Authors: Amanda Hocking
“There is no right answer to that question, you know,” Kasper said, and I looked sharply at him.
“Of course there is. Murder is always wrong.”
“When you’re a civilian, that’s true,” he conceded. “But the King has the power to declare war and name anyone a traitor, worthy of death. He decides what is and what isn’t murder. When you swear to serve him, you give up your own individuality; you forsake your own beliefs and morals in the name of the higher calling of serving the kingdom, for honor and duty.”
I shook my head. “You can serve the King without betraying your own morality. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
“I would like to think so, and I like to live my life that way,” Kasper said. “But if the King commanded me to do something, and I denied him, he could have me locked up or banished. Even executed. So it’s not just morality that would influence my decision. It’s also self-preservation.”
I stopped, and Kasper walked down a few more steps before pausing to look back up at me. Until this moment, I’d viewed him as one of the most upstanding people I knew, worthy of admiration. He was honorable, noble, and seemed to embody every quality that a member of the H
ö
gdragen was supposed to possess.
“But you wouldn’t do it,” I persisted, almost begging him to agree with me, to pretend that this was all a misunderstanding. That the most virtuous members of the H
ö
gdragen couldn’t be as fallible as everyone else.
Kasper sighed heavily. “I believe I would do my best to sway the King to the correct course of action and to protect the innocent. But in the end, I am nothing more than a sword at the end of the King’s arm. I do as he directs.”
From out in the hall, I could hear Kasper talking, followed by the fainter sound of Tilda’s laughter. His bedroom door was open, so I peered around to see him holding his cell phone out toward the dome glass wall that held the murky water at bay. He was video chatting with Tilda and giving her a tour of our accommodations.
“The water is so dark,” Tilda was saying, her voice coming out weak and metallic from the phone. “I’d expected it be clear and bright.”
“Everything here is darker and dingier than you might guess,” Kasper admitted.
“Well, good. I was afraid you’d get too enchanted with Storvatten and not want to come back to me, so I’m glad it’s not all that magical,” Tilda said, laughing a little.
Kasper turned the phone back around to face him, so she could see him again. “There’s nothing in this world that can keep me from coming back home to you.”
Since I’d accidentally eavesdropped on a private moment, I cleared my throat and knocked on the open door.
Kasper turned back to me with a start, so Tilda asked in concern, “Is someone there?”
“It’s Bryn.” Kasper pointed the phone toward me so I could see Tilda’s smiling face on the small screen.
“Hey, Tilda.” I waved toward the tiny camera on the phone, causing her to laugh.
“How are you enjoying the palace?” Tilda asked.
“I’m enjoying it as much as I can, I guess.” I shrugged.
“Good.” She paused, seeming to hesitate. “Ridley asked me how you’re doing, and he’ll be happy to hear that you’re looking well.”
“Thanks.” I swallowed back a lump in my throat and looked away from her. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your moment here, but I was just checking to see if Kasper wanted to join me for lunch.”
After we’d toured the towers, Bayle had shown us around the palace for the rest of the morning, but he’d given us an hour on our own for lunch. Kennet had said that he’d meet me at my room at noon, but I was getting hungry and decided it would be better if I got something on my own.
“I thought you were having lunch with the Prince?” Kasper asked.
“Lunch with the Prince?” Tilda raised an eyebrow that others might have misinterpreted as intrigue, but I knew it meant nothing but disapproval.
Tilda had already witnessed my out-of-class dating once, and heard me vow that I’d never do it again. Back when I was sixteen and freshly graduated from tracker school and I thought I knew everything, I’d pursued a crush with a slightly older Markis.
Even though I was determined to be a H
ö
gdragen, and inter-dating between a tracker and a Markis was forbidden, I was at a stage in my life where I thought I could do what I wanted—that I was smart enough to play around the rules.
I hadn’t been in love with him, but initially I had been enamored by his charm and good looks. He seemed to enjoy me too, and there was something about the danger of getting caught that made it all the more exciting.
After we’d been sneaking around for a few weeks, I began to detect an arrogant, mean streak to him. Once when we were fooling around in his room, I noticed a polar bear rug on his floor. Hunting wasn’t prohibited by the Kanin, but doing so purely for sport was frowned upon.
I asked him about it, and he proudly boasted of killing it himself. Not long after that I began to realize that thanks to my exotic blond hair and blue eyes, I was just like the polar bear—a trophy from a conquest.
When it was all over, Tilda did her best not to say “I told you so,” even though she had repeatedly warned me this was a bad idea and expressed her disapproval. But she was more than relieved when I told her that it would never happen again, and I swore off romance with royals forever.
Of course, I did have this awful habit of breaking promises I’d made to myself.
“I’ve been waiting in my room for fifteen minutes, and the Prince hasn’t shown up,” I told Tilda, doing my best to display a lack of interest in him. “I thought I’d head up to the kitchen and grab something.”
“I already called up to the kitchen and had them bring me something.” Kasper pointed to a half-eaten sandwich on a silver tray next to his bed. “Otherwise I would.”
“No problem.” I waved it off. “Enjoy your lunch with Tilda.”
“Take care of yourself, Bryn,” Tilda called after me as I turned to leave.
With nothing else to say, I preferred to hurry out with my head down, trying to pretend it didn’t hurt to hear that Ridley had been concerned about me. It hurt because he cared, and it hurt because he shouldn’t, and it hurt because things with us would never be the way they were with Tilda and Kasper.
I had my eyes on the floor, my mind desperately trying to push away any thought of Ridley. My heart throbbed painfully in my chest. That was how I didn’t notice Prince Kennet until I’d run right into him—literally hitting my head against his chest.
“Sorry, Your Highness, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.” Apologies tumbled out of my mouth.
“No need to be sorry,” Kennet said, his deep voicing lilting as he smiled. “In fact, I should be the one saying I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I brushed my hair out of my face and looked up at him. “I’m the one who ran smack into you.”
“You did do that,” he agreed. “But running into you is never all bad. Especially when I’ve left you waiting so long for our lunch date.”
“Oh, right, that.” I hurried to think of a way to contradict him on the term
date
.
“You must be ravenous by now,” Kennet went on before I could correct his statement. “The good news is that lunch is waiting for you.” Then he frowned. “The bad news is that it won’t be with me. Queen Linnea has requested that you join her instead, and since the Queen outranks me, I am obligated to step aside. This time.”
“She and I do need to talk about the things going on in the kingdom, so it’s just as well,” I said.
“A working lunch?” Kennet wrinkled his nose. “That sounds terrible.”
“I enjoy the company of the Queen, and this may come as a shock to you, but I enjoy my job a great deal.”
Kennet put his hand over his heart in mock surprise. “I can hardly even fathom the idea.”
“I thought as much,” I replied with a laugh.
“There is some good news though,” Kennet said. “I get to escort you to the Queen’s tea room.”
“She has her own tea room?” I asked, following Kennet as he started to walk away.
“She’s the Queen. She has her own
everything
.”
“Do you think that’s why she was targeted?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know why anyone went after her. I know I just said she has everything, but in truth it all actually belongs to my brother. She just has access to it.”
That was essentially what Bayle had already told me. There wasn’t really any reason for anyone to go after Linnea, unless it was personal. But I’d been hoping that Kennet might be able to shed a different light on things.
“Do you share any of the Queen’s concerns?” I asked.
“You mean do I feel that someone is lurking around the corner waiting to nab me?” Kennet seemed to consider it, but when he looked down at me he was grinning. “How could I feel unsafe when I know I’ve got you here to protect me?”
“I’m here to protect the Queen.”
“Technically you’re here to help the royal family, which does include me.”
“You didn’t really answer my question though,” I said. “Do you think something is going on here?”
“I think that our guards have been horribly trained and commanded for years now,” Kennet said, and he seemed to be choosing his words with an unusual level of care. Normally, he’d say any little thing that flitted into his mind, but for once he appeared cautious.
“As a result of the guards’ ineptitude,” he went on, “it’s entirely plausible that something troublesome is afoot. But it would be near impossible to discern what is due to incompetence and what’s due to actual nefarious intentions.”
“Bayle told me your brother has been reluctant to make changes,” I said. “If the guard is awful, do you know why that is?”
“The exact machinations of my brother’s mind have always been a mystery to me,” Kennet said with a sigh. “I do know that during his coronation speech, he promised to continue our father’s reign, upholding everything that he’d put in place. But why the King refuses to change in the face of all the evidence telling him it’s necessary…” He trailed off.
He stopped and turned to me, his blue eyes softening. “You have to understand. Our father was a very difficult man, and Mikko got the brunt of Father’s …
difficulty
. Mikko never learned how to stand up for himself, and he’s uneasy about change or responsibility.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good combination in a King,” I pointed out.
“No, it doesn’t.” Kennet smiled bitterly for a moment, but it quickly fell away. “Anyway, it’s not my place to speak ill of the King—either my brother or my father.”
“Thank you for being so candid with me, my liege,” I said, since Kennet had been more honest with me about his family than many other royals I had encountered would be.
He stopped, turning to face me, so I did the same. “You know, you really don’t have to do all that. You can just call me Kennet. I feel like we are on a first-name basis.”
“That seems like a very dangerous territory to venture into,” I said. “You are the Prince. I am a tracker from a neighboring tribe. It would be very unwise for the two of us to mingle, which is why it is for the best that we don’t reschedule our lunch … meeting.”
“That hardly seems fair.” Kennet scoffed. “I see absolutely no reason the two of us can’t be friends.”
“There is that whole business where I could be jailed and you could be stripped of your title,” I reminded him. “That seems like a good reason.”
“It’s only if we procreate and dilute the bloodline that the offense is punishable by incarceration.” Kennet brushed it off, as though it weren’t a big thing. “There’s no law against us fraternizing.”
“Perhaps I don’t want to fraternize,” I countered.
“Are you asking me to procreate then?” Kennet asked with a wag of the eyebrow.
“I think it’s best if we stop this conversation, and I get to my lunch with Queen Linnea,” I said. “It’s never good to keep the Queen waiting.”
“Right you are.” Kennet smirked, but he started walking again.
“Thank you, Prince,” I said as I followed him.
“Anytime, tracker,” he replied.
Sunlight flooded the tea room. The outside wall was domed glass, starting in the middle of the ceiling and curving down until it met the floor at the surface of the lake. The windowed wall was divided into three pie-shaped panes of glass, separated by ornate golden sash bars.
Since it was on the main floor, it was one of the few rooms in the palace that let in the warm spring sun. It shimmered on the lake outside, casting shards of light through the tea room like a disco ball.
The walls had wainscoting halfway up, where it met wallpaper covered in pale blue roses and light green vines. A chaise sat against the wall with an antique coffee table surrounded by several tufted chairs.
In the center of the room was a round table, directly underneath an elegant gold chandelier that hung where the glass met the ceiling. Piles of fresh fruit, trays of pastries, and an array of tea bags were spread out on a lace tablecloth. Delicate saucers and cups were hand painted with roses of pink and blue.
Linnea sat at the table with a raspberry tart in her hand, smiling at me as I came in. In her knee-length azure sundress, she reminded me of a little girl playing tea party and pretending to be a princess. But of course, she wasn’t playing pretend—all of this was real life for her.
Kennet had dropped me off at the door, promising to see me later, and then left me alone with the Queen. Her personal guard—who should’ve been in the room with her, or at the very least standing at the door—was nowhere to be seen, and I would have to remember to make a note of that when I returned to Kasper. The King and Queen should never be left unguarded.
“I’m so glad you could make it!” Linnea said effusively and gestured to the empty seat across from her. “Sit, sit. Eat and drink, and we have so much to talk about!”
“Thank you, Your Highness.” I sat down and added fruit and a cucumber sandwich to my plate, while Linnea began to rattle off all the reasons it was so great to have me there.