Paper Rings Part V

7 March 2995

The corridors of the palace were darker than Marie had expected them to be. Despite its dark stone walls and the way it loomed over the village like an ominous shadow atop its hill, Marie had always thought of it as a sparkly, dream-like thing. The ballroom was, so the rest of it must be too, she had thought, but she had thought wrong. 

It was nice—there was no doubt about that, with its deep reds, purples, and greens amongst more than enough cold, and a wood floor more polished than any other she had ever seen—but it was gloomy, and the flames of the torches that lined the walls glowed a strange, unnatural shade of green. Even if she had known nothing else about Caleb, she would have understood, standing here, why his face always got so dark when he thought about returning home.

She was waiting for him now, her back to the wall outside the doors of the throne room as she tried not to make eye contact with the guards positioned on either side of them. Although she wouldn’t look at them, she got the feeling that they were staring at her, probably because they were. She hoped it was because she was a stranger within the walls of the palace, because she was only one set of doors away from the King, the Queen, and the Crown Prince, but she knew it was more likely that they didn’t perceive her as much of a threat at all. They were both men, both significantly taller and broader than her, and she had already been checked for weapons before she’d been allowed in the front gate. More likely, she was simply a momentary distraction. She was the thing that was making their boring, routine overnight shift interesting. 

The muscles in her shoulders and back were tense, and she couldn’t seem to decide what the best thing to do with her hands was. When the King had demanded to speak with him alone, she had told Caleb that she would be okay alone, but she hadn’t meant it. There was nothing she wanted more now than to have him at her side. Instead, she had to wait alone, straining to hear what he and his father were saying, their voices muffled by the doors. The longer they were in there, though, the easier it became to hear them, as they got progressively louder with each exchange.

“I just want to be happy!” Caleb shouted. It was the clearest she had been able to hear him the entire time she had been waiting.

“Being careless and being happy are not the same thing,” Leo said, his voice also raised but more controlled. “That’s what you need to learn.”

Marie knew it was only a matter of time before she was summoned to join them, and she wondered what she should expect when that time came. Leo may not have been her father, but he was her king. She would much rather have been waiting to be chastised by her own dad. At least she knew he loved her and only wanted the best for her. Leo had no reason to care about her in the slightest.

They were still going back and forth, still getting louder and louder, and she tried to tune them out, closing her eyes and leaning back against the cold stone wall. The months had been fun, but this was the end. She should have known that the warmth she had always felt when they met in the dark would fade eventually. That it would turn cold. Even if it didn’t end because they grew apart, it would end because of who Caleb was. But instead, she had allowed herself to start thinking it would last forever. 

“Hi.”

Marie jumped. Her eyes flew open, an odd yellowish tone overlaying the hallway as her eyes readjusted to the light. She hoped her flinch had been subtle, not too noticeable, but she knew it hadn’t been. 

A girl stood before her, thin lips pursed and dark eyebrows furrowed. Her long, dark hair was pinned back, only a few strands falling out and over her face. It was a face that was unknown and yet entirely familiar. The green eyes only added to the effect. Her resemblance to her brother was uncanny.

Marie cleared her throat. “Hi,” she managed, her voice giving away the unease in her stomach.

If Anastasia noticed, she didn’t give it away, although her eyes trailed up and down Marie like she was a suspect in a murder investigation. “I’m Ana.”

“I’m Marie.” 

“I know.”

Marie looked at the younger girl. “You do?”

Ana nodded. “Caleb talks about you all the time.”

“He does?” The pitch of Marie’s voice was high, more so than usual, and even if they didn’t know each other, she knew Ana could tell.

She kept her own voice calm and matter-of-fact. Marie had to wonder if it was something she had been trained to do. “That’s what I said.”

A mix of feelings swirled in Marie’s chest. She had thought they were keeping this more of a secret, the type of secret that nobody but them got to know, not even those closest to them. Maybe if she had known that he was talking about her, she might have told someone, one of her brothers, maybe. If for nothing else then, to get some advice. 

Yet, despite the slight annoyance she felt at Caleb for not keeping their secret, there was a part of her that felt almost satisfied. If he had told someone else about her, maybe it meant that he wanted to be more serious about whatever it was they were doing. 

She could feel that her face was at least pink, if not bright red, but she tried her best to ignore it, hoping the hallway’s strange lighting would keep Ana from noticing too. “What has he said about me?”

If he had said anything bad, anything she wouldn’t like, she had no reason to think that Ana would betray her brother by telling her, but she could still try. 

Ana shrugged. “He said you’re pretty,” she said. “And he thinks you’re funny. And smart.”

Silence passed between them, filled by the shouting continuing in the throne room. Marie could tell Ana was holding something back, fiddling with the fabric of her nightgown and biting at her lip. Whatever it was, it must have been something Caleb wouldn’t want her to say.

“He’s in love with you.”

Now Marie was sure her face was scarlet, so much so that even the strange lighting likely wouldn’t hide it from Ana. She tried to breathe and to keep her voice steady, but it was difficult when her body was numb and everything felt as if it were a thousand miles away. “He said that?”

“No,” Ana said, and a weight fell in Marie’s stomach, “but he didn’t have to. Why else would he keep sneaking off to meet you in the middle of the night? I don’t think the risk and the effort would be worth much otherwise.”

Marie opened her mouth to ask Ana to tell her more, but as one of the towering throne room doors creaked open, she snapped it shut again just as fast.

Caleb poked his head out, the lines of his forehead oddly pronounced in the dim light as he narrowed his eyes at his sister and shook his head. Ana looked away from him and scurried off without a word, down the hall and around the corner. Marie would have too, if he had looked at her like that.

He held out a hand to her. His fingers were long, and his palm was smooth, nearly free of calluses entirely. She knew that—she had held his hand many times before—but it was more noticeable now, something that had been a slight buzz in the background but had become a siren blaring in her ears. There wasn’t a person down in the village, not even a child, with hands that smooth. Calluses were the mark of laborers. They were like scars and tattoos, telling the story of a life. 

He had told her he was a swordsman, but even that wasn’t reflected in the skin of that hand, a dead giveaway of who he was and who he one day would be. Marie didn’t understand how something could feel so right and so wrong at the same time. All she wanted was to be close to him, but somehow, she knew it couldn’t end well. Fate would never go their way.

Still, she took his hand and let him lead her into the room that felt so off-limits to her that it was like entering a foreign nation where she wasn’t welcome. 

The door shut behind them with a thud that could have been soft or booming, but Marie couldn’t hear anything clearly enough to tell the difference. The King towered over them both, standing atop his throne’s dais, his hands held behind his back as he watched them come to a halt in front of him. The Queen was there too, much to Marie’s surprise, off to the side with a look on her face that could only represent irritation. As far as Marie had been able to hear from the other side of the doors, she had never once spoken up as her husband and son had gone back and forth. Maybe she had known that cutting in wasn’t worth her energy.

Caleb’s grip on her hand was tight, and the tension in his body was radiating out onto her as if somehow it could be transferred between them through their intertwined fingertips. His face didn’t reflect his nerves—it never did—somehow managing to remain calm and serene instead. She had never known anyone else with the ability to wear a mask as effortlessly as he did. 

The skin of his palm was clammy against hers, as he cleared his throat and looked up at his father, gaze steady. “Mom, Dad,” he said, “this is Marie Jonas.” His eyes broke away from them, and he looked down at her. “And Marie, these are my parents.”

Both of their faces remained as clear as his as she looked at them, attempting a friendly smile. She took Caleb’s arm with the hand that wasn’t already laced in his and squeezed it tight. Even through the thick fabric of his coat, she could feel the muscle of his upper arm. He may not have had callused hands, but he did have plenty of lean muscle.

“My son tells me your parents are jewelers,” Leo said without so much as a twitch in his face. It was a sharp and angled face that somehow managed to look everything and nothing like Caleb’s. In some ways, he could have been his son’s ghost, with his pallid skin, his pale blond hair that had started to go white at the edges, and his thin frame. She hadn’t seen him many times in her life, but she could tell that he was thinner now than he had been on New Year’s Eve.

She took a breath. “Yes.”

A part of her wondered if she should say “Yes, Sir”—he was the King, after all—but the word felt unnatural on her tongue, so she left it off. There wasn’t any harm, she thought, in keeping things short, but there could be harm in overthinking it too much.

Leo nodded curtly. “And you have brothers. What about them?”

Well, Archie’s a kid. Florian and Theo help my parents a lot.” Marie wasn’t certain how honest she should be. Nothing she had said was untrue, but it felt like a disservice to her family to leave out the things that really mattered. They weren’t just lifeless villagers. They were people too, people with hopes and dreams and personalities. “If they had it their way, Florian would be an artist full time, and I’m honestly not sure what Theo would do. Maybe he’d sail.”

“Interesting.” Leo’s face still remained essentially blank. “What about you?”

“I help my parents too. And I go to school.”

“Which one?”

“Just the one down in the village.”

He was looking at her as if he could somehow see through her body and uncover every secret she held in her mind in the process. She preferred the emptiness he had worn on his face moments before to the fire that was in his eyes now. Maybe it was anger; maybe it was something else. Either way, she could only hope that her face didn’t give away the unsettled feeling that had overtaken her body.

“Dad.” Caleb’s voice was stern, deeper than Marie had ever heard it before. Even if his hand was still clammy, in his heart, he was preparing himself to fight back if it became necessary. “Don’t interrogate her.”

Leo raised an eyebrow but kept a steady voice. “Why? I need to get to know her too,” he said. “I’m playing catch up right now.”

This was an exchange between a father and son, but it was also an exchange between a prince and a king. Where did they draw the lines? When was Caleb being a disagreeable kid, and when was he being an insubordinate subject?

There had been times, when she was a child, that Marie had wished that her father were a king and that she were a princess. She could never express how grateful she was that that hadn’t been the case. 

“You’re lucky, Caleb,” Leo continued. “You’re lucky that I’m even considering letting you keep seeing her.”

Caleb’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and Marie felt her own do the same. His face was no longer quite as stoic. He must have assumed the same thing she had, that they were fated to be immediately forced apart, whether they walked willingly away from one another or got dragged away kicking and screaming. 

For the first time since Marie had entered the room, the Queen stepped forward. She came out from behind her husband and squeezed his shoulder as she descended the dais. She didn’t stop until she was face-to-face with Marie. One more step and their noses were sure to brush.

“What do you want?”

“What?” Heat and cold swirled in Marie’s gut like a warm front and a cold front meeting in the middle of a violent supercell. She tried not to let it show, but she wasn’t nearly as practiced in that art as Caleb was.

“You heard me,” the Queen said. “What do you want?”

“Mom.”

Caleb tried to step forward, but his mother held up a hand and he stopped. He would do whatever she asked him to. That much was clear.

Ariana Beaumont wasn’t from a family with a history in the court of the Martinez Kings, but she wasn’t ordinary like Marie either. The Beaumonts were soldiers, high-ranking officers known to have strings of medals in their possession. It showed in the daggers in her eyes.

If the power of Ariana’s glare wasn’t directed at her, Marie might have appreciated it, but it wasn’t a pleasant thing to be on the receiving end of.

“You’re sneaking around with my son. It’s my understanding that you have been for quite some time now,” Ariana said. “What is it that you’re trying to get out of it?”

Marie wasn’t sure what to say. Thoughts raced in her head as she grasped for something that might get the Queen to respect her or at least give her a chance. 

She couldn’t say she didn’t want anything because that would be a lie, but she didn’t want what she knew Caleb’s parents both thought she did. If she told them the truth, they would think she was lying, but it wasn’t as if she had a choice. She could either say it out loud and hope they believed her or say nothing and allow them to believe they had confirmed their suspicions.

“I just like the time we get to spend together,” she said, and watched their faces twist into skeptical if not accusatory expressions, but Caleb squeezed her hand, and she kept going. “I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true. If I were in this for something else, don’t you think I’d have tried to go over his head already? Don’t you think you would have met me? I don’t care about any of… this.”

She wanted to keep going. She wanted to say, “But I do care about him”, but she held her tongue. It was cliche, and she didn’t need to push it more than she already had.

As the room drowned in silence, there was no way for her to know if she had said the right thing. Maybe she shouldn’t have said that she didn’t care. Maybe she was supposed to care at least a little bit. Being with a prince meant being a part of everything that came with it, and maybe not caring was what made her wrong for him. 

It didn’t matter. It was done now.

Ariana looked back, and she and Leo exchanged a glance. Marie couldn’t read it, and she wondered if Caleb could. They were communicating with their eyes and their eyes only, neither of their lips or brows even twitching to clue anyone else in. 

The Queen took a step back and looked at her son. “You trust her?”

Caleb didn’t open his mouth, but he nodded.

She looked back at Leo, who shook his head. “Okay,” she said. “We can talk more about this in the morning. I’m going back to bed. You—” she poked a finger into Caleb’s just— “don’t leave these walls. If she needs to go home, have a guard walk her.”

Ariana turned around, almost seeming to float as she ascended the dais again. She lingered beside the throne, gravitating toward a door that was positioned behind it. Marie almost hadn’t noticed it with how closely it matched the rest of the wall.

“That’s it?” Caleb’s mask was gone, replaced by an expression of pure relief to match the tone of his voice. He still held her hand, but he wasn’t tense anymore, so relaxed that he was almost light.

Leo scoffed. “You want to keep going?”

“No.”

“Okay then, good night.”

As Leo shooed them off, it felt as if a new filter had gone over the world. Every color was different, and so was every noise, fading in and out as Marie let Caleb lead her back into the hallway. They moved quickly, with purpose. She supposed that was because they finally had one now. The King and Queen hadn’t approved of the situation, but they hadn’t shut it down either. Maybe their relationship stood a chance after all.

TO BE CONTINUED…