Page 61 of Falling Princess

Nobody ever goes there. It’s high enough to be cold even in the summer, and in winter, it’s downright dangerous.

I’m the only one who makes the annual trek, and that’s purely out of obligation.

Bashir turned it to display the interior. Our Central Valley with the Great Rielka River, the steep drop in elevation from the cool Timberlands in the north to the drier Grasslands. The curling hook of Oceanside, with its beach nearly invisible from outside the island.

He pressed another button to demonstrate how warm air funneled through the center of the valley, cooled, and deposited rain along the inner eastern rim of the island.

The scornful woman in her bright dress edged closer to him. When Bashir shifted to taking questions, she asked, “Are all men in your country as big as you?”

Bashir’s face turned almost as red as his hair. Her next question was to ask him for his phone number, which he readily gave.

I exchanged a glance with Lorcan, who looked troubled.

“Do you think it’s wise for him to show so much detail about our island?” Lorcan asked quietly as we turned away.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Invasion.”

I pretended to peer around. “I don’t see any pirates here, Knight. Do you?”

He smoothed his expression into careful neutrality.

“No, Princess. I don’t. But I doubt they’d come wearing eye patches and wooden legs.”

I immediately felt foolish.

“People are posting pictures of that model all over social media,” he continued. “Anyone can see it. We’ve stayed safe for so long because almost no one knew what was inside those rock walls, much less how to get in. Now, the entire world does.”

I didn’t know what to say. Science and secrecy don’t always go well together. Look at how hard Saskaya has worked to get the Sentinels up and running. They remained hidden for five hundred years. No manuals, no instructions. Only vague descriptions of how they used to work survived. No explanation of why they were disassembled.

Perhaps my failed plants weren’t such a terrible thing, after all. I can continue to study them until I know it’s time to reveal their use.

“There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle,” I said crisply. “We’ll just have to hope his carelessness doesn’t lead to an invasion in truth. I’ll speak with him about it on the way home.”

We went to regroup with Cata. Unease lingered with me for the remainder of the conference.

* * *

After the climate conference, in early April, Lorcan and I repaired to the library to tackle our revisions in earnest.

The dormitory lounge was polluted with Bashir’s potent weed. Since we can study at the library and he can’t smoke anywhere else without risking consequences, my knight and I obligingly relocated.

In an amusing callback to our first misadventure with this project, Lorcan tilted his chair back onto two legs. He caught himself and dropped it down without my having to point at the ground. He’s such an active person. It must be torture for him to have to sit through hours of classes every day.

He does it for me. Because I want an education, and Auralia needs me to stay alive long enough to produce the next princess. A true patriot, this man, ulterior motives or not.

If he’s angling to become the next king, it’s surely not because of any love for me, Zosia. I’m simply the vehicle. He’s using me, like everyone else does, except Raina. And Cata. Kenton, despite his cutting humor, actually seems to care about me, too. Maybe Lorcan does on some level. He’s such a cipher that it’s hard to know. I’m trying not to project my feelings onto him the way Raina does.

“Professor Pigeon wants us to reorganize this into different sections: Auralia’s history and culture; political and legal structure; economic strengths including treaties—easy; we have none—and threats. Then we can consolidate my recommendations for modernization into its own section so that it doesn’t sound like we’re arguing two completely different things.”

“You don’t actually want to change Auralia, do you?”

I had the distinct impression that my knight was more interested in relitigating the arguments that tanked our grade last term, than he was in improving this version.

“I’d like to at least entertain the option.”

I opened my laptop and immediately closed it again. Shit. His drawing of the goddess is still my wallpaper. I should have changed it months ago.

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