Authors: Jenny Lundquist
Something I cannot ask Arianne herself. Apparently, after deciding the darkness of the tunnels did not suit her, Arianne exited into Eleanor Square—right into the heart of a mob that recognized her as a palace official. Unfortunately, she received the full brunt of their anger.
But even if Stefan never received the letter, why the silence all these months? What happened to his declaration of forgiveness?
I wish I had not been so impulsive in enclosing my mother’s letter with my own. I can only assume it, too, is lost. The absence of the letter has left me with no choice these past six months but to jointly rule with Wilha. My sister and I rarely see eye to eye, and oftentimes our councillors are more disposed to agree with Wilha’s position. So many times while we have debated in the Guardian’s Chambers I have wanted to scream, “I am the firstborn; you shall listen to what I say!”
But without the letter, I have no proof to back up my claim.
I give myself a small shake to clear my head. I bend my knees and kneel next to Wilha, just as the carriages come to a halt at the stone steps. I won’t give our councillors yet another reason to favor my sister over me.
It’s not Stefan who steps first from the Strassburgs’ carriage. It’s Ruby—she’s grown several inches since I last saw her—and she comes bounding up the stone steps. She briefly stops at the sight of Wilha and me, before launching herself into my arms.
“I knew I would see you again!” she exclaims into my neck. I wrap my arms around her and hug her tightly. “I’ve missed you so much!” she continues. “We have so much to catch up on, Wil, I mean, Elar”—she pulls away to look up at me—“What should I call you?”
“Everyone calls me Elara.”
At least for now
, I want to add, but don’t.
Stefan emerges from the carriage and silently walks up the steps. His face is haggard and purple circles hang under his eyes. Gone is the playful prince I once knew in Kyrenica. Stefan now seems older, more careworn.
“Your Highness,” he says, helping me to my feet. “I am most grateful to see you again.”
I pause, unsure how to respond, but he is already holding out his hand to Wilha.
“He was so mad at you!” Ruby whispers to me as Stefan and Wilha exchange greetings.
“Is he mad now?” I whisper back.
“I don’t know, he refuses to talk about you.” Her lip puffs out. “He’s not very fun to travel with.”
“Your masks are in the carriages,” Stefan says. “I believe your people will find them all accounted for.”
Wilha murmurs her gratitude and the two of them turn and stroll into the palace. Our councillors and Stefan’s men hurry behind after them, leaving Ruby and me alone. I hesitate, knowing I will be expected inside, but loathe to follow after Wilha and Stefan like I’m their servant.
“Will you give me a tour of
the gardens, Wil—Elara?” Ruby asks.
“I’d love to,” I say, grateful to remain outdoors.
We set off and wind our way through lavender-smelling paths that bloom with spring flowers. Ruby laughs when I point out the groundskeepers’s shed and tell her how I once escaped out of the palace from a nearby underground tunnel.
We end up settling at a bench in front of a recently repaired water fountain and she tells me of the Strassburgs. Ezebo’s weakened condition seems to be the new normal, and everyone is making the best of it. “Grandmother is just as nasty as ever,” Ruby says. “But every time she opens her mouth, I just remember to—”
“Ruby!” comes Stefan’s impatient voice, and the two of us look up. “I have been looking all over for you. I’d like you to go wash and rest up before dinner.”
“But—”
“
Now
, Ruby. I need to speak to Elara alone.”
“Oh, Stefan, you always know how to ruin a good time.” She stands and curtsies. “See you later, Elara.”
“I was just showing Ruby around,” I say after she’s gone.“I wasn’t—”
“I don’t fault you for loving my sister. She has missed you terribly, and insisted on accompanying me.” He pauses and glances at my gown. “Royalty seems to suit you.”
From the tone of his voice, it’s impossible to tell if that’s a dig or a compliment.
“It’s my birthright,” I say carefully.
“I suppose it is.” He removes a parchment from his cloak and holds it up as though I should recognize it.
My breath catches when I do. It’s the letter I wrote him.
Stefan seems in no rush to speak; he just continues to look at me. Behind us, the water fountain plays a musical, tinkling tune, and slowly my anticipation turns to annoyance.
“Stefan,” I say when I’ve had my fill of his silence, “if you’ve got something to say, spit it out.”
“Spit it out?” he repeats, color rising in his cheeks. “You don’t think I deserve at least a small amount of your short supply of patience?”
“I sent you that letter months ago. I bared my heart and told you my deepest secret. And in response, you did nothing. So if you’ve got something to say,
now
would be a good time.”
“And your timeline is the only one that matters, is that it? After all it was you who—” He stops. Takes a breath. “Tell me one thing. Did you mean what you wrote? Or were they merely the utterings of a woman condemned to die, who didn’t think she’d ever be responsible for her words?” His voice softens when I hesitate. “I need to know, Elara. I need to know how you really feel. I need to hear you say it.”
In his eyes I see a flash of old pain. I know what words he wants. Only three small ones. But I’ve never actually said them. Not together; not in that order. Not even once.
Stefan mistakes my silence, and turns to go. “That’s what I thought.”
My throat has turned to stone. Why it feels as though it costs me everything to voice a truth I’ve known for some time—a truth I’ve already admitted to once before—I don’t completely understand. I think because in handing him my heart, it feels as though I’m willingly handing him a weapon, and trusting that he won’t use it against me.
But I feel the girl I once was waking up again. I imagine her clawing her way out of the box I stuffed her in, screaming and yelling—demanding her own right to be happy. I hear her voice telling me not to be a fool. And finally, my lips become unstuck.
“Stefan—wait!”
He stops and turns around. His eyes are dead—so much like on that horrible day in the Kyrenican Castle. “What?”
I move toward him and close the distance. “I meant every word I wrote . . . I love you.”
“You love me?” His features are carefully blank, as though he won’t let himself believe. “These are the true feelings of your heart—and not some ploy to obtain more favorable terms in our negotiations?”
I flinch at his bluntness, but I know I deserve this.
“I don’t care about the negotiations,” I say, which is truer than it should be. “I care about you. I promised myself I’d never say it to you until I knew I meant it. I love you. Even”—a shadow passes over my heart—“even if you no longer return my love.”
He pauses, before slowly breaking into a smile. “My love for you was sealed a long time ago. You are a puzzle to me, unlike any girl I have ever met.”
“Really?” I say. “After everything I’ve done?”
“Yes, I love you. Really, and truly.” Stefan cups my elbow and draws me close. “And I don’t believe I have ever had the pleasure of kissing you without that wretched mask on your face.” He feathers kisses along my cheeks until his lips land on mine.
As we kiss, a new emotion, golden and effervescent, bubbles up and floods me from the inside out.
I believe it might be joy.
“What now?” I say, a little breathless after we pull apart.
Stefan’s smile vanishes and a grim look settles over his face. “Now we have many decisions to make, including . . . what to do with
this
.” He removes another parchment from his cloak. My mother’s letter.
I sit down heavily on the bench. “I have no idea what to do about that.”
“Have you traveled much in the last few months?” he asks, joining me on the bench.
“No. We wanted to wait until it was warmer to gauge the mood of the kingdom.”
“I have just journeyed through many of your northern villages and I can tell you exactly the mood of the kingdom: They’re wondering.”
“Wondering? Wondering what?”
Stefan eyes me warily. “How long it will be before you and Wilhamina go to war against each other.”
I look away. “I think our councillors are wondering the same thing. They are in no rush to plan a joint coronation ceremony for Wilha and me. They never say it directly, but I’m certain
none of them are happy with the prospect of two queens.”
Stefan hands me the letter. “This secret has the power to change all our worlds. What do you plan to do?”
I rub my fingers against the parchment and try to conjure the image of my mother. When she wrote this, did she realize she was handing me the proof I would one day need to put aside my sister?
The firstborn shall rule. . . .
It has always been so. I open the letter and reread her words:
How I wish you could have seen me cry, still weak, still bleeding, the moment he told me of the decision he and the four Guardians reached. A mask for the firstborn; an anonymous home for the second.
It was, they said, the best they could do for the both of you. Your father insisted we not name our second daughter. “If she doesn’t have a name, she cannot be hunted,” he said. And although I did not then, and still do not agree with him, I went along with it.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand it,” I say to Stefan when I finish reading. “How my father could have believed that sending me away was the best option, or how my mother could have silently stood by and let them take me.”
“I don’t understand it, either,” Stefan says. “It seems unimaginably cruel.”
“I guess sometimes, despite your best efforts, you
don’t
receive the answers you seek.” I fold up the letter and tuck it away. “Sometimes, I guess you just have to learn to live with the questions.”
“But since you can never know for sure, you can
choose
what to believe, Elara. You can choose to take your mother’s words at face value, and believe that both she and your father were doing the best they could.”
Stefan places his arm around me and I lean into him. Across the courtyard, I see the newly finished statues of Astrid and Fennrick. Wilha had them commissioned shortly after we assumed power. I’ve stood often before them in the last few weeks, wondering if their likeness could bring me comfort, as it seems to do for Wilha. But all I see when I look at them is dead, silent stone, and anger flares in my chest now.
“I know I can choose that—but if
I’d
had twin daughters, I never would have given one of them up. I would have valued the people in my life more than the power of a crown. I would have covered the cradle with my own body and dared them to cross me. I would have shouted the existence of my daughter until the entire kingdom heard me. Damn the crown; I would have
fought
for my family. I would have—”
I stop suddenly, visions of golden cradles and jewel-encrusted crowns vanishing in an instant. After all this time, I know how to finally cut the tie that has always bound my sister and me, but has never allowed us to truly become family.
Chapter 72
Wilha
T
he candles in my father’s study burn low. The dinner with the Kyrenicans concluded hours ago, and I am sure everyone else has retired for the evening. Yet here I am stooping over my father’s desk—for I cannot yet bear to think of it as anyone else’s—working my way through a pile of official documents.
I rub my eyes, sign another document, and move it out of the way. How many times did my father sit in this same room, in this same chair, agonizing over the decisions facing him? Strange that now, over a year after his death, I feel a kinship with a man I was always so distant from while he lived.
My eyes fall on the pile of velvet boxes stacked near the desk. I pick one up and open it. The mask is painted white and filigreed with silver; milky lavender opals flower around the cheeks. Now that I am no longer condemned to wear the masks, I can appreciate their beauty—or, more accurately, their worth. I would love to sell many of them and give the proceeds to the royal treasury, but of course I will need to speak to Elara first. That is, if she can tear herself away from Stefan long enough to hear me out.
Tonight at the feast, Elara and Stefan spent the night sitting next to each other holding a private—and clearly intense—conversation that made the rest of the guests feel
obviously uncomfortable. I think Elara was genuinely
unaware of the effect her behavior was having upon the room. Far from appearing a gracious queen, ready to hear the concerns of the Kyrenicans and her own advisors, she came off as interested in speaking only to the handsome prince at her side.
I lean back in my father’s chair. How do you tell your sis
ter she’s not qualified to rule? Particularly when it’s because of our own parents’ actions that Elara is so unacquainted with Galandrian court etiquette?