Page 76 of The Girl Beneath the Sea

They lift me. Two of them, one on each arm, and my feet find the stone and I am up, and they turn me toward the doors I came in through, and that means I am turned away from him.

“Wait,” Aurelio says behind me. “Wait. Where are you taking him?”

“Your Highness, we do not have a choice. He has been wanted for months.”

“Then let me come with him.” His voice cracks on the last word. “Let me come with him. Please.”

21. Aurelio

The legal wedding takes eleven minutes.

Our official representative with the State Department found the judge and brought him up to the suite where Roan and I are staying.

They have found us a small apartment

He is a small, tired man in a brown suit, and he does it standing by the window.

I am not in white. I am wearing a shirt that I have chosen. I bought it, at a store across the street, with Roan standing outside the changing room and a federal agent standing outside the store. The clerk clearly recognized me when I entered. I asked her to keep the visit quiet and I think that she has. So far, it has not been on the news that the Crown Prince was seen out shirt shopping.

The shirt is a pale green with an ordinary collar, my mark clearly visible above it.

Roan suggested we do some internet shopping and have them delivered, but I wanted to go out and do something ordinary. Something I have never done before.

Roan has a clean new shirt, too. Same store.

Havel stands on my side, Gerhard on Roan’s. When the judge asks who is witnessing, Havel gives his name in full, with his old rank, and then he says, “Formerly of the household of His Highness,” and I hear the word “formerly” and decide that it will not be true for very long.

There are no rings because neither of us thought of it, and so when the judge pauses for them, Roan takes my hand instead and does not let go.

His touch makes me want to curl up into it. I am allowed to be touched.

Nobody kneels. Nobody films it. No one is watching except the people we have chosen.

When the judge says we are married, I do not feel anything change, because it has not. We were married on a boat two months ago, in the dark, with the words that my grandparents used. We just had to do the paperwork.

Everything is starting to come together. Reinhardt has left the country. The Americans apologized and said that they could not stop a visiting head of state with diplomatic immunity from leaving. That was kind of them to say, but I did not expect them to leave.

While Reinhardt flies over the Atlantic, the Monteverran assembly is holding a vote of no confidence. The motion was tabled this morning. It has the signatures of the leaders of all four opposition parties and eleven members of his own. It also has the support of all the major houses.

If he is lucky, he will simply lose his office. If he is less lucky, he will lose his office and his freedom.

I only have one more thing to do before I can relax with my new husband.

Gerhard sets the laptop up on the desk at seven that evening, with the window behind me so that the light is good, and Roan pulls the curtain so that the river does not show. Nobody outside this room knows this is happening. I did not ask the State Department. I did not ask anyone. It is my face and my name and my account. Gerhard made it this afternoon, and it has no followers.

“It’ll have some in about a minute,” Gerhard says. “Once it’s picked up and everyone realizes it’s a livestream. Ready?”

“Yes.”

He presses a key and steps back out of frame. Roan is behind the laptop, to one side, where I can see him and the camera cannot.

I look at the small green light at the top of the screen. It is not red. I like that better.

“Good evening,” I say. “My name is Aurelio. I am the Crown Prince of Monteverra.”

I have been told what to say all my life. There is no card tonight. I wrote nothing down.

“This is the first time I have ever spoken live, in public, without a script. Other than on Saturday, in the cathedral, which I think most of you have seen.” I let that sit. “That was also the first time. Before Saturday I had never once been permitted to speak in public unless the words were written by someone else and approved by someone else and recorded in advance.”