Royal Outlaw: (Royal Outlaw, Book 1) (14 page)

“I . . . no . . . but . . . you . . . no . . .” Isabel blustered.

“It’s true then?” Hallie asked. “You are Princess Mariel de Sharec?”

Mariel wanted very badly to say no, but she forced herself to say, “Unfortunately.”

“But you can’t be,” said one of Isabel’s cronies. “You don’t act like a princess.”

“And you don’t act like a cow, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t one,” Mariel shot back.

High Priestess swept into the room. “Ladies, it is free-period. I suggest you go enjoy it. Miss Mariel has lost the privileges of free-periods and none of you are supposed to speak to her during this time.”

The girls exited the room, glancing back over their shoulders and whispering to each other. Isabel shot Mariel a cold glare before she left. Soon only Cara, High Priestess, Mariel, and James hiding in the armoire were left in the room.

“That means you too, Miss Cara. You may speak to your roommate later.”

Cara looked at Mariel with large, curious brown eyes, but she turned and left the room.

High Priestess rounded on Mariel after Cara had shut the door. “Where is the letter?”

“I believe the messenger said it was for me.”

“Nonsense,” High Priestess said. “Neither of your grandparents has bothered sending you personal letters before now. The letter was from the queen and I demand to know what it said.”

“Don’t worry, you still get to keep me locked in this horrible convent.”

“You asked to leave,” High Priestess said quietly.

“The old woman shows signs of intelligence at last!” Mariel cried, anger seeping out, breaking her control.

“If you only behaved then . . .”

“I don’t want to behave,” Mariel said acidly. “I don’t want to be at this horrible finishing school, and I don’t want to be a princess. I would much rather go back and join Papa and the Resistance. But the king and queen don’t care what I want, only what they want. And since I’m the closest de Sharec relative they’ve got, they’ve decided they want me caged. So here I am, perfectly miserable, and no doubt making your once peaceful life a nightmare!”

High Priestess just stared at Mariel in shock. She had never heard the girl speak from her heart rather than with just her clever tongue.

“I-I’ll leave you then.” The old woman glanced once more at Mariel before stepping into the hall and shutting the door behind her.

Mariel wanted to scream in frustration. She hated the look in the eyes of High Priestess as she left the room, that look had been one of pity. She tore the pins out of her hair and tossed them on the floor. As her brown curls fell around her face, Mariel threw herself face down on her bed and tried very hard not to cry.

A hand lightly touched her back. She jerked upright, grabbed the hand and twisted it backward.

James cringed in pain, but met her fierce gaze with soft, amber eyes. “
I am not an enemy,
” he said in Zreshlan.           

The familiar language nearly broke Mariel. She wanted to throw herself into James’s arms and sob out her misery and frustration, but she did not. She could not show weakness. She had let her anger gain control of her with High Priestess, but she had no intention of allowing her heart to rule over her mind again.

“No,” Mariel said coldly. “But you are annoying.”

James beamed. “That’s my girl.”

“I don’t belong to you.”

“That’s true. You don’t belong to anyone, except yourself.”

Mariel stared at him. They were exactly the words she needed to hear at that very moment when she was trapped at a finishing school and the king and queen refused to consider a compromise. She was not about to let James know she was grateful to him though.

“My grandparents don’t share your view.”

James looked at Mariel in a calculating way. “They said they would kill Brightsword if you didn’t agree to be their heir, didn’t they?”

The snake-man never ceased to surprise her.

“How did you figure that out? Papa didn’t even come to that conclusion.”

“I can’t think of any other reason why you would give up your freedom. And maybe Brightsword just refused to see the truth.”

Was James right? Did Darren know, or guess, what the price would have been if she had refused the king? Was he angry not only at her for accepting the offer to become princess, but also because he was the cause? Would he decide to kill himself to win her freedom? Mariel swallowed hard. His death was not a price she was willing to pay.

“This is brilliant! You’re the princess! The next in line for the throne of Natric.”

Has James gone mad?
Mariel thought in confusion. “Exactly what about me being the princess is good?”

“Everything! You’re a de Sharec.”

“And you should hate me for it. You said your goal is to take down Natric’s corrupted monarchy, I am now part of that monarchy.”

James gave her a dubious expression. “I thought you were smarter than that, Mariel. It is the person behind the title that matters, not the title or the amount of blue-blood that flows in their veins. This is the best possible way we can take down the corrupted monarchy. When King Vincent dies, you replace him and you are not corrupted by power. You are not truly a de Sharec, not at heart, therefore the old monarchy falls without any bloodshed. It’s perfect!”

His logic was good, but there was one problem: “I don’t want to rule!”

“That makes it even better. Those who don’t want the power generally make the best rulers. You can’t say you don’t have diplomatic skills, after your studies with the zreshlans and your work for the Resistance. You are perfect for the job, Mariel, even if you are too stubborn to see it.”

“I’m not being stubborn,” Mariel muttered, although she knew she sounded childish. “And I won’t have any power anyways. The king is making certain that I’m oppressed. He sent me away to this horrible finishing school so I wouldn’t disrupt court life, but I have rebelled and done everything I can possibly think of to misbehave, and still he won’t disown me. When—if ever—I am permitted to leave this convent, the king will choose some corrupted man as my husband and he will have the power while I just have the ties to the throne.”

James shook his head. “Somehow I have a hard time ever imagining you being submissive to a man.”

“Of course,” Mariel continued, ignoring his remark. “It depends on if I live long enough to marry. I’ve already had someone try to assassinate me at least once already, possibly twice.”

The color drained from James’s olive-colored skin. He stiffened as wild fear crept into his eyes. “What do you mean?” His voice sounded strained.

“On the way to the capital, ogres attacked Papa and me. Ogres don’t just attack well-armed people unless someone sent them. We would have died if a group of Versati trainees hadn’t been nearby and come to help.”             

“And the other time, what about the other time?” He made no effort to hide the fear in his voice or body language. But why was he so afraid?

Mariel pulled out the small dagger she had hidden in her bodice and ran her fingers over it to calm her mind. “I don’t remember.”

“How can you forget something like an assassination attempt?” James demanded.

“Do you remember when we first met in Ambras Añue? How my memory had vanished about the time before I came to the zreshlans?”

“Yes, but after Brightsword found you, you said you had regained all of your memories. Not that you ever told me what those memories were, although I think I can imagine now, Your Royal Highness.”

“I stretched the truth,” Mariel said, feeling slightly guilty. “I don’t remember everything. There is a hole in my memory. The last I remember of my life before the zreshlans is my mother, Princess Carolina, tucking me into a huge feather bed at Remel. My next memory is being woken by Anoria in Parloipae after she pulled me out of the river. Sometime in that gap, Mother was murdered and I journeyed from Remel to Parloipae. There are a few weeks missing from my memory, but I have no idea what happened during that time.”

“The monster zreshlan,” James whispered, but Mariel did not hear him.

The serpentramel stuck his tongue into the air, but it was a forked tongue, not his human tongue. Mariel had seen James shape-shift before, but never like this.

“No scent of him,” he said to himself, and then looked at Mariel. He forced a smile, although worry still hung in his eyes. “So you don’t remember anything?”

She shook her head.

“You don’t remember the thing that killed your mother?”

“James, if I don’t remember the event, I wouldn’t remember who was behind it. Why do you care so much? It happened more than eleven years ago.” It still mattered to her, even now it dragged on her mind, and she was curious to know what happened, but too terrified to ask anyone who might know.

James did not answer her question, he changed the subject instead.

“Now that we’ve covered all of the basics, I suppose I will have to change my plans. I was on my way to Parloipae to ask about . . .” He glanced nervously at the girl, “something. But I think staying here at the convent would be better.”

“What?” Mariel cried in surprise. “You can’t stay here.” She did not want him spying on her.

“Why not?” James asked. “I have to keep you from going insane and make sure you behave.”

“You can’t be serious.”

James raised his eyebrows and smiled wolfishly. “But I am being serious. Your tactics haven’t worked because the king is too desperate for an heir to disown you. The only way you are going to get out of this finishing school and go to the palace where you can do some real good for the kingdom, is on good behavior. So if I were you, I would brush up on my dancing skills.”

Mariel moaned and lay back on her bed. She did not think she would make a good monarch, and she still wanted to try and find a way out of it, but she also knew James was right.

“I hate you,” Mariel muttered.

James smiled. “I know. And I will meet you tomorrow before dawn on the deer trail you run along in the morning.”

She gaped at him and then scowled. “Stalker.”

“Definitely.”

James opened the window and vanished.

Betti arrived shortly after James left and helped Mariel to change into her nightdress. When Cara came in, Mariel pretended to be asleep. She did not prowl the convent that night, but instead remained in bed, lying awake for hours.

* * *

 
When Mariel arrived at the start of the deer trail into the forest the next morning, it was to find Iyela and James staring at each other with hostile expressions. Iyela sent Mariel the mental image of kicking the serpentramel with her back hooves.

“Only if he tries to kiss me,” she replied.

“What?” James asked, shifting his attention to her.

“Iyela wants to kick you.”

James looked back at the unicorn and moved further away from her.

“Not afraid of a unicorn are you?”

“I would be stupid not to be. She’s bigger and stronger than me, and my poison won’t work on her.”

His response surprised Mariel. James had no problem admitting to fear, while Mariel could not even admit it to herself. 

“Lead on, oh great and beautiful princess!” James bowed low.

“I’ll let her kick you if you call me that again.”

James’s eyes flicked nervously toward the unicorn and he straightened up.

“Agreed, but Iyela goes first. I’ll take up the rear.”

Iyela trotted off down the trail with Mariel and James following behind.

Mariel loved the feel of the pound of her feet on the dirt, the burn of her muscles as they worked, and the brush of the cool morning air on her skin. She reveled in the freedom of wearing leggings instead of the heavy purple dress she was normally trapped in. She inhaled deeply, the sweet scents of the forest tingled her nose as her chest expanded gloriously to take in air.

Her thoughts traveled back to the last day of April when Darren had challenged her to a sword duel while she was imprisoned in the fancy dress. She had fumbled around like a girl who had never touched a sword before. Since coming to the convent, she had continued to practice her swordplay, but she wore men’s clothing. If someone were to attack her and she needed to defend herself she would most likely be in a fancy dress. That meant she needed to know how to fight in one.

Mariel slowed to a walk, causing James to nearly run into her, but he stopped in time and moved to walk beside her.

“Muscle cramp?”

“No,” she said slowly, still trying to think over what she needed to learn, and hating herself for having to ask a favor. “Could you teach me how to fight with a sword?”

James stopped walking and Mariel turned to see why.

“You already know that.”

“But not with a dress on—at least not a corseted dress with layers of petticoats. If I’m being forced to be a princess and dress like one, I want to be able to fight too.”

James was exceptional with the sword. Like Mariel, he had been trained as a child by the zreshlan and his training included outside sources as well.