Chapter 14
1253 Words
Fourteen
I wiped my mouth with my sleeve. “I don’t understand. From the tension between you two, I would have thought that he was your mortal enemy.”
She winced. “He is, technically.”
“Technically?”
“Remember, there were two royal families that ruled Coleum. My family was never actually supposed to have the throne, because The Bastard King wasn’t supposed to inherit. His mother’s lineage made it impossible for him to. She was a maid, and his father’s mistress. Our family was also Irish, and there are those who believed for a long time that the Irish were second class citizens because it was the Scottish that ruled first. The problem is, the island is small, and there are still descendants from the other royal family that live here. The Guillotine is mostly made up of those members.”
I had read enough Shakespeare to know where this was going. “Let me guess, Colin is a descendant of that group of deposed royals.”
She nodded. “The summer I turned seventeen, he took a job at the palace. He claimed that he had changed, and he didn’t want anything to do with the revolutionaries. He saw working at the palace as his penance for the acts that he had committed.”
I sighed. “He wasn’t really there for penance, was he?”
She shook her head, her normally lively, bright, blue eyes going dark. “He took the job as an excuse to get close to me. He worked as my security guard for a while, and we were only a year apart in age. He told me he loved me, and even asked my father for his blessing to be with me. My father agreed, because we all thought that maybe we could use this as a way to reconcile with the revolutionaries. I lost my virginity to him, and then there was an Awakening celebration held in our honor. It was a great feast, with a grand ball and….and….”
“And what?”
“The Revolutionaries attacked,” she said, “we couldn’t find a way to connect Colin to them, but I knew, deep down it was him. I had seen him talking to his brother, their leader, the day before. Fifteen people died that night, and my father was shot and rushed to the hospital. That’s why things are so tense right now. It was the biggest move the revolutionaries made. It was part of why I decided I wanted to go to college, why it was so important for me to have a normal roommate. I wanted to prove to the people that I could better myself. That I wasn’t some foolish, selfish, love struck girl.”
My heart ached for Everly. She had put her heart and soul out there, only to have it stomped on. I wrapped her in a hug. “That’s horrible, Everly. I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” she said tiredly, wiping tears away from her face, “the worst part is that if I hadn’t been foolish enough to believe him, my Awakening would have been completely different. That same year, something else happened, but I was so fixated on Colin that I couldn’t bring myself to even consider anyone else.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Darien,” she answered.
I grinned. From the moment I had first seen Darien say hello to Everly at Apollo’s dorm, I had sensed that there was something between the two. I wasn’t surprised in the least to hear that there was something going on between the two.
“What happened?” I said, unable to hide my excitement.
She seemed taken aback by how eager I seemed to get an answer about this. “How long have you been waiting to ask that question?”
“Since Apollo’s dorm,” I admitted, “he looked at you like he was the big bad wolf who wanted to eat you up.”
She blushed. “He did not!”
“He totally did,” I insisted, “now, tell me what happened.”
“Before I went through The Awakening with Colin, Darien kissed me. The night before, he came to my room, and kissed me. I told him nothing could happen, that I saw him as an older brother. But with everything that happened that night, we haven’t been able to move past it. Whenever I look at him, I feel like…”
“Like a bad person for making the wrong choice,” I said.
She nodded. “I feel like if I were to be with him, I would constantly remind everyone about that horrible night.”
I took a sip of my soda. “I’m sorry, Everly. I hate that that happened to you. If you really don’t want me to work with him, I’m certain that we can arrange something with Professor Malcolm.”
“Malcolm hates our family too,” said Everly, “he’s Scottish. He tries to be impartial, because he’s a teacher but I can hear it in his voice when he talks to me.”
I thought of the chalk board, of the message that he had written there for me. The Guillotine was everywhere, and they all seemed to be trying to pull me into their craziness. But I wouldn’t let them.
As far as I was concerned, the Royal family had been nothing but kind to me since I had arrived. I wouldn’t betray them, no matter what the revolutionaries tried to do to me.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “they’re not going to get to me. You’re the closest thing to family I have anymore, Everly.”
“And soon, that will be official,” she said, “in the middle of everything, I had almost forgotten that your engagement announcement is going to happen soon.”
I blushed. “Oh, me too. I…I guess I’ll be going to the opera this weekend. I’d forgotten about that.”
“Well, don’t worry about it. I’ll be in attendance, and so will Mother. We all sit in the family booth, and of course there will be some staring but it is only natural. Everyone will be curious about you. If you can survive a night at the opera, you can survive any royal event that will come your way.”
“Is it really that intense?” I said. “I mean, it’s the opera. How intimidating can it be?”
“It’s like being surrounded by thousands of Blair Waldorf’s who have all been starving themselves to fit into their dress for the night,” Everly said, “trust me, it’s brutal. Oh, and my brother will be picking out your dress for you.”
“What, why?”
“Tradition,” she said, with a smile. “Opera can be…intense.”
She didn’t elaborate, and I wasn’t certain that I was ready for her too.
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