He groaned. “You two are cut from the same damn cloth, I swear.”
“You have no right to talk! You voted against me! You didn’t want me to be queen!” Kallie bellowed.
“As if you gave me a choice.” Stefan’s look was stern. “Kalina, what you and Valen had planned for Malovia was ridiculous. What the two of you said during your Trials of Competency ruled both of you out by default. Malovia can’t afford another rule by a mad queen. We hardly survived the last encounter.”
“Is that what you think I am?Mad?” Kalina sneered.
“I don’t think you have a mind to run a country, no,” Stefan replied shortly. “I’m sorry if that offends you, but duty before heart and all that bullshit.”
Kalina was fuming. “I just wanted to make Malovia better. My father improved it, but we could be an incredible nation!”
“I know your heart is in the right place. You want Malovia to be a great country, where everything is fair and just, and the people are cared for, just like your father,” Stefan said. “But you can’t force people to do things at the threat of great penalty. You have to let people have choices.”
“I was going to,” Kallie said bluntly. “Either make the choice to be a good, kind person, or face the rack.”
Stefan rubbed his face. “This is where I blame your father. Too many vigilante stories.”
“It’sjustice!” Kallie rebutted.
“You can’t do whatever you like whenever you feel like it,” Stefan insisted. “You’re the daughter of a king!”
Marcus audibly gasped. I felt surprise radiate from Charlie to me. Similarly, I was shocked. Kallie, aprincess? She didn’t seem the type.
But then… she’d admitted during her therapy sessions last semester that she’d tried to kill the son of the current king… then said that the person she’d tried to kill was actually her brother. Which made the king her father as well. It was odd that none of us had put it together. I guess we were so wrapped up in winning the Darke Games, we hadn’treallythought about what Kallie had told us.
Kallie’s eye twitched. “Being a princess has nothing to do with it.”
Marcus looked at Kallie in awe, like she was his own personal goddess. Kallie caught his stare and held it for a few seconds too long.
Stefan caught the glance. He gasped, like he’d just heard some riveting gossip. “Kalina. This is quite an interesting development. I wonder what your parents would say.”
“It’s not what you think!” Kallie yelped, waving her hands.
Stefan’s look was sly. “I’m sure. Well, even a warlock is certainly better taste than that Valen prick.”
“You know why I chose him,” Kallie grumbled.
“I can’t say I do. No crown is worth looking at that ugly mug for the rest of your life.” Stefan pretended to gag, and Kallie’s hands clenched into fists.
“Can you give us some space?” she asked. “We were in the middle of doing something.”
Stefan sighed. “I see you’re busy with your friends. But can youpleasemake a moment to talk to me? I didn’t come here just to visit, you know.”
Kallie’s face burned. “I just need a minute.”
“Well, don’t keep me waiting around,” Stefan said sternly, before he nodded to us and strolled off.
Marcus burst the moment he was gone. “What was all that about being a princess? Is he telling the truth?”
Kallie sighed. “He is. My title before I was banished was Grand Duchess Kalina Alexandria Nowak. Princess Kalina, for short.”
“Your highness!” Marcus dramatically dropped to the ground. He began bowing to Kallie, and Rishi copied him, prostrating against the ground. Marcus reached out to kiss her hand, like he would a monarch’s ring. She wrenched it away.
“Stop! I’m not a princess. At least, not anymore.” Kallie dropped her head. “If I was, I wouldn’t be here.”
“You told us you tried to kill your brother because he stole the crown from you,” Charlie said. “And that the governing body in Malovia wouldn’t let you be queen because they didn’t want a girl in power.”
Kallie looked guilty. “I might’ve…exaggerateda little when I said that.”
