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Apparently, you can do that when you have mountains of money and Everests of power. Who would have thought?
Isn’t monarchy just lovely?
three
I’m not sure that Bianca, my roommate, can hear me all the way from our room, but I scream her name anyway. Because the next option would be to call my bodyguard’s name, and him finding me in here is really not how I envisioned starting my day.
“Bianca!” I call again.
I peek at the wall, hoping against hope that I imagined the threats.
Nope. Still there. ‘Die, bla bla bla.’
“Bianca!”
“What? What what what?”
Bianca comes running into the bathroom, her heels slapping the tiles, short white-blond hair swishing as she moves.
“Did… did you or one of your artistic friends do this, by any chance?” I ask her, my voice trembling.
“What…? Oh, gosh. Oh no.”
The next minute, she is running for the door, her heels forgotten on the floor.
“Hector!” she screams. “Hector, come quick! It’s Liv.”
Swearing under my breath, I scramble to wipe the plastered, wet hair off my face and quickly wrap myself into a towel. It’s one thing for Bianca to see me naked in the shower, but Hector is another thing.
Hector is my bodyguard—well, our bodyguard, I should say, since Bianca, as my roommate, needs protection too. She is not in line for a throne, however, which in bodyguard lingo means she is ‘not a target’.
I was not a target either.
Until last evening, when the Rotten Royals posts started.
The news of my father’s indiscretions hit the screens a few days ago. This morning, an account called simply ‘Rotten Royals’ started posting every few hours.
Their posts are just a few lines, things like: ‘Time for things to change again. Will it have to come to this?’ And then the drawing of a guillotine. Pretty ambiguous—but pretty pointed too, if you think of what they posted next.
In the hours that followed, the Rotten Royals started posting everywhere online, on every platform, in all formats. Even videos, although there were no faces shown. Always, it was short and sweet. And extremely subversive and directed in general at the monarchy.
Their accounts have gotten more than one hundred thousand followers since this morning—several posts have gone viral. Who knows why? Maybe people love the general idea of rebellion, especially when they have no face to put behind it.
But this morning, they finally got a face to put behind all the viral posts.
Because as soon as I woke up, I saw that the Rotten Royals had posted this:
For those of you who are wondering who the Rotten Royals are, we are King Mihail of Asteria’s bastards. It just felt like the time had come for us to have our own voice after being buried for years. You’ll be hearing more from us soon. #wetherottenroyals
The post that destroyed the European royals’ life as we knew it.
And completely obliterated my life.
(King Mihail of Asteria is my dad, in case it wasn’t obvious. Also, someone here at the University of Vermont decided that the Rotten Royals post meant that they should scrawl ‘die, Crown Princess, die’ on my shower wall, for some reason.)
A tear slithers down my cheek, and I realize that it’s a tear only because it feels warm against my skin, in contrast to the shower water which was icy cold.Stop crying,I scold myself, wiping it angrily.Don’t be weak don’t be weak don’t be weak.
I feel scared, angry, betrayed, lied to. I feel sad and mad, so mad I could tear this whole place down. But if there’s one thing I won’t allow myself to be, is weak.
