Kidnapping the Prince

Kidnapping the Prince Installment XXII

Kidnapping the Prince Installment XXII

I stared into the orange flames, burning them into the back of my eyelids against the velvety night. A plate of uneaten food sat on my lap, cold and untouched, and my black hair floated upward on a gust of warm wind. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lucas come and sit down next to me.

“Are you all right?” he asked after a minute. I thought about it.

“No,” I answered at last. Smoke from the fire blew into my eyes, making them tear up even more than they already were. “I just found out that my best friend was a spy and a traitor to me this whole time, and that I’ve been working my ass off for the people who orphaned me. Do you think you’d be fine?” I snapped, wiping my eyes furiously.

“I don’t think I would,” Lucas said quietly. I didn’t respond, and he didn’t press me for anything more. “Look,” he sighed, “I’m sorry for how things have been between us. I know I’ve kind of been a jerk, and I’m sorry for it.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said quietly, still not taking my eyes off the fire. “I’ve been so rude and just different from me lately. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Well,” Lucas said slightly more cheerfully, “at least this will all be over soon, and we can all get back to normal, right?”

I stayed quiet, thinking about that. Would anything be the same after we left this camp in the middle of the forest? I knew the answer to that question, but I wished it were different.

“No, Luke,” I said at last, “nothing’s going to be the same. Ryan most definitely won’t be coming back with us,” I said firmly even as I choked on the words, “and I don’t know how I can live with myself anymore.”

“You don’t have to do that to yourself, you know,” Lucas whispered softly. “After all, it’s not your fault you were tricked into working for Niwels.” I’d explained earlier all about my parents’ deaths and my hatred towards the country.

“But it is!” I cried in exasperation. “It’s my fault because I should have put it all together!”

“Put what together?” Lucas asked in confusion. I sighed and began to explain.

“I had always known that a Niwelian soldier murdered my parents,” I said with maybe just a little too much venom than necessary, “and so I did a ton of research on them. I knew where they were located and I knew the basics of their politics and economics, all so that I could maybe one day take revenge on them, however small the scale. And Dan even told me that a country that began with the letter N was fighting a war up in the north! I should’ve known then that it was most likely Niwels. I could have abandoned the entire job right then! But I didn’t.

“He also told me that Niwels didn’t want a patch of trees cut down. You know why? Because it would have exposed their entire army’s camp. And what’s even more obvious is the duke’s freaking name!” I nearly shouted. Looking alarmed, Lucas put a hand on my shoulder to quiet me.

“Do you want to be overheard and stabbed to death for treason or something?” he hissed in my ear.

“I don’t care,” I snapped. “Why not die the same way my parents did?” Lucas looked away uncomfortably and cleared his throat.

“Um, what were you saying about the duke’s name?” I took a few deep breathes.

“His name is a fake,” I whispered into Lucas’s ear. “Slewin is Niwels spelled backwards,” I hissed. Lucas gaped at me for a second.

“Whoa,” he breathed. “That is . . . I don’t even . . . How did . . . Wow,” he seemed unable to form any coherent sentences. “But that would pretty much mean the entire persona of Charles Slewin the Grand Duke of Pentedwell is a fake. And how did no one else notice that? Surely there wouldn’t be a record of a Slewin family in Pentedwell.”