Page 66 of Omega’s Fealty

Havel gets up and goes to the counter and opens the laptop.

“You have not seen the news today.”

“No.”

“Then you should see it.” He turns the screen so it faces me and hits a key. “This went out this evening. Before you sat down.”

I read the words along the bottom of the screen before the news anchor gets to them.

CROWN PRINCE AURELIO TO MARRY PRIME MINISTER REINHARDT.

I don’t hear the next part. It feels like the world has broken apart.

“He can’t,” I say.

“He will not be given a choice.”

I sit there with my hand on my neck. My arm hurts. My head hurts. I cannot let this happen.

17. Aurelio

Roan is alive.

He is down there somewhere, close enough that the wind found him.

He’ll have seen the broadcast by now. I don’t know if he will believe it. We didn’t spend that much time together. Not really. We’ve been apart now longer than we were together.

And I know him. I know his life. No one ever wanted him. I could tell he wasn’t completely sure that I did, not right at the beginning.

He thought I was playing him. And I was.

Right at the beginning.

I don’t think he is going to believe it but I am not completely sure either. There’s no way to take it back. There is no way to tell him anything.

I wouldn’t anyway. Resisting the speech wouldn’t have changed anything. Besides, I have a plan.

I’m getting married.

This has been about public relations from the very first day that I arrived in this country. Before I arrived.

That is all it is, when I take the rest away.

I am here for public relations. My marriage is for public relations. I am beginning to suspect that my kidnapping was for public relations too.

It meant every eye turned on Monteverra and its charming prince. People think that popularity is only needed in democracies, but that’s not true. Genuine popularity makes you untouchable. People don’t like to go against the status quo. At least not unless it’s safe.

Reinhardt cannot marry me in secret. He needs the spectacle. That’s what gives his coup legitimacy and power. Everyone needs to see the happy newlyweds, glowing as they exchange vows.

I sit and watch the news. The wedding is on almost every channel, but I don’t change it or switch over. I sit and watch, same as I always have. It’s my only insight into what is going on out there in the world.

I want to go to the window and peer out, see if I can spot Roan outside the hotel but I can’t risk going near the window. I can’t risk anything.

The cameras are still on me.

Reinhardt comes at two p.m. the day after my recording on the terrace.

He has two men with him that I have not seen before, a tall, slim beta, carrying a leather folder under his arm and a pale, blonde woman with a claim mark on her neck. Both wear a Monteverran flag on their lapels.