Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance) (42 page)

“She has enjoyed it so far,” the prince says. “You may speak to me, children.”

They all look around, as if trying to confirm from each other what they just heard.

The little girl who asked me if he likes me is almost jumping up and down, she’s fidgeting so hard in her spot.

“Are you going to marry the prince? Is there going to be a wedding? You’re pretty. You look like a princess.”

I glance over at the prince. I can’t help it.

He’s turning red. At first my stomach sinks and I start to feel a little pang of nausea, wondering what he’ll do to these little children for offending him… But he’s not red with fury, he’s blushing. He looks over at me and then looks away, his expression very deliberately and forcefully neutral.

“That depends on him,” I say.

“Children,” the teacher finally says, “that is a rude question to ask. Ask her something else.”

As the lunches disappear into their little stomachs, the questioning turns back to food. They want to know what a cheeseburger is like, what Kentucky Fried Chicken means, why people eat hot dogs when they don’t know what’s in them. I answer all of their questions, until the teacher starts to look agitated. I turn to her.

“The lunch hour is over.”

“You have my leave to continue until Penny wishes to depart.”

The teacher goes quiet again, listening.

“You look like you want to ask me something,” I say to her.

She goes even paler. “No, I was…” She looks nervously at the prince. “Forgive me if I…”

“Just ask me.”

She sighs. “Perhaps later if I am given leave. It is not an appropriate question to ask in front of the children.”

I turn back to the kids. Now they want to hear about music and television. They seem fascinated by the idea of media that isn’t state run. One of them asks me if I know Lady Gaga. One little boy turns beet red after he blurts out, “Can people in the America look at girls with no shirts on their computers?”

I smirk and tell him, “People in America don’t usually put shirts on their computers.”

He blinks a few times then laughs awkwardly and tries to hide behind one of his classmates. The prince glares at him.

I put my hand on the prince’s arm.

Everyone else in the room gasps loudly. It’s like all the air just sucked out through the windows.

Oops.

The prince very lightly rests his hand on mine, and squeezes. The kids all stare at it like he just kissed me full-on in the face.

I pull my hand back.

I sigh.

“Children aren’t allowed to.” They’re not
supposed
to be allowed to, but I don’t clarify that. “Adults can, but we don’t need to talk about that. Everyone can use the Internet, though.”

A little girl seems confused by that. “What do they use it for? Research?”

“Yes, there’s a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. People use it for many, many things. Buying things, selling things, talking with their friends, sharing pictures, talking about their favorite shows and books.”

“People can edit the encyclopedia? Can they make websites of their own?”

“Of course, anyone can. It costs money but there are free ways to do it, too. There are lots of ways to tell the whole world how you feel and what you think about any subject you want.”

“You come from a magic place,” one of them says reverently. “My momma is right about red hair. You are a witch!”

The prince tenses, but I laugh it off. “I can’t do magic, honey. Magic isn’t real. It’s just a different country with different rules.”

“It sounds bett—”

She cuts herself off sharply. Her eyes snap to the prince and she sinks down, tears welling in her eyes.

I set my lunch aside and jump to my feet, drop down next to her, and hug her to my side.

“I didn’t mean it,”
she chirps in rapid Kosztylan, her clipped English forgotten.
“I didn’t mean to be bad. Don’t take me away.”

The prince rises to his feet. He turns to the teacher.

“Escort all the other students out.”

“Your grace—”

His voice is even but hard like stone. “Anywhere but here. Go.
Now
.”

“Children, follow,” she says nervously.

It takes her a moment to gather them all and rush them out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her. That leaves me sitting on the floor with a sobbing little girl in my lap, clutching me like she expects her dear leader to snatch her away with his own two hands.

I hold her tighter.

“I’m not going to let you hurt her.”

“Is that what you think of me? Child, what is your name?”

“Anna.”

“Anna, listen to me. No harm will come to you. You made a mistake.”

“Francois said America was better last year,” she says, clutching my dress hard in her little fingers. “He went away and never came back.” She starts to sob harder. “Don’t take me away.”

The prince reaches for her then pulls his hand back abruptly.

“I want my
mama
.”

She hugs me tighter, as if I’ll have to do for now. I hug her back.

The prince glares at me then ducks to the door, pulls it open, and barks an order.

“I want this girl’s mother brought here now. Find her and bring her here. Give the child to her and send them both home. Now.”

“I’m not letting go of the kid until her mom gets here.”

“You presume to tell me what you will and will not do?”

“If you drag her away and send her off to some camp, you might as well send me with her.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

The girl is just out and out sobbing now, her face buried in my chest. I rub her back and rock, trying to soothe her.

No one speaks until the door opens again. It must be the kid’s mother, because she detaches from me and runs over to her, leaping into her arms. The woman, dressed in dark-blue coveralls with a kerchief on her head, stares at the prince like he’s going to unfold into some terrible monster and devour her.

“Go home. Take the girl with you.”

She nods and bows, still holding her daughter in her arms, and backs away out of sight before she turns and
runs,
her feet slapping quickly on the tile floor.

“
Close the door,” the prince commands.

When it slaps shut he rounds on me. He doesn’t finish a single word before I slap him.

His eyes widen and he stares, astonished.

I hit him again, with the other hand. He stumbles a half step.

“Go ahead, cut my hands off. I figured I might as well give you an excuse to do both. Call it a package deal.”

He grits his teeth and looms over me. “How dare you. I should have shut you up—”

“Your perfect little world is so wonderful.” I cut him off in a saccharine tone. “They just love it here. They love it so much that half an hour of silly questions and they’re ready to give it all up.”

“You—”

“How many,
my prince
?”

“How many what?”

“How many kids have you taken away from their parents because they asked the wrong question? Had the wrong idea?”

“Not many—”

“
One is too many
!”
I scream, jabbing my finger at the door.

“Do not take that tone with me.”

“Why not? I’ve seen what you are. You’re a monster. A total monster. I hate you.”

“I…” he starts, clenching his fists. “Why do you have to test me this way?”

I flinch back, almost thinking he will actually strike me when he moves, but he grabs the teacher’s desk and heaves the entire thing across the room in one furious burst of motion. It crashes against the wall, digging a big gouge in the drywall before it lands in a bent heap. He turns around and rams his fist into the chalkboard then pulls it back, clutching it.

When he turns around, I’m inches from his face.

“You won’t hurt me,” I say, very softly.

“No, no you’re right, I won’t hurt you. I am not a monster. I don’t want to be a monster.”

“It’s easy, isn’t it, when you don’t have to see them? It’s easy to order Melissa to be locked up forever and lose her mind when you don’t have to watch. It’s easy to order children be stolen from their parents if you don’t have to see them screaming and crying and begging for their mother. I know what you are, now. I know why the armor, and the castle.”

He shakes his head.

“You’re a coward. You’re
afraid of the truth
.
You’ve known I was right all along.”

“I protect my people—”

“This isn’t protection. This is torture, do you understand me?”

“I will not let them be harmed—”

“By anyone
but you
. You put up walls around them to keep them safe from some imaginary danger, but this place isn’t a fortress, Kristoff. It’s a
prison
. You’re punishing everyone for a crime they didn’t commit.”

“We talked about this before. In your country you need to fear some criminal taking everything from you, here
no one
needs to fear that. No one needs to fear they will be left to die if they fall ill, no one will go without food or a roof over their head…”

“No one can make a choice. Goddamn you, look at this place. Look at what you’re doing to these children. My goddamn dress is the only color they’ve ever seen in their school. Children need art and music and playtime, not…
this
. The desks are bolted to the floor! What’s
wrong with you
?”

His voice cracks.

“I just want them to have safe lives…”

“What about happy lives? Or is it just because
you’re
not happy, no one else can be, either? Because you lost somebody, the whole country has to live in mourning forever?”

He stands to his full height and grits his teeth. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He edges closer. “
Careful
, Persephone. My patience has its limits, even for you.”

“I saw the initials carved into the wood in the library. K for Kristoff and C for, what?”

“Cassandra… It’s not your business. Don’t say her name in my presence.”

“You’re nuts, you know that? You think people are machines, or dolls. Am I wearing her clothes? Is that the idea? You broke your toy and now you want a new one?”

“That’s not why…”

“You know this is wrong. Part of you does, anyway. I saw him in the hospital and I saw him again when that little girl was clinging to me and crying. Because she was scared of
you
.”

“I don’t want that. I don’t want this. I don’t want any of it. You don’t understand, how could you?”

I touch his arm, gripping the fabric of his sleeve tight in my fingers. “Tell me you’re not really like this. Tell me it doesn’t have to be this way.”

“It does. I can’t change my entire country because you’ve been struck by a strange fancy.”

I grab his face. I cup his cheeks in my hands and just stand there.

“Look at me.
Look at me
.”

He faces me head on. His whole body shudders as I run my fingers through his hair.

“I believe that you don’t want to hurt these people. I believe that you want them to be safe and happy. They are safe…from everyone but you. You’ve made the choice for them, safety or happiness. That’s no choice at all.”

He takes my wrists, gently, and pulls my hands from his face but stops halfway, staring at them.

“I haven’t felt the touch of another person since I was a little boy. Touching a member of the blood royal is forbidden. It is our custom not to even touch one another. I never saw my mother and father kiss. He never hugged me. The only member of my family who would set a hand on me was my grandfather.”

I give my hands a little tug, but his grip tightens on my arms.

“That girl was right. You are a witch, and you’ve put a spell on me. No matter what I do I cannot break it. I want you, Penny. When you say these things, it pains me. Because you say them, and because you’re right. I command you to stop touching me because every time I feel your skin on mine, I need you more.”

I flinch and blink when he uses my name. My real name, not my dumb legal name my mother came up when she was high.

“I want you to stay with me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I… I’ve never known anyone like you.”

“I told you, if you’re looking for a replacement for some other girl…”

He lets go and turns around, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “It is not like that at all. You don’t understand.”

“I saw the initials in the library, K + C in the heart.”

“K for Kristien,” he sighs. “My brother and Cassandra carved them there. Ordinarily the heir’s wife is chosen when they are both young. Historically my forbears avoided marriages among the nobility… I cannot speak of this. Not here. Come back to the castle with me.”

“Promise me you won’t take that little girl away. Promise me, my prince. If you do, you may as well send me with her because I’ll never listen to another word you have to say. If I can’t be free, you might as well kill me.”

He walks to the window and looks out.

“In one week I must travel to New York on diplomatic business. You will accompany me. If you wish to stay, that is your choice. I will not force you to return here with me. I will deliver you safely. After that, the choice is yours.”

My mouth drops open.

“In return, all that I ask is that you hear me out. Back at the castle.”

I
almost revolt
when they pack me into the car and the prince does not join me. There are too many people. I won’t risk making a scene. I can only hope that he was telling me the truth and I can trust his word that he won’t hurt that poor little girl.

Oh, Penny, you silly romantic idiot, do you really think you can change that creature?

Not change him.

Help him.

It’s a long ride back, to be taken in total silence. I look out through the windows at first then close my eyes when I get tired of plain gray stone everywhere. Where are all the old buildings, all the history? This should be a beautiful place full of all sorts of architectural styles. Solkovia City has thousand-year-old churches and tile roofs, all sorts of beautiful buildings, squares, courtyards. Everything here is the same drab, dull gray.

I quickly get tired of it, lean back in the seat, and close my eyes. When the car finally comes to a gentle stop I grab the door and shove it open myself, and step into the courtyard. I start toward my room—I think—but that blonde-haired guardswoman steps in front of me.

“His grace commands you follow me.”

I’m too defeated and tired to argue. I just fall in line behind her and trudge along, wondering when I’ll be allowed to sit down again.

“I am taking you to his private quarters.”

I stop mid-stride and swallow, hard.

The woman stops and scowls at me.

“Not his bedroom. His quarters. Follow.”

Sighing hard, I resume my slow walk behind her, following her through twisting corridors, across a bridge enclosed by a timbered roof and walls, and through an open gate. She stops at the gate itself.

I blink a few times. His
private quarters
are a castle unto itself, within the main fortress, right down to its own walls and courtyard.

“I have been instructed to ask you to wait in the hall. You will know when you see it. Straight ahead.”

I nod and nervously walk across the yard. It’s small, at least compared to the rest of this place, maybe twenty feet by twenty. Another set of oak doors banded with wrought iron stand open, and inside must be the hall, a huge room with a high ceiling and a hearth at one end that stands cold, unlit.

There’s nowhere to sit but a pair of old chairs at the far end. When I say old chairs I mean they look like they were carved hundreds of years ago, not that they are anything less than impressive. The bigger one, sitting in the middle of the room with its facing away from the hearth, has a back taller than I am, carved with the phoenix coat of arms. A smaller chair sits next to it.

I take that one, figuring the big one is for the prince. If the penalty for slapping is chopping off my hands, I don’t want to know what the penalty for putting my butt in the wrong place is.

So, I wait.

Wait.

Wait some more.

Finally he walks into the room, and after all that waiting I cross my legs and fold my arms as he slips out of his black uniform jacket, revealing a cream-colored shirt beneath. He folds the jacket over the arm of the big chair and flops into it, leaning heavily over the arm.

“You would choose the princess’s seat, wouldn’t you?”

I sit upright. “Oh. I should have realized.”

“Stay, it suits you. I like the idea of having you at my right hand.

“My ancestor was an odd man. The first prince to rule these lands. He married a local woman, and decreed that all his sons that would come after him would marry a local woman, never a member of the nobility, native or foreign.”

“He sounds like a smart guy.”

“Speaking of the native nobility, he invited them all to dinner, left the hall where they’d gathered, and burned them all alive inside.”

I stare straight ahead for a minute then clear my throat. “Is everyone in your family nuts?”

“I like to think I am not,” he says, leaning forward to rest his head in his hands, “but I wonder if perhaps I am.”

“I’m ready to talk to you. Calmly.”

“You anger me,” he says, lifting his head to sit up straight and lean back into the seat. “Yet it pleases me, and I don’t know why.”

“Your life is too easy.”

He looks at me sharply. “You presume too much. This is not
easy
.”

“When was the last time someone told you
no
?”

“Not since I was a child.”

“You want to tell me something. I know when someone is feeling guilty. I’m here with you and we’re alone. You can take the armor off.”

“I’m not wearing any armor.”

“Yes you are,” I say, and touch his shoulder. “I can’t see it or touch it, but I can feel it.”

He flinches when I touch him but quickly turns and rests his cheek on my hand.

“Your skin is always so warm.”

“My prince.”

“My name is Kristoff. Call me Kristoff, Penny.”

“I understand the pomegranate, now.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You were trying to tell me.”

“I have no words for the way you make me feel. I sound like a superstitious peasant. Grown men do not believe in things of fairy tales, that they can fall in love with a woman just by laying eyes upon her. Yet I have, and every word that falls from your lips brings me to love you more.”

“Kristoff.”

“I have built a clockwork hell,” he says softly. “I have hidden myself behind machines, and tried to turn my people into machine men with machine minds. You are right. It is easy to tell myself I am right when I am alone, when I do not see what I am doing to my people. They are afraid of me. When your friend was frightened by my presence I told myself it was the trauma or the propaganda you’ve heard about my country and my leadership, but that terror was well earned. Yet it was not her fear that swayed me.”

“What was it?”

“I did not want to build a world to make little girls afraid of me. Hate me. Don’t you understand? I designed those schools to make sure no one would be left behind. Everyone would have a place, no one would want or suffer. I wanted parents to be relieved of the burdens of child rearing and enjoy their children. I wanted the sick to be healed, the weak to be cared for. I wanted everyone to be happy, but they’re not and I don’t know why.”

“You can’t shove happiness down someone’s throat,” I tell him, rubbing his arm. “They have to want it, to choose it. Some people choose hardship. You have to guide people, show them the way, not lock them in chains and drag them with you.”

“There is a poetry to your words I never thought I could see. Lesser men have thrown such sentiments in my face ever since I took the throne.”

He looks up and gazes intently at me. “What do you want me to do? Ask and you will have it. Tell me how to prove to you that I am not the monster you are so afraid of. Tell me what I need to do to make you stay with me.”

“You can’t,” I say, and watch him look away in fury and disappointment.

“You can’t
make
me stay,” I add quickly, squeezing his hand. “I have to choose it. You’re beginning to understand, I can feel it.”

“I want you to stay. I want to crown you. You were made for one.”

“I don’t want a crown, and I don’t want to be a replacement for your lost princess.”

“There is a history there you do not understand.”

“Then tell me.”

“Follow me.”

He stands and waits for me to rise alongside him, and I walk.

“Where are we going?”

“The torture chamber.”

I stop in my tracks. “This isn’t a time for jokes.”

“I’m not going to torture you. I’m not joking, either. Please, Penny. I’m not ordering you. I’m asking you. There are things about me and my family that you need to understand.”

As I walk with him he says, “My forebears were always of two minds, two warring natures. My ancient ancestor wanted to preserve the rights of the people. This was a barbaric land, and the local lords were little more than petty chieftains. They practiced the right of the first night… When a woman of their lands married, they would rape her before her husband was allowed to consummate the marriage and steal the child if one was born. The soil of this valley is stained with the blood of women who slit their own throats rather than bear a bastard born of a monster’s lust. To free them, he gathered those men together and roasted them alive. Always there has been such madness in my family.”

He sighs. “Except with us. Me and my brother. We were born together, and nearly killed my mother in the process. She always told me that in us, the greatness and madness were divided between myself and my twin brother.”

“There were two of you?”

“Yes.”

“You both loved the same girl?”

“No. You misunderstand.” He stops, sighing. “It pained me but it was our way. Cassandra was betrothed to me when we were both thirteen. I was the eldest…by three minutes. That made me the heir.”

“Your brother…”

“There was a festival, the May festival when we came of age. That is when the bride was chosen. She was beautiful in her flowing gown, flowers in her hair…and I looked at her and felt nothing. It was Kristien who loved her, madly and totally, the way only a boy can. They spent every hour together. They carved their initials into the wall in the library. My father would have had their hides if they were anyone else.”

He turns and walks again, stopping where a staircase meets the corridor. He throws a switch and harsh lights
thump
to life, illuminating the narrow passage.

“Follow me.”

The steps are narrow and steeply sloped.

“My ancestors would roll their defeated enemy down the steps first,” he sighs, all the pride gone from his voice.

At the bottom is a heavy door with hammered iron bands. He draws a key from his pocket and opens it, holding it for me to pass. I step inside.

It’s well lit, and that makes it worse. The things in here turn my stomach just to look at them. I tell myself it’s rust on the iron spikes and chains, not something else. It doesn’t look like some sideshow museum’s house of horrors or something like that. It’s somehow worse in the simple utility of the devices I see before me. Irons ready to be heated, knives and surgical tools laid out on tables.

“Tell me you’ve never used this. Please.”

“The madness is in me, too. I dip into it every time I put on that armor and unsheathe that sword. It’s like a tiger stalking behind me. I can never forget it is there, or it will devour me and there will be no one left to hold it back. No, I don’t use this room. I have my own. The techniques have…evolved since the time this room was created. It serves another purpose now.”

Why am I surprised? He pushes one of the stone blocks that makes up the wall and it slides inward easily, with the lightest pressure, until it clicks. There is a steady
hiss
and a section of the wall pulls inward, sliding along a track in the floor beyond. It opens just enough for him to wedge through, and I have to turn to follow.

Once we’re past it he throws a lever and the wall closes behind me again. I’m entombed with him now.

“This way,” he says, perhaps to reassure me. There’s only one way to go: down.

“You didn’t tell me what happened to your brother. Is he still—”

“No. He’s dead.”

I stop on the stairs. “How?”

“Come.”

I follow him around and around, spiraling so far down we must be
inside
the mountain now. It keeps going, the same tight turn, until we finally reach the bottom.

There’s a door, but nothing medieval about it. The prince rests his hand on a glass plate, it scans his palm, and the door opens.

“I killed my brother,” he says, his voice breaking. “Because of this.”

I step inside and freeze with a gasp.

There’s armor in here.

Lots of it.

There must be
hundreds
of those suits. The prince steps in behind me and rests his hand lightly on my shoulder, as if testing whether I will accept it.

“My great grandfather preached a dream to his children after the second world war. An iron dream. He looked beyond the borders of his tiny domain and saw the great wide world and what happened in it. He saw what the future could be: the industrialization of warfare. Murder by assembly line.

“After the war he toured the Nazi camps. He came back and took an oath from his son, that one day our family would rise up and make sure nothing like that ever happened again.”

“That’s not such a terrible dream,” I say, trying to comfort him. “Many people have said…”

“Remember the burning nobles,” he says softly. “This was how he meant to achieve it. My great grandfather, my grandfather, and my father refined the designs…and built, built, built like mad. They hollowed out the mountain, built the factories. I learned later what it cost them.”

I turn around to face him.

“What do you mean?”

“The engineers that oversaw the construction down here were all murdered to ensure it remained secret. Anyone who knew about it was killed. The factory is self-sustaining. All it needs is materials to be fed into hoppers above the castle. All I have to do is turn it on and fifty suits a day roll off the assembly line.”

“Oh my God,” I breathe, “this is crazy. You can’t mean…”

“My grandfather’s dream was a war. The last war, to cover all the world in our shadow. What you have seen from my suit is a paltry demonstration of what they are capable of. The ones down here have flight capabilities, advanced weapons… They turn a simple soldier into a walking tank, or a fighter jet so tiny and maneuverable yet so deadly that no other on Earth can possibly match it.”

I swallow, hard.

The prince takes my hand, holding tightly, and pulls me with him.

“Once it started it could never stop. The war would never end. What even my father, what my
brother
did not realize, was that it is insane to even try. No one man can rule the world. Once we unleashed this army, the whole planet would turn against us…and in the end, they would use nuclear weapons. It’s suicide, absolute madness.”

“I understand what you meant now about the walls keeping you in,” I say, so softly. I squeeze his hand back. “What about your brother?”