Pretender to the Throne

“The people love me?” she spat, anger rising in her, anger she always thought was dealt with. Until something came up and reminded her that it wasn’t. Something small and insignificant, like catching sight of herself in the mirror. Or burning her finger when she was cooking. In this instance, it wasn’t a small something. It was the ghost of fiancés past, talking about the people. The people who had loved her.

She’d made her peace with some of the people of Kyonos. She served them, after all, but she didn’t feel the way she once had about them—confident that she had a country filled with adoring fans.

Quite the opposite.

“Yes,” he said, his voice certain still, as though he hadn’t heard the warning in her tone.

“The people,” she said, “behaved more like animals after you left. Everything fell apart, but I assume you know that.”

“I didn’t watch the news after I left. A tiny island like Kyonos is fairly easy to ignore when you aren’t on it. And when you’re drunk headlines look a little blurry.”

“So you don’t know, then? You don’t know that everything...everything went to hell? That companies pulled up stakes, stocks went down to nothing, thousands of people lost their jobs?”

“All because I left?”

“Surely you knew some of this.”

“Some of it,” he said, his voice clipped. “But there’s a lot you can avoid when you’re only sober for a couple hours a day.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I imagine vice isn’t so much your thing.”

“No.”

“So the economy collapsed and I’m to blame? That’s the sum of it?”

She shrugged. “You. The death of the queen. The king’s depression. It was an unhappy combination, and no one was confident in the state of things. People were angry.”

She looked at him and she tried to find a place of serenity. Of strength. What happened to her wasn’t a secret. It was in newspapers, online. It was widespread news. It was just hard to say out loud.

But you aren’t going to show him that you care. You aren’t going to be weak. It doesn’t matter. Vanity. All is vanity.

“There were riots in the streets. In front of the homes of government officials, who were blamed for the economic crisis. There were different kinds of attacks made. Several attempts at...acid attacks. We were leaving our home when a man pushed up to the front and tried to throw a cup of acid onto my father. He stumbled, though, and the man missed. I was hit instead. I don’t think I need to tell you where,” she said, attempting to smile. Smiling could be difficult enough at the best of times since half of her mouth had trouble obeying that command, but when she didn’t feel like smiling it was completely impossible.

But telling the story was easier when she imagined it was another girl. When she remembered what happened without remembering the pain.

She searched his face. She seemed to have succeeded in shocking him, which was something she hadn’t imagined would be possible.

“So, I think it’s fair to say maybe the people don’t love me as much as you think they do.” She pushed past him now, determined to put an end to this. To this strange bit of torment from the past.

He grabbed hold of her, his hand on her arm sending a rush of heat through her. She breathed in sharply, his scent hitting her, like a punch in the chest.

Her head was swimming. With glittering palaces and silk dresses. Dancing in a sparkling ballroom in a man’s warm embrace. A trip to the garden where his lips almost touched hers. Her full, beautiful lips, unencumbered by scar tissue. It would have been her first kiss. And right then she wanted to weep for the loss of it because now there would never be one.

Not on those lips. They were gone forever.

Not even on the lips she had now. Because she had vowed to never know that pleasure of life. To forego it in favor of serving others, and release her hold on her own needs. Not that it should matter. No man would ever want to kiss her anyway.

But Xander was...he was too much. He was here, right when she didn’t want him, and not fifteen years ago when she’d needed him.

Right now, she didn’t need him. She needed distance. The more Xander filled up her vision, the more faded everything else seemed to become. Xander was a look into a life that she didn’t have anymore. Couldn’t have. Didn’t want.

She just needed him gone. So that she could start to forget again.

“I suppose you should go now,” she said. “Now that you know how it is. If you’re looking for a ticket to salvation, Xander, I’m not it.”

“I’m not interested in salvation,” he said. “But I do want to do the right thing. Novel, isn’t it?”

“Well, I can’t help you. Perhaps it’s best you found your way back to the village.”

“I’m staying here tonight.”

“What?” she asked, shock lancing her.

“I spoke to the abbess, and explained the situation. I don’t want the public knowing I’m here yet, not until I’m ready. And I intend to bring you with me.”

“I see. And nothing of what I said matters?”

He shook his head, his jaw tight. “No.”

“The fact that I’m not me anymore doesn’t matter?”

He studied her face, the cold assessment saying more than any insult could. Before the attack, men...Xander...had never looked at her with ice in their eyes. There had always been heat.

“I’ll let you know in the morning.”

He turned and walked away from her, into the main building. She waited out in the yard, cursing silently and not caring that it was a sin as she stood there, hoping he was putting enough distance between them that she wouldn’t run into him again.

She would speak to the abbess tonight and in the morning, hopefully Xander would leave. And he would go back to being a memory she tried not to have.

* * *

It was early the next morning when Mother Maria-Francesca called her into her office.

“You should go with him.”

“I can’t,” Layna said, stepping back. “I don’t want to go back to that life. I want to be here.”

“He only wants you to help him get established. And as you want to serve, I think it would be good for you to serve in this way.”

“Alone. With a man.”

“If I have to concern myself with how you would behave alone with a man then perhaps this isn’t your calling.”

It wasn’t spoken in anger or in condemnation, just as a simple, quiet fact that settled in the room and made Layna feel hideously exposed. As though her motives—motives she’d often feared were less than wholly pure—were laid out before the woman she considered her spiritual superior in every way.

All that ugly fear and insecurity. Her vanity. Her anger. And old desires that never seemed to fully die. Just sitting there for anyone to see.