Kaden | ✓

part three ♚ antiquity

It was a whole week of discussions and preparations for the Selection that drove me to go for a walk in Angeles on my own the next Wednesday. Dressed in borrowed jeans and a t-shirt, I walked with my hands tucked in my pockets and my head down to avoid looking directly at anyone. I'd never been out alone before. I didn't want to risk being noticed, but I didn't want to bother James and Dustan, who were both working.

I slipped into the small café and moved towards the counter. I ordered coffee and sat, listening to the sounds of the violin. I recognized it as Paganini, a piece that my mother learned years ago and loved to have playing for other royal families. The name was something I couldn't really remember well--Cantabile, I believe? Something with the number seventeen.

Emmaline performed the piece with the steadiness and skill of someone that had been playing for years, and her confidence on stage was unshakeable. She played two more songs--a Beethoven piece, and one I didn't recognize, and then she was done, and I had finished my coffee. I stood and approached the stage where she sat, taking sips from a bottle of water.

She smiled up at me. "Alex. I see you're back."

"I couldn't resist, honestly." I said. "It's been a long week, and you're an amazing violinist." I smiled. "My mother used to play violin a lot. She plays piano more now, but she played that Paganini piece often."

"It's my favorite," Emmaline said, blushing. "My uncle taught me it, and then my grandfather helped me perfect it on violin."

"It was incredible to listen to."

She smiled. She shifted like she wasn't used to wearing dresses--she was in a navy blue one today, outlined in cream with buttons going down from the neckline to the waist--and pressed her hands into her knees. "So, besides my music, what brings you here today? I get the feeling you wanted more than just to hear me play."

"Someone may have told me that you perform at the Players' Place, and I may have decided after asking around about what it is that I want to see you there one time."

"Well, there it's nothing extraordinary..."

"You play what you write, don't you?"

She nodded. "Yes. Nothing extraordinary. I don't see why you'd want to come for me, but..." She grabbed a permanent marker from her case and took my hand. She scribbled down a date, a location, and a time range. "That's the date I'm on next. I'm not sure if you'll want to come, because you kind of have to pay this ungodly amount of money to get in the door..." She chewed on her lower lip nervously.

I knew about the high entrance fees, and I also knew that most of the money paid went to the featured artist of that night. "I've got enough money to handle the fees. I'll be there."

"Do you have a phone?" She asked. "So I could get your number?"

"Nope." I sighed. Perks of being a prince.

"Oh." She deflated a little, and then took my drawn on hand by the wrist and scribbled something else onto my forearm. An address, I realized. "Well, that's my address. You could send me a letter sometime, and maybe we could come up with a place and time to meet up? Sorry, I just want to talk to you more and I'm not really sure how to do it."

I laughed. "Letters are a great idea. I'll send you one soon."

"You better." She winked and stood up, picking up her violin. "See you around..." She leaned a little closer and whispered, "Highness."

♚

How Emmaline knew had my head spinning the rest of the day, so I wrote her a letter immediately when I got home. I gave a place and time each week that I would be available, and she agreed happily. That night--Friday--I snuck out of the palace and through the streets of Angeles to meet her.

She was dressed in soft gray shorts, a red flannel, and red sneakers, and she grinned when she saw me. "Alex," she greeted, "or should I say Kaden?"

"Actually, Your Highness would be the proper greeting." I said, shoving my hands into the pockets of my pants. I hadn't had the time to change out of all of my suit, so I'd been an idiot and had come in a black dress shirt and dark gray trousers. "But Kaden works. How did you find out?"

"Please," she snorted. "I'm not stupid." She smiled, taking a step closer. "Now, what I want to know is why a prince that's going to be having his Selection within the month wants to sneak around with a dirty gutter-rat violinist."

I chuckled. "Dirty gutter-rat violinist? Don't flatter yourself." 

She brightened at my teasing. "Don't evade the question."

I shrugged. "I can have friends, you know."

She grinned, the look somewhere between a pretty smile and a cruel smirk, and she took a step closer. "Sure you can. But still, the heartthrob Prince Kaden sneaking out of the palace in the middle of the night, risking his life to see a pretty girl like me? That sounds a little sketchy, doesn't it?"

"Only if either of us is romantically inclined, Miss Levitt."

"Oh, but the media doesn't care about the truth, Mr. Schreave. Only what can be seen. And right now they would see the prince, nearly backed against an alley wall, with a pretty girl in front of him and what is probably an intense look on her face. Now, can you tell me how that would look to them?"

"I would," I said, "but I know that you don't say those kinds of things around a lady."

She shook her head, laughing quietly at me. She lifted her hand to brush back some hair that had fallen in her face, and her fingers grazed the buttons on my shirt. She looked up at me through her eyelashes, and my heart thudded in my chest. "I think," she said, "I'll enter the Selection."

A smile spilt my face. "I think," I said, "that I'll hope I choose you."

Or, you know, I'll rig it so that I do.