The Man Behind the Mask

We wandered back to the bedroom, dropped our robes and stretched out on the bed, where we continued to whisper to each other.

Brit said she doubted she’d ever finish any of her novels now. That was how we’d met—a shared interest in writing. She’d started nine or ten books. About halfway through, she’d always get tired of them. She’d start something else or real life would beckon.

She grinned. “There’s a lot going on here in Gullandria. No time for scribbling, if you know what I mean.”

“Maybe later, huh? It’s not like you don’t have plenty of years ahead of you to get back to it.”

She made a noise of agreement, but her eyes had doubts in them. Whether the doubts were about her ever writing again or the number of years ahead of her, I couldn’t have said. I almost asked.

But she’d already begun the story of her adventures in the north. She’d stopped a rape and met a cousin she hadn’t even known she had. And she’d lived among the Mystics. Eric’s aunt, the one who had nursed her back to health, was a Mystic. The Mystics lived simply, by the old Norse ways. Eric was at home among them; Medwyn had been born a Mystic and Eric’s mother had, too.

She pulled a heavy silver chain out from under her pajama top and showed me the disc-shaped serpent pendant I had noticed the night of the ball. “My marriage medallion,” she said. “Among the Mystics, for each newborn son, they create a different medallion. This one was made for Eric. He wore it as a child. He gave it to Medwyn when he turned eighteen. And Medwyn gave it to me—as Eric’s chosen bride…”

I knew she wasn’t telling me everything. There were those moments when she’d get going on some part of the story and, out of nowhere, her voice would trail off. Her eyes would shift away.

I didn’t push her. I figured what she didn’t say was probably none of my business.

She wanted to know how my writing was going.

I told her I’d finished my fourth novel—a murder mystery with a female bounty hunter heroine. I was already thinking series. “And lately, I’ve been raking in the rejections.”

We both chuckled. It was a private joke with us. The more rejections, the closer to that first sale. She asked about my job in a boiler room, selling office supplies—toner, pens, inkjet paper, you name it—on the phone.

I groaned. “That was so last summer. I’m on to bigger and better things now. A Mexican restaurant on Pico.” Actually I wasn’t a hundred percent sure the job would be there when I got back. But such is the life of a struggling artiste. “Early shift,” I added. “Try not to be too jealous.”

“I am doing my very best.” She was grinning. And then she wasn’t grinning. “Dulce…” I knew by her sudden change of tone, by the shadows in her eyes, that something bleak was coming. “Last night, at the ball, I noticed you and Valbrand really hit it off.”

I made a sound that could have meant anything. “Um?”

“Well, I, um…” She was having real trouble getting around to it. I kept my mouth shut. Though I loved nothing so much as finishing other people’s sentences, right then, I made no attempt to fill in the blanks. She tried again. “That’s the first time I’ve seen my brother dance, did you know that?” I shook my head. She looked so sad. “They say he used to love to dance.…”

At that moment, I was absolutely certain that she knew how I felt—and that she was going to warn me off him. It was all there, in her worried blue eyes.

And yes, I’m aware that reading minds is not dependable, that you’re just too damn likely to get it all wrong. A girl should have sense enough to go ahead and ask.

But I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to hear her tell me how he was not the man for me.

It wasn’t as if I didn’t already know.

“I’m so grateful,” she said quietly, “that he’s back with us. But how can I tell you? Dulce, he’s…damaged, you know, by what happened to him? And I don’t just mean his poor face. He’s never going to be like your average guy.”

“What, exactly, happened to him?”

She was frowning. “I told you. A storm at sea. A fire. He was washed overboard.…”

Yes, she had told me.

When Valbrand went missing, Brit’s mother had phoned her with the news that the brother she’d never known was lost at sea and presumed dead. Brit had just moved in across the courtyard from me. She came over to my place and we drank strong coffee and talked all night.

It was really hard for her, to think that he was gone. She hated it so much—that she’d lost him when she hadn’t even met him yet. There had always been all those family issues that had kept her from ever getting to know him. Since her father and her mother split—when Brit and her sisters were ten months old—there had been zero communication between the two halves of the family. I say two halves because it was some kind of trade-off, I think. Daughters to Ingrid. Sons—Valbrand and Kylan—to King Osrik.

Kylan was dead within a year or two after the split, killed in a stable fire at the age of five. Which made Valbrand the only son left—and then he was gone, too.

I’d assumed at first that Valbrand must have been on some kind of cruise when he disappeared. That night in my apartment, sipping coffee, trying not to cry, Brit had set me straight.

In Gullandria it was tradition that any young prince who hoped to someday be king must accomplish a Viking Voyage. I instantly pictured wild men in horned helmets burning down picturesque villages and having their way with terrified women.

But I had it all wrong. There was no raping or pillaging involved, just a sea voyage in an authentic reproduction of a Viking longship. It was a symbolic trip, Brit said. A nod to Gullandrian history, to the time when kings went a-Viking and were unlikely to live all that long.

Valbrand had set off from Lysgard Harbor with a trusted crew of thirty. He made it to the Faeroes and set sail for Iceland. They’d heard nothing from him after that, though it was only a matter of days to Iceland and he had agreed to check in with his father when the ship made land there.

The rest we’d learned later, after Eric went looking for him and returned to report that he’d found the few survivors, all of whom told the same story about a storm at sea.

“The bit about the fire is new,” I said. “You never mentioned that until the other day.”

Brit pursed up her mouth. “It’s not a bit, Dulce. It’s what happened to him.”

“It’s vague. You know it is. Who started the fire? And what about these survivors? Who were they? Why did Eric have to track them down, if they were part of a trusted crew? I mean, why didn’t they come back on their own and report what had happened, if they were so trustworthy?”

She gave me another long look. “Dulce…”

I waited. She didn’t say anything else—I mean, beyond my name, in a weary sort of tone. Finally I said, “You’re my best friend. I know you. And I know when you’re not being straight with me.”

“I’m being straight.”

“Right.”

“I am.” She lifted up, punched her pillow, dropped back down. “There’s just…things I can’t talk about, that’s all.”

“Getting that. Loud and clear.”

We lay there, on our separate pillows, looking in each other’s eyes, both of us frowning. Finally she sighed. “I’ve said all I can say about what happened to my brother. So will you just please let it go?”

I could see there was no point in keeping at her. She’d made it painfully clear she wouldn’t say any more. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I’ll let it go.” For now, anyway, I added silently. I strove for a lighter tone. “Hey.”

“What?”

“You said that Valbrand was never going to be your average guy.”

“Yeah?” She was looking at me narrow-eyed—probably anticipating the next question she would have to evade.

“So. Was he ever your average guy?”

The corner of her mouth twitched. In relief, I was certain. Here was something she could be honest about. “No. No, he wasn’t. Once he was…everything this country needs in its next king.”

“And now?”

“Now…” She paused, considering. “Now, I don’t think he’s really sure who he is.”