Restored (A Caleo Selection)

38 ~ A Love So Real

The crowd was massive.

I watched from the open window, Piper's arm around my waist, as people milled about restlessly, waiting for the prince to address his people. The whole palace staff would be watching, either from different places or on TV.

The balcony where Leo would speak was a story below me, and I stared down at the guards positioned along the sides. Below, reporters were talking and cameras were already running, not wanting to miss a second of the event.

I had asked Piper if she knew what would be said, and she has only shaken her head. Both of us were scared and blind, but at least I could take whatever news Leo gave with my best friend at my side.

I had spent all yesterday praying I hadn't made a mistake in letting him follow through with whatever plan he'd made. I could do nothing more but hope his friends and his father would give him enough discernment to accept defeat when he saw it. I'd never been a pessimist, but how else could this end?

Finally, the balcony doors swung open and Leo stepped out, dressed in his usual crumpled suit, but unlike normal days, he wore a thin golden band around his head. I tightened my grip on Piper, watching the boy I had come to love command the crowd's attention so effortlessly. King Hephaestus and Lord Zeus followed him, and I spotted Jason and Percy at their backs.

The crowd immediately grew louder, yelling everything from praise to demands to insults, and Leo held up his hands to quiet them. When the noise had died down, he spoke into the microphone on the edge of the rail.

"People of Olympus Illéa," he began. "I have been training to take over the throne since I was extremely young, and I know enough to see what must be done under these circumstances."

Someone in the crowd yelled, "Execute the traitor!" Immediately the shouts resumed. I bit down on my tongue so hard I tasted blood, and Piper stiffened in anger.

Leo waited till the crowd calmed once again. "I know you believe her to be a cruel, heartless person. You see only what her father and family have done, and you assume. But I have spent the past several months with different girls from all over this country, and I can assure you, she is not."

Leo paused, perhaps waiting for more hollering, but none came. The crowd seemed to be holding its breath.

"I have watched her reassure other girls in the Selection from the beginning. I have heard from my good friends how she let them cry on her shoulder when my mother died, and I have relied on her for support many times since that awful day. When the Titans captured both of us-believe me, she did not go willingly-I was given the chance to escape without her, and she pressured me to take it. She brought me food and books and anything she could to help me, and she cried for my pain."

It was so quiet I could hear a lone baby's cry from far back in the crowd. I gripped Piper's hand so tightly my knuckles turned white.

"She told me to escape, gave me all she knew and promised me she would find a way out herself, when she knew she likely could not. Later, when Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson were also captured, she risked her life to save them. And when she returned to the palace at last, she told my father everything about the plot -- even what little unintentional involvement she had, knowing she could be punished for it. She was ready to suffer on our behalf."

I didn't know when the tears had come, but now I couldn't stop them. How I loved this boy who couldn't be mine, for the sake of his kingdom.

"How can I look at her and see her surname, her father, when her actions speak so much louder? I would trust her with my life in half a second. Now I've been relegated to a love-struck teenager for that. And maybe that's all I really am, but it's a love I would gladly give everything for. Is that not what real love, of any kind, is?"