Chapter 61
I dismiss Marselle and rush from my room to arrange a flight home, but I end up standing in the hallway like an idiot. Whose plane do I use?
Bellatrius and Arlington’s presence by my door reminds me. I never even asked Frederick if my guards all survived the attack.
“Was anyone injured?” I ask.
Bellatrius bobs her head. “Simeon sustained a sliced hamstring and recovered quickly.”
“And Ralph?”
“He lost his hand and is in the process of regrowing it,” Arlington says.
“And being a baby about it, too.” Bellatrius smirks. “Men do have a tendency to whimper more.”
“Some men.” Arlington huffs. “But not all.”
I glance from Bellatrius to Arlington, both of whom stare at me expectantly. Arlington serves me because he’s grateful I spared his sister. Bellatrius serves me because I voted for her to be able to leave the family. I had no idea either of them cared about my opinion at the time.
Or that’s why I think they’re here.
“Bellatrius, why did you follow me? Everyone knows Judica’s stronger, fiercer, and more powerful. Why pick the losing side?”
Her eyes widen. “You’re not weaker. You’re merciful. The two aren’t the same.”
“How do you figure?” I ask.
She shifts and crosses her arms. “When I fell in love with Patiron, it was a mistake. We never should have met. I love Alamecha, Your Majesty. I love my family. But Patiron loved Shenoah, too. And sometimes, someone has to be willing to bend.”
“And you were willing to bend.”
“Exactly,” she says. “And I could have run away with him like he asked. I could have abandoned my family. Our families were at war, so I knew Shenoah would have granted me asylum.”
“Why didn’t you?” I ask.
She swallows hard. “Because I wanted to do things the right way. I believed I would be granted permission to go, and so I requested it.”
“But your request was denied.” I recall the hearing perfectly.
“Your mother and sister didn’t care at all for me or my future. They only cared about the family.” Bellatrius looks at her feet.
“That’s their job,” I say softly. “To protect the family.”
“The family is made up of individuals,” Bellatrius says.
She’s quoting me. I advocated for allowing her to go, because our highest calling is not to protect a group, but each person.
“We’re more to you than soldiers in an army,” she says. “And that’s why I’m here. And that’s why Ralph shouldn’t be whimpering over an injury justly taken protecting you. It’s an honor to be one of your guards, Your Majesty. The singular honor of my life.”
I am utterly unworthy of that kind of devotion. “You’re free to go to Shenoah,” I say. “I need guards, but I need citizens who aren’t in pain more. You may leave and join Patiron with my blessing.”
Bellatrius shakes her head. “I’ll never leave your service, Your Majesty. My anger over that decision faded and Patiron moved on. I’m excited to be a part of this. I want to create a new dynamic within Alamecha under your direction.”
If I can even reach Hawaii alive to deal with Judica in the first place. Who can I trust? Will I ever know? I’m suddenly exhausted, but there isn’t time for me to collapse in a heap and sob. It’s my job to try and stop my sister before she can kill untold innocents in a nuclear blast.
I flog my tired brain. The facts are pretty simple. I decided to make Edam my Consort and let him fight for me, and I told Inara, Lark, Alora, and Edam. Then I left for school. Lark conveniently had plans and wasn’t accompanying me. Then on my way home, I was ambushed. I’ve ruled out Edam in betraying me to Judica, probably, but he’s clearly answering to someone, most likely his sister.
Did one of the three tell Judica my plans? Or did they tell someone else who told her? Or did someone bug my conversation with Inara? Or perhaps Judica realized how likely the scenario was without a heads up from anyone and decided to attack. The timing could have been coincidental. Occam’s Razor would indicate it was Inara, Lark, or Alora, but I trust them all.
And now I suspect them all, too.
I don’t have enough information right now, so I decide to focus on my immediate problem. Transportation. I could call Inara and ask her to send me a plane, but if she betrays me, I’ll never land alive. The plane could “crash” on the way, killing me and eliminating the threat. I might survive a plane crash depending on how it goes down, but not if the person who orchestrated it has people standing by to decapitate me while I’m vulnerable.
If I ask Alora, I’m in the same predicament. Edam doesn’t have a plane, not that I’d trust it if he did. If Lark had a plane, maybe. But she doesn’t.
My life is a mess.
I can only think of one person who might have access to a jet and who has no loyalties to my sister or anyone else. I text Noah before I can second-guess my instincts.
Any chance I could borrow a jet? Turns out Hawaii is too far to go by rowboat.
The little dots show up, but then disappear. I stare at my phone for two minutes and he still doesn’t reply. Maybe he needs to think. Or even worse, he may need to ask his dad for permission. Ugh.
The door to Edam’s room opens and I drop my phone guiltily.
“What did Marselle want?” Edam asks. “She was one of your mom’s intelligence officers, wasn’t she?”
“Clearly a well-hidden asset,” I joke.
Edam shrugs. “I was number two on your mom’s security team until Judica drafted me to run hers. I worked for Marselle for a while. Besides, the lieutenants are usually more of an open secret.”
Duh.
“Is she still here?” He looks past me toward my doorway.
“Uh, no. I sent her downstairs so I could think.”
“Can we talk, then?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Can we?”
He glances behind me at Bellatrius and Arlington. “In private?”
I incline my head and he precedes me into my room. I close the door with a click. “What’s up?” I sit on my bed.
Edam grabs the chair from my desk and sets it by the bed so he’s eye level with me.
“Whoa, this is serious,” I joke.
He doesn’t smile, and my stomach flip flops.
“What do you want to talk about, Edam? I just received some urgent news.”
“Why are you kissing Noah?”
I look around the room. “Am I? I thought I was talking to you.”
“You know what I mean.”
I do. “You mean why did I go to school today, and why do I like him when I obviously also like you, and have agreed to take you as my Consort. Right?”
He nods. I’m actually impressed with how calm and composed he is.
“Feelings are complicated,” I say. “I like you a lot, Edam, but I like Noah, too. He’s different. He represents a desire I’ve had for a long time to escape, to be free.”
“But you chose to return, and you know that I’ll take care of you.” He reaches over and takes my hand. “Do you doubt that?”
I don’t doubt his intention. He looks utterly sincere. I think back to the videos of him with Judica. He looked like a robot: stiff, disconnected, and so formal it was unreal. He’s not like that with me. But that’s not the only video of him I’ve seen lately, and the other one generated significantly different emotions from me.
“Why did you break up with my sister?” I need to know. Even more than details about his connection to the Malessa family, I need to understand what happened between them. Because if he doesn’t have a real reason for dumping her, then he really is just a puppet for someone else.
He never releases my hand. “I’m surprised this didn’t come up before. I assumed maybe you wanted to pretend it never happened.”
“What did happen?” I ask. “From the videos I saw, it didn’t look like you had much of a relationship.”
“I haven’t hidden from you my feelings about the evian royal model. It’s broken,” he says. “I decided when I was still a teenager and you and Judica weren’t even ten that my best chance of changing things was to rise to a position of leadership. I trained as hard as I could, and I did everything anyone asked of me. I worked harder, longer, and with more ferocity than anyone else.”
“I heard that,” I say. “Balthasar talked about you sometimes. He called you his young lion.”
He frowns. “I was assigned to keep you safe when you were a child. I was young too, and it seemed in keeping with my skill set. I only did that for a year before I was promoted and I moved up. Eventually I was assigned to train the other boys your mother purchased from other families. Luckily there weren’t many new ones, since you and Judica were older. Around the time you turned thirteen, they sent me into the field. I worked with Marselle for a few months, and with a few other operatives, too. I did okay, but I wasn’t nearly as good at spying as I am at hand-to-hand combat.”
Not a good spy, huh? I guess not, since his phone call got caught on video.