Paper Rings Part VI
8 March 2995
The click of the door shutting behind them felt faraway, as Marie took a shaky breath. She needed to hold herself together now more than ever.
“They don’t approve,” she said, as they turned a corner.
“Maybe, but they didn’t try to forbid it. That means we have a chance.” Caleb’s hand was sweaty in hers, as he walked briskly, just shy of a run. “That is, if you want to keep doing this. I’d get it if you didn’t.”
Marie stopped—her feet planted firmly on the wood floor—so suddenly that Caleb didn’t notice until he nearly yanked her to the ground with the force of his forward momentum. Just in time, he paused too, without dropping her hand, and turned to her. His eyes were big, their green so dark they nearly looked black in the shadows of the hallway.
“Why would you think I wouldn’t want to keep doing this?” she asked. They were alone, although Marie could vaguely hear soft voices and armor clanking in the rooms and hallways nearby. Even in the middle of the night, the palace was not still.
Caleb shook his head, his breathing heavy. “Why would you? It’s a lot of trouble, trust me. You don’t want to live like I have to.”
“Then why keep seeing me? If you thought I wouldn’t want a life like yours.”
“I don’t know,” he said. He had broken their eye contact, staring at the wall behind her instead. “I guess I’m just selfish.”
She stepped toward him, pressing her forehead against his. Warmth flooded her body, as the smells of rosemary and citrus mixed in her nose. Maybe she didn’t want this—but how much did it really matter? It wasn’t a life in a palace that she was thinking about. It was a life with him. That was the only part that mattered.
She kissed his cheek, soft and gentle. He leaned into her, still for a moment, his shoulders relaxing as he exhaled.
He turned her hand over in his own. “Come with me.”
She allowed him to guide her through the maze that was the palace. Where he was taking her didn’t matter, not any more than anything else.
She couldn’t be sure whether to let go of her worries or hold onto them for dear life. There was no guaranteeing that everything was going to be okay—there was no way to be sure that his parents had truly accepted her presence in his life, and unlike anybody else, there was no way he could override him if they told him no. They were the King and Queen; their word was law. If they decided that she should be out of his life, she would be.
All the palace’s hallways looked the same to her, but evidently, Caleb knew them like the back of his hand. He could see the details, the differences, easily enough to guide her without his eyes truly seeming to focus on anything. He was as in his head as she was in hers, their thoughts racing too fast to follow. Their perspectives of the world were very, very different, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t both be afraid.
They wandered into a hallway much larger than the rest. It was both longer and wider, with a higher ceiling and walls lined with golden frames over half Caleb’s height. Each one held a portrait of a different man, all of them wearing the same crown.
“We call this the Hall of Kings,” Caleb said, staring up at the long line of portraits. There was a wistfulness in his gaze so dreamy that it almost made it easy for her to forget every negative thing he had ever said about the Crown. Had she not known any better, she may still have believed what she had as a child: that a life in the palace was a life worthy of a fairytale.
Each of the kings’ names were etched into the gold below their faces, not a single one ending in anything other than Martinez. Marie knew there had been a lot of kings in the Empire’s lengthy history, but up close, the sheer number overwhelmed her. There were too many to keep track of, with few of their names even ringing bells in her head. Some had played more important roles than others, numbering thirty-two in total if Leo was included, but his portrait was noticeably absent from the collection.
On the earlier end closest to the hallway’s entrance, she recognized only Callix Martinez, the First King of Magicis, for whom its capital city was named, and his son, William, beside him. Callix was one of only four kings considered to be one of “The Greats”, so the others—Julian, Adrian, and Christopher—caught her attention too. Christopher was the most recent Great, the twenty-ninth king, followed by two of his sons, first Daeron and then Carrion after his death. Carrion’s portrait was the last one, with a large empty space beside it that would no doubt belong one day to his son, Caleb’s father.
At least when it came to the more recent kings, she knew people who had lived through their reigns and still sometimes spoke about them. Many of the rest were a mystery to her. History had never really been her area of expertise, and even if it was, anything that the Martinez family didn’t want people to know wasn’t released to the public if they could help it. There was no way to be sure that the information she had access to was even the truth.
Caleb was staring up at the portrait of his grandfather, whose characteristic bright green Martinez eyes almost seemed to sear through the canvas. His skin was an olive tone similar to Caleb’s, but other than his eyes, the similarities ended there, with his long, curly dirty blond hair, thin frame, and aggressively angled face. If he had been a kind man in any way, this depiction did not convey it.
Marie stood behind Caleb, her eyes hardly coming up to his shoulder. “So you’ll be up here one day,” she said. In her head, it had been a question, but as the words had come from her mouth, it had become more of a statement. In truth, it was no question at all. As long as Caleb inherited the title of king and as long as the Martinez Dynasty survived through his reign and that of his heir, his portrait would one day hang on this wall too, glaring down at anyone who dared to approach it.
He nodded, lips pursed, and she wondered how many times he had thought about it. The idea that some intimidating, borderline inhuman immortalization of his face would one day hang on this wall next to all of these members of his family. It was as much to live up to as it was to overcome.
“What if it ends with me?”
Marie looked at him. “What?”
“I dream about it sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes they’re real dreams, like it’s what I want to have happen because then maybe I could be free. But sometimes they’re nightmares because the reality is that if the Crown falls, nobody will let its heirs live. Once I become king, I’ll stay king for the rest of my life. The only out from that is death.”
“Caleb—”
“The Empire’s old. It’s only a matter of time.” He turned his back on the portraits, arms crossed over his chest so tightly it was as if they were bound by a straitjacket. “Things will fall apart, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle it,” he said. “What if I’m the one to take the thing that my family has held onto for centuries and break it?”
Despite its old age, the Empire still seemed strong to Marie, but maybe there was more unrest than she realized. It seemed relatively calm, but she lived in the heart of the capital. She supposed it would be easy for her perspective to be skewed.
“I’m sure you won’t,” she said. “Think about everything you’ve said you want to do. Caleb, you can’t doubt yourself.”
Caleb shook his head. “It’s hard not to.” He turned back to the portraits, his gaze drifting along the line of portraits. “You know the Greats. The first, fourteenth, eighteenth, and twenty-ninth kings. Even if I were to become one of them… Nothing changes. We can’t go on like this forever.”
As much as she wanted to tell him he was wrong, he wasn’t. One person being different never seemed to be enough to break the cycle. Still, that didn’t mean that he would be the last king or that he couldn’t be one of the good ones, even if he wasn’t a Great.
He couldn’t be expected to be certain—she knew that. He was young, and the job facing him was one that made her head spin. But, though she had faith in him, she couldn’t help the pit that seemed to form in her stomach every time he went back and forth about his plans for his reign. She had never been burdened by leadership herself, but she knew that a mood that changed as fast as his could be a negative trait in a leader. She knew it could ruin every hope he had.
He couldn’t be so sure of himself that he couldn’t be reasoned with, but he had to have enough confidence to make decisions.
“Something is going to go wrong,” he said. “Just wait. I have a feeling. I’m not going to be strong enough.”
“Not if you keep talking like that.”
Eyes fixed on the empty space just to the right of King Carrion, Caleb let out a soft exhale. That was the place where Leo’s portrait would hang someday in either the near or distant future. Marie wasn’t sure which one was better. As much as she didn’t want to wish for anyone’s death, the sooner Leo died, the sooner Caleb took the throne and got a chance to change things. But maybe that wasn’t such a good thing if Caleb wasn’t ready yet.
She wanted to tell him that he couldn’t manifest the things he was afraid of—if he did, there would be no escaping them—but she knew she couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe one day she would feel that she could, but not today. Today, she was still barely anything other than the girl he met with under the cover of the night. Standing at his side within the walls of the palace didn’t change that.
So instead, she said, “You won’t be him.”
“You don’t know that.”
Caleb’s voice cracked, and he looked away from her as he cleared his throat. She kept her eyes on him, trained on his back. He must have been able to feel them.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asked.
“Because I want you to see the cycle I’m up against.” He turned to look at her again. I need you to understand my situation. This may not be worth your time.”
“I understand it just fine,” she said. “Let me decide that for myself.”
He scoffed. “You’re something else, you know that?”
“I try,” she said, taking his arm.
He smiled down at her, but when their eyes met, something in his face changed. A slight tension had made its way back into his arm. “Do you need to get home?”
They were already past the time when, on most nights, he would stay with her until they reached the front door of her family’s house, at which point he would leave her and return to the palace alone. But now, they were already at the palace, and Leo had explicitly told him that he couldn’t leave. If Marie needed to go home, she would either have to go alone or in the company of a stranger. Neither option was all that appealing to her.
“Not yet. We can wait until the sun comes up.” She wasn’t sure if that was true. The longer she was gone, the more likely it was that someone would notice her absence, but she was tired and it was cold outside. Besides, this was where Caleb was. “Unless you want me to go home.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. So… My bed is plenty big enough for both of us. Or I could sleep on the floor.”
“You can sleep in your own bed.” Marie felt blood moving into her cheeks and hoped they weren’t too pink. At the very least, she had the benefit of shadowy light on her side. “That sounds nice.”
“Good.” Caleb smiled again and slowly started to walk, guiding her with him. As they exited the Hall of Kings and the pressure of its eyes, he said, “Mae?”
Marie stared up at him. Nobody but her family used that nickname with her. “Yes?”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
To be continued…
