Yuri staggered, the figure moving with him, and it was at that point the SSV agents turned around and saw what was going on. At the same time, the figure’s hood fell back, and I realized it was Telessa.
“Stay back!” I yelled. I told the investigators that I was worried the crazed knifeman – I said it was a man I saw - would hurt someone else.
I’d promised her, back in the hotel room.
The knife plunged and twisted, pulled out and plunged in again. Then the figure was off and running and Yuri was falling to the ground. He was dead before the ambulance arrived.
The chief investigator poured particular scorn on the idea that, in broad daylight, surrounded by twenty or thirty assorted police, soldiers and SSV personnel, a criminal could be murdered and no-one see a damn thing. But SSV had lost its deputy chief and Telessa was one of their own: they just closed ranks, kept silent and let the case quietly die.
Epilogue
A lot can happen in six months.
I was standing in the bedroom of what would normally be a horrendously expensive hotel. They’d happily let us take over the entire place for free for a few days: they figured that afterwards, their link to the big day would keep them booked up for years to come.
Doracella adjusted the tiara. It had been designed by the royal jeweler to perfectly accompany both my exkella collar and the princess collar that would replace it. It was worth the same as a high-end sports car: the princess collar itself was supposedly worth ten times that. The royals had been on a very public austerity drive since the coup, but for a royal wedding, all bets were off.
“I’m going to fluff my lines,” I told Doracella. “Or burst into tears. Or fluff my lines and then burst into tears.”
She just glanced at me in the mirror and smiled. She did that a lot, these days. A slave seeing a bodyguard broke about five thousand rules, but I’d persuaded Jagor to give her and Arno a free pass.
“What’s the order of the bows again?” I asked. Even though a royal wedding only happened three or four times a century, everyone in Asteria – or at least, all of the women – seemed to know this stuff off by heart.
“First to the Queen, then to the King, then to Jagor. Mother, father, husband.”
After briefly thawing under the stress of the coup, the Queen had returned to her usual disapproving self – which was actually kind of a relief, because it proved everything was back to normal. In the six months since the coup I’d become the perfect Asterian woman: but always had another few miles to go, in her eyes. At least the wedding had provided some respite, although I estimated I had only a few days of post-wedding glow before she started prodding about grandchildren.
The King had quietly indicated that he intended to step down in another six months or so. Long enough for it not to be seen as a reaction to the coup, but soon enough that it acknowledged the need for change.
And Jagor? I hadn’t seen him since the previous day, in keeping with tradition. He’d used the enforced separation wisely, doing something he knew I didn’t want to be around for.
Doracella adjusted the tiara for the seventh time, then gently flipped the veil over my face as a test. It was weird, like being a present waiting to be unwrapped.
“Perfect,” said Doracella.
Gwen burst in, said “Ohmigod’ too many times and took a few hundred cell phone photos. I’d tried to explain to her about official royal photographers and exclusive magazine agreements and so on, and she’d just looked at me blankly. And then taken my picture.
Gwen had been here a week. Having her and Louis around the palace had helped to push back the wedding nerves: until now. I’d been delighted to discover, shortly after the coup, that she’d patched things up with him. When I pressed her on it, she’d shrugged and said, “You two put things into perspective.” I was pretty sure she meant it in a good way. She’d had to be introduced to collars, and the need to wear one whenever she left the palace. Louis – who, it turned out, had been hiding a bit of a dominant streak – was very keen on the idea. Gwen was less sure, but I noticed that after the first few days, the collar didn’t come off, even when the two of them were safely indoors. Louis had even, while blushing quite endearingly, asked how they might get into Hendel’s sex club.
I caught Gwen’s eye in the mirror. “You sure you’re okay with the plan?” I asked gently.
She gave me a salute. “We’ll take good care of her,” she told me sincerely. She’d agreed to take Telessa back with her to New York. Sarik hadn’t been able to leave her anything in his will: he couldn’t, since slaves can’t own anything. But he’d cleverly sidestepped the rules by ordering a company to be set up after his death and ownership of Telessa to pass to it. The company would pay her a monthly wage and leave her free to do what she wished: essentially her job was to manage Sarik’s assets. She could have lived out her life in Asteria, essentially owner-less and free, but since the coup had decided there was nothing here for her.
Given that Asteria didn’t have any kind of treaty with the US, the paperwork involved in her emigrating had been…interesting. But Sato at the State Department had made it happen, in return for a few meetings with Jagor to discuss the future. Telessa had no idea what she’d do in New York, but I trusted Gwen to look after her. Actually, I wasn’t sure which one was going to be looking after which.
Doracella adjusted the veil one last time and pronounced me done. I waited while they gathered up the train of my dress: armfuls of snow-white fabric. The thing was twenty feet when stretched out: good thing we were marrying in a cathedral, or part of me would still be outside during the vows.
The palace had returned to its usual state: grandeur and a reassuring quiet, the thump of boots and crashing of bottles a distant memory. The gardens, which we’d be using later for photos, were immaculate again and new vases had been bought – or in some cases, donated by governments eager to curry favor – to replace the ones Vinko and his men had smashed. I’d spent a long day with Jagor posing for a portrait of the two of us, and a few of Europe’s better art forgers had been put to work restoring or copying the pictures Vinko had slashed.
We climbed into a black limo: Arno was driving, which had been a deliberate choice: it meant that he didn’t have guard duties during the ceremony, so he could be by Doracella’s side. Jagor had rolled his eyes at this, and I’d told him that men don’t understand weddings.
Speeding through the city, every street seemed to be hung with white and royal purple bunting. Closer to the cathedral, the roads were closed to traffic and the full width of the asphalt was painted purple to mark the route. I put my hand to my mouth as I saw the crowds, thirty deep on both sides and stretching for a mile or more. “Wave,” Doracella told me, and I started the slow, supposedly ladylike wave she’d taught me.
I was, of course, the last to arrive. The bride always has to make an entrance, even when it’s world leaders she’s keeping waiting. Arno opened the door and Gwen hopped out. I grabbed her hand. “Am I crazy?” I suddenly demanded.
She gave me a cat-like grin. “Yes,” she told me. “And you’re about to be a crazy slave princess and probably have lots of crazy, spoilt royal children, and you’ll love every minute of it.”
I stepped from the car. A wall of sound almost lifted me off my feet, breaking against me in waves and, just when I thought it couldn’t get any louder, it rose again. I gave one last wave and started walking toward the cathedral, its main doors gaping wide to receive me, a tongue of purple carpet stretched out to the limo. Doracella and Gwen fell in beside me. Behind us, the train flowed down the cathedral steps in a white waterfall.
We’d rehearsed it, of course, but I wasn’t ready for the scale of the place: filling it with people had somehow made it feel bigger, not smaller.
And then I saw him standing at the front, and I thought my heart was going to burst. I had to look at the guests, or the tears would have started.
I recognized most of the foreign dignitaries – but only because Medenko had carefully coached me. Then there were the rows of Asterian upper society: lords and ladies.
One lord in particular. I smiled to him as I passed. Ismelda had carefully told the press the story of Alvek’s heroism during the coup: how he’d fearlessly rescued the prince and been shot while doing it. Jagor and the King had flexed some of their more rarely-used royal powers and granted him a title, complete with land and a mansion. The land had come from one of several army chiefs who’d been arrested after the coup: they wouldn’t be needing it, now that they’d be living out their lives in the palladium mines.
Alvek’s new title also solved another problem. He’d turned out to be the perfect match for Calara, combining wealth, status and a complete disregard for what the rest of upper society thought. Watching the Queen maneuver them together was almost frightening: they’d never really stood a chance. Fortunately, they’d hit it off and what the media at first found shocking was now being portrayed as a glorious comeback for the almost-princess. We’d even managed to get on – chilly – speaking terms.
I looked at Jagor again.
Oh God!
I swallowed and quickly looked back at the guests.
I was near the front, now, passing the retinue and then the extended royal family on one side and what little family I had on the other. Telessa was there, too, hours away from leaving her country for good.
And then I was there, standing next to him, and I didn’t have a choice but to look at him. He looked different, since the coup: his fears had evaporated and he was ready to rule. He’d always looked strong, but now he had…
bearing.
He looked like a king.
All my doubts and fears went away. I was
there
, for one perfect moment: for once I wasn’t second-guessing myself or over-thinking things. I was at the altar with Jagor, and I was bathed in a glorious, warm certainty that this was
right.
Jagor lifted the veil, his eyes full of concern. I felt something run down my cheek, and realized I was crying. “Sorry,” I told them, trying to wipe my eyes without ruining my make-up.
The priest, who looked about a hundred and fifty, smiled kindly. “Happens every time,” he said.
In a nod to my norms, the vows started with Jagor slipping a wedding band onto my finger: I’d had to fight the Queen to get that. Then it was time for the collar. What was surprising was how small it looked: but that was the point. A big, elaborate collar would have been impractical: for show only. This one was designed to be worn forever.
It was three fingers wide and curved down at the front. The outside was a seamless, shining coating of solid silver: thick enough to maintain the shape between the hinges but thin enough that it wasn’t overly heavy. On the front, the prince’s seal was picked out in diamonds: it burned like fire every time the light caught them. The inside was padded with leather so smooth and soft it seemed to melt under my touch.
“Do you give yourself to this man,” the priest asked, “utterly and without question?”
“I do,” I said, looking into Jagor’s eyes.
“Do you accept that you are now his: owned by him, provided for by him, cared for by him?”
“I do.”
“Do you swear to accept his commands, whatever they may be, placing your trust completely in him?”
“I do.”
The priest nodded to me and I lifted the collar to my neck. Countless fittings meant that it was superbly comfortable, as light and soft as a lover’s caress. And yet at the same time it seemed to weigh as much as a country.
I looked at Jagor as I pushed the ends together. I had no doubts.
The cathedral was quiet enough that everyone could hear the single click
of the lock. I placed the key in Jagor’s palm, and I was his.
***
We’d been told that when we came out of the cathedral, we were to stop and wave to the crowd. I was on such a high that Jagor had to gently restrain me by the hand, or I would have been halfway into the limo.
The applause was thunderous. Billboard-sized screens had been set up outside the cathedral so the crowds could watch the ceremony and every flat surface beyond the barriers – even the roofs of cars – was covered by a carpet of people.
We held hands and waved. The coup had done what we never could have done on our own. Any notion of Jagor being a playboy prince had been quashed by the speech he’d made. Support for the royals and Jagor in particular had never been higher, and they’d even accepted me, believing me to be some sort of heroine. A worrying number of women were now copying my hairstyle.
Things would have to change, of course: but maybe not as much as you’d think. The coup, and the backlash against it after Jagor’s speech, had shown that people were basically happy with the system. With the army temporarily disgraced, Jagor and his father could cut them down to a reasonable size and spend the money where it was needed. The UN had made gentle suggestions about political reforms and elections, but the public was overwhelmingly against it. The royals were going to be in power for a long time to come and as long as the people were happy, most countries supported us. The US, in particular, was even talking about some sort of limited trade agreement and, eventually, a treaty that would allow for tourism. Tourists in Asteria: that was going to be interesting.
As for those behind the coup, fourteen people in the French government, including the minister of defense, had been hauled up in front of an international tribunal that would take at least another year to finish. The arrests in the Asterian army had stopped at the higher levels, with no charges brought against the soldiers themselves.
There was some strange fallout from the coup. They’d put a plaque up in the abandoned apartment Jagor and I had hidden in, and there was talk of the apartments being overhauled and sold to yuppies for eye-watering sums. The motorbike Jagor had stolen had been returned, with a very public apology, and the owner had later sold it for five times its value.