones. Jokily, she’d asked if he was thinking of raging war on their neighbouring Kingdoms and he’d said, “Maybe I am.”
Leesha had assumed that he’d been jesting and he hadn’t brought that up since then. But on some nights, especially on the dry ones when they slept in different rooms, she did wonder if he had ambitions to wear more than one Crown.
“Unless you plan to conquer other lands?” the Old King asked with narrowed eyes.
“Of course, not!”
“Then, I suggest you call a meeting with the Chief of Defence and rectifying this as soon as possible.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And reinstate that Rudro fellow as Head of the Academy. The Chief of Defence has no idea whatsoever about running an educational institution.”
“Yes, Father.”
Satisfied and relieved, her father walked around Parth to head for the exit.
When he was at the door, Parth said, “Father.”
The Old King turned around.
“We will accept your recommendations today out of respect for you, but you will do well to remember that you are not King anymore. Your daughter is the Queen. And she will not appreciate it if you continue to undermine her decisions.”
Her father didn’t acknowledge Parth’s rudeness by changing his expression.
“Today, you spoke freely, tomorrow... If we need your advice, we will come to you. Your daughter doesn’t like being told how to run her Kingdom.”
The Old King kept his face neutral. “My daughter will tell me what she does and does not appreciate from me. Not you.” His eyes narrowed. “I might not be King, but neither are you. You never will be. Remember that.”
Hunger alerted her to the fact that dinner was probably being served now. She lowered the drops of water back into the bathtub and wondered if she should make a late entrance to the dining hall or get Jeena to bring some food to her room before bed. Deciding to practice her magic for a little longer, Aaryana reconnected with the water and began to raise little droplets into the air.
Forming that link with the water was a lot easier now, perhaps because she was feeling so many different emotions over so many people. Wyett. Seth. Micah. Rozlene. Nidiya. The Sea Prince. And she was making strides in shaping the water, moving it at various speeds. Wyett will be impressed. When he finally returned to Court.
It was Saturday now and he was still unwell. Still not allowing visitors into his chambers. The King had cancelled their late night meetings until further notice.
Of course, she knew why Wyett was shutting her out—to protect her from the heat in his skin—but how was he able to stay away from her? She missed him so much. She had dented the wooden window frame by blasting one of her tiny drops of water at it, just thinking that today was going to be another day that she wouldn’t see Wyett—
Click.
Today wasn’t going to be another day that she wouldn’t see him. The sound of a key in the front door of Dakna Deyati’s apartment told her that Wyett had come. No one else had access to this room. Clearly, he thought she was having dinner and decided to sneak in here while it was empty. Her bodyguards never needed much convincing when she told them to go away so there was nothing to suggest to him that Aaryana was in here.
Had Wyett come to talk with his mother’s portrait? After Kanona’s death, Aaryana had spent a lot of time in her shrine. Being amongst her mother’s favourite possessions had made her feel close to her mother, feel as though she wasn’t truly gone. If Wyett was here to share his thoughts with Dakna, Aaryana wanted to eavesdrop on that conversation. Desperately.
More than that though, she wanted to see him. Make sure he was alright. She heard the door being locked, slow footsteps, and then nothing. Aaryana opened the bathroom door and walked into the main room. Startled, Wyett spun around to face her.
Eventually, he sighed, relieved that it wasn’t someone that shouldn’t be here. She showed her own relief, relief to see him after what felt like weeks not days, by running up to him and throwing her arms around his neck.
Holding him tight, she said, “I’m so glad you’re feeling better—”
“Aaryana, stop. Please.”
His words were soft, pained. She moved away. Just two steps.
“Thank you,” he almost whispered. “I wasn’t—I didn’t think—I thought you’d be at dinner. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Too happy to feel stung by the formal way he was addressing her, she said, “I have so much to show you. Come.”
Aaryana hurried back to the bathtub. She didn’t hear him follow until five seconds later. He really wanted to stay away from her. For my protection, she reminded herself.
He stayed by the door as she showed him her speeding balls of water, how hard she could send them towards the window frame, the dents they made before splattering on the floor. Due to the small size of the liquid pearls, there wasn’t much to mop up from the marble.
Wyett was wearing a mirthless crooked smile when she looked at him. “Impressive. I’m not surprised. Like I said, you’re a natural. But...” He took a step forward. Just one. “If you give the beads of water pointy tips, you’ll be able to do more damage.”
“Like the tip of an arrow!” She made a note to try that later.
She didn’t want to start practicing that now, not when Wyett was back. Aaryana wanted to talk to him. Tell him about the scorch marks he’d left on her training gear. But would that coerce him to permanently cut her out of his life?
“Why am I not surprised that you’re making weapons as soon as you get a good grasp on your power?” He shook his head indulgently. Then, he was serious. “You’re not planning an attack or anything, are you?” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. He was obviously thinking of Micah.
“Of course, not!”
“Good.” He gave her a hard stare. “Anyway, I’ll let you carry on...” The Prince walked out of the bathroom.
“Wait, I need to talk to you!” She followed him out.
“About what happened on Thursday? I won’t fight or touch or do anything to you ever again,” he assured her. “And you’ll never get hurt like that.” He was speaking fast; he couldn’t wait to say his piece and get away from her. “But you’re going to have to behave, too. You have to stop... Just stay away from me, alright? It’s for the best.”
That was what she wanted to talk about, but not from that standpoint. He hadn’t hurt her enough the other day that she wanted to avoid him completely. Yes, it could have been worse, but she didn’t care. His burns on her skin would be worth it. As long as they didn’t kiss or touch like that, they could still be friends and practice their magic together. Why did he have to take precaution to the very extreme?
“That’s not what I had in—”
“No? Did you want to talk about Rudro?” He raised an eyebrow. Her mouth popped open in surprise. “He’s probably read your letter by now...”
Rudro! Wyett was obsessed with him. When would he believe that her Combat Master was nothing to her? When you tell him the whole truth, that’s when.
“Yes,” she sighed, “and he’ll know that there’s no rhyme or reason to it.” She went to sit on the futon. “He’s known me since I was a child.”
Wyett came and sat on the seat opposite her.
“He was a Royal Guard,” she told him. “I used to train with him—and a lot of the other guards—in secret. I wanted the extra practice. The extra experience. I wanted to be the best.
