The Princess in the Opal Mask (4 page)

I look, too, at the masks some of the women in the crowd wear: simple costumed ones for the merchant class, and jeweled—but less ornate than mine—ones for the noblewomen. A scream wells in my throat, clawing for release. But I swallow it, because who will ever understand?

“Smile and wave, for Eleanor’s sake,” Arianne hisses in my ear. “Stop standing there looking like you are facing the chopping block.”

I obey and force myself to wave. The crowd parts for two men, each of whom hold the arm of a third man. All three of them look ragged and dirty. But the third man has a bloody nose. His left eye is swollen shut; his lips are bruised. His shirt is torn, and he is fighting to free himself from the other two.

The first man says, “Masked Princess, we have a crime to report,” and he gives the third man a shake. “This man stole grain from a family in our village. One of the little ones got sick from hunger and died. This man is guilty of murder!”

“We have come here to demand justice!” The second man raises his voice. “Take off your mask and curse him. Give him the punishment he deserves!”

A hush falls over the crowd. Even the wind ceases its wailing. Horror twists my insides as his words register. I grasp the balcony railing and look down at the bruised and bleeding man, who stares back at me with terrified eyes. The men who hold him are superstitious. Yet they are not asking for healing or a blessing, as some have before.

They are asking me to kill this man.

A few women gather up their children and hurry away. Several other citizens cover their eyes.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone,” screams the bleeding man as his captors shove him to his knees. “I was hungry!”

“Everyone is hungry,” shouts a peasant woman in the crowd. “Everyone except the Andewyns and the rich!”

Arianne’s grip on my shoulder is vice-like. “Say something!” she hisses. “Before this turns ugly.”

I look out at the crowd. The air is thick with silent expectation. I open my mouth, but no words come out.

Arianne curses under her breath and then shouts down at the men. “Take him to the courthouse if you feel he has wronged you.” She begins ushering me back into the palace. “Get back inside, unless you want to be the cause ofanother death.”

There is a sharp intake of breath from Vena and the guards. Arianne goes pale as she realizes she has just uttered the unspeakable.

“Your Highness,” she says, for once using my proper title, “I apologize. I was out of line.”

I nod blindly and follow her back inside the palace. Vena hurries away, muttering something about errands.

After she is gone, I lower my voice and ask Arianne, “Did she die? After what happened, did Rinna die?”

Arianne refuses to look me in the eye. “Your father has asked to see you in his study. You don’t want to keep the king waiting.”

“Please,” I beg. “No one will ever speak to me about her.”

Arianne sighs. “It is not my place to ask questions,” she says carefully. “But shortly after . . . the incident, Lord Murcendor told me Rinna had to return to her village due to family obligations.”

“And did you believe him?” I whisper.

Arianne doesn’t answer. But I read the truth in her eyes and know that she, just like so many others, believes I am a monster.

A
ll my life I have been forbidden to show my face. Yet I don’t know why. All I know is the scandal surrounding my birth. While my mother Queen Astrid lay laboring in her bed, my father ordered the Opal Palace be emptied of all its staff. A few members of the Guardian Council were summoned to the palace, and no word was heard from them, or my father, for two days. Everyone in Allegria assumed my mother had died, and possibly, the baby she carried as well.

Yet on the third day my father, King Fennrick the Handsome, appeared on the palace balcony. Tired and care-worn, he declared that Queen Astrid, though severely sick, was alive and had given birth to a healthy baby girl, who they named Wilhamina. When my mother finally reappeared in public she was unrecognizable. Gone was Astrid the Regal, the strong queen who bore the monarchy with grace and compassion. Instead, I am told that she seemed a pale, haggard shadow of her former self. My father said she had been weakened by child birth and did not fully recover.

Most citizens in Allegria would have believed him, had it not been for the page who had been sent to summon the Guardians. The following night he got drunk at a tavern and swore loudly to anyone who would listen that he had heard the king shouting about the birth of his first child. That the child was not a blessing, but a curse.

When I was finally shown to the public, I was wearing a tiny, opal-encrusted mask over my face. No formal explanation for the mask was ever given. Royal officials—who themselves seemed bewildered by my father’s decision to cover my face—assumed that it was a stunt, a device for King Fennrick to gain even more glory and fame for Galandria.

But many remembered the words of the page, who had disappeared shortly after his drunken confession, and other rumors began to circulate. Some believe that I was born with a facial defect and my father, brokenhearted his good looks had not been passed on, decreed I should wear a mask to hide my ugliness. Others believe that my mother looked upon me and became seriously ill, surviving just long enough to bear a son, my brother, Crown Prince Andrei, and that the mask is to ensure the protection of everyone else, lest they suffer the same cursed fate as the queen.

And one rumor that some desperately want to believe is that one look from the Masked Princess can bless or heal those in need. But I know my face can help no one.

Over the years, these rumors of the Masked Princess have spread far and wide, perhaps just as my father intended. Most sensible people in Allegria take no notice of them. Yet still, the most superstitious believe any one of them.

My father and his advisors have always assured me there is nothing wrong with me or my face. Yet it is difficult to believe them, as they never offer a real explanation for the mask. Once when I was a small child I took off my mask in front of Rinna, my favorite nanny. It was summer, and I didn’t understand why I still had to wear the mask, even on the hottest of days, when all I wanted was to press my cheek to Rinna’s cool palm.

I can still remember the shock and sorrow on Rinna’s face, and her strangled voice crying, “But Princess, you know the rules!”

“Rinna, please,” I sobbed, clinging to her. “I forgot. No one has to know. Please.” Back then, I believed I would receive a good lecture and a paddling from my father, whose wrath was a fearsome thing to behold. Yet the punishment was far worse. Rinna, too noble to lie, even by omission, went to my father and reported the indiscretion.

And that was the last I ever saw or heard from her.

Lord Murcendor, one of my father’s Guardians, visited me the next morning. “Rinna became seriously ill last night. Unfortunately, she can no longer be of any service to the royal family.”

He paused, and added, “Is it true you took your mask off in front of her?”

“Yes,” I replied in a little girl whisper. “Did that make her sick?”

“Of course not.” Lord Murcendor said quickly. “But Wilha, you know what your father says. Be a good girl and keep the mask on.”

After word spread in the castle about the incident, most other nannies and servants in the Opal Palace kept a careful eye on me, making sure I never again lifted my mask. And for several years afterward, I would ask what had become of Rinna, but no answer was ever given. As I grew older, and began to understand why some people would cover their eyes upon seeing me, and the whispers that always followed, I stopped asking about her. I was not sure I could handle the answer.

Oftentimes when I am alone I remove my mask and spend hours gazing at my reflection. And I cannot help but wonder . . .

Is this the face of Death?

M
y father’s private study is located just off of the Eleanor Throne Room, a large hall where he receives visitors and conducts state business. At the end of the hall on the north end is his gilded throne. On the western end, as though she is watching over the room, stands a white statue of Galandria’s founder, Queen Eleanor the Great. In each of her hands she holds one of the two Split Opals she dropped during her coronation. Fifteen palace guards surround the statue and they bow as I pass through the hall.

As I enter the study my father and Lord Quinlan, the Guardian of Defense, are standing over my father’s desk examining a stack of parchments.

“. . . Gathered enough information and they are in pursuit of him as we speak,” I hear Lord Quinlan saying. “We should have word very soon. And as for the other matter . . .”

“As for the other matter, my mind is already made up,” my father answers sharply. “I will not hear—” He stops abruptly when he sees me standing in the doorway.

Lord Quinlan turns to look at me, his thick jeweled necklaces glinting in the candlelight, and he quickly gathers up the parchments. “Have a care, Fennrick,” he says, as he exits the room. “Done right, war can be quite profitable.” He sweeps past me with a brief bow.

My father scowls in response and signals that I should wait while he scribbles on a strip of parchment. Though still handsome, he seems to have aged overnight. I wonder if what everyone is saying is true, if war with Kyrenica is now inevitable.

My father rolls up the parchment and begins to speak. “Daughter, you are aware I have been negotiating a treaty with Sir Reinhold, Kyrenica’s ambassador?” He removes a pigeon from its cage and attaches the parchment to the bird’s leg. Then he releases the pigeon and it flies out the open window and into the rain.

I nod. “I am.”

He rubs his temples and opens his mouth but seems to be at a loss for words. In that moment I see him, as I suspect many do, as merely a second son, never properly trained to rule. Crowned king only after his more competent older brother died of the same fever that took my grandfather the king.

“I am convinced the Kyrenicans mean to attack us. Yet Sir Reinhold plays his role well. He says King Ezebo believes Galandria is poised to invade Kyrenica. I have assured him that, so long as I am king, Galandria is committed to peacefully coexisting with Kyrenica.

“Kyrenica’s strength grows each year,” he continues. “So we must not be idle. We must secure peace now, when we can offer what the Kyrenicans desire. Rather than waiting until they are strong enough to take it by force.”

I am unsure where my father is going with this. He does not often discuss politics—or anything else—with me. Mostly, he seems to prefer pretending I do not exist.

“And what is it they desire?” I ask.

“Mining rights over the northern range of the Opal Mountains. They have demanded that we allow them passage without interference from our army. If we do not grant them this, then they shall eventually engage their own army. In exchange, they will remove their trading restrictions on Galandria, which has been crippling our economy. And . . .” He pauses to clear his throat. “And King Ezebo demands your betrothal to his son, the crown prince of Kyrenica.”

I feel the blood drain from my face and my body goes rigid. Marry into the Kyrenican royal family? There could be nothing worse.

A century ago, Kyrenica, Galandria’s premier seaport, declared independence from us. The revolt in Kyrenica was led by Aislinn Andewyn, the twin sister of my great-great grandmother Queen Rowan the Brave. Aislinn was said to be bitterly jealous that Rowan, older by a mere seven minutes, was crowned queen of Galandria instead of her.

Queen Rowan traveled to Kyrenica to resolve the dispute. She was betrayed by Aislinn, who came to be known as the Great Betrayer, and was taken prisoner inside the Kyrenican Castle. Rowan was sentenced to death. However, the night before she was to be beheaded, she miraculously escaped. Aislinn was held responsible for Queen Rowan’s escape and was executed instead by King Ezebo’s great grandfather, Bronson Strassburg, the nobleman who helped Aislinn incite the Kyrenicans against Queen Rowan. War began in earnest and continued for several years until Galandria was forced to admit defeat. Bronson Strassburg declared himself king of a newly independent Kyrenica and annexed several other coastal regions, leaving Galandria virtually land-locked.

And what was once a vast Galandrian kingdom, was essentially split in two. Many believe it was the fulfillment of the omen foretold in the Legend of the Split Opals, on the day of Queen Eleanor’s coronation.

All my life I have been taught to believe that the Kyrenicans and their royal family, the Strassburgs, are brutal, desperate people. That they are a threat to my family, and to everyone else in Galandria.

Several seconds go by before I can respond, and when I do, my voice is high-pitched and quaking. “You would have me marry a Strassburg? A Kyrenican?”

“You would marry Crown Prince Stefan, the future king of Kyrenica.”

“I have heard you say that the lowest servant in Galandria is more worthy than the greatest lord in Kyrenica. You have called them dogs. You would have me marry a dog?”