Everlast (The Chronicles of Nerissette) (Entangled Teen) Page 19

  “Trust me, it’s not. I’ve been on the homecoming court. Before that I was Miss Baby Bethel Park, Little Miss Bethel Park, Young Miss Bethel Park, and Miss Teen Greater Pittsburgh Area. ”

  “So?”

  “So, I’ve got tons of experience wearing a tiara, and let me tell you, no one cares what you say or do as long as you give them a big, bright smile and manage to keep looking interested.”

  “Those are beauty pageants. This is an actual ruling monarchy.”

  “And that’s so very different?”

  “Yes! I’m the absolute head of an entire kingdom; half of a world. More than half of a world really, since Bathune is only a small strip of land at the edge of this world.”

  “So?”

  “So, there are more important things here than my appearance.”

  I stopped at the window and watched as the goblins who maintained the palace grounds launched large, floating balls of light into the air and decorated the back garden. I couldn’t see him but I could hear Timbago below directing the others in the proper placement of things.

  “Nothing is more important than your appearance,” Heidi said. “Really, Allie, no one cares about anything besides that. So go take a bath, and try to get your head in the game already. Think pretty thoughts. Lots and lots of pretty thoughts.”

  I nodded and wandered into the bathroom. The instant I stepped into the bathroom, steaming water poured into the lake-size tub in the middle of the room. The smell of rose petals enveloped me, and when I stepped into the water my skin immediately turned the pink of a freshly cooked shrimp.

  I was about to officially be crowned the Golden Rose of Nerissette—the ruler of an entire country. I was going to let them put a crown on my head, and I was going to have to take a stand. I was going to be forced to face down a wizard and possibly start a war.

  “I hope you’ve been thinking lots—and I do mean lots—of pretty thoughts.” Heidi pushed the door to my bathroom open. “Oh crap, you’re in here sniveling again. What did I expect? Come on, get it together.”

  “Sorry.” I looked over at her, my eyes wide. She put her hands on her hips and shook her head at me in disgust. “The water was scorching hot.”

  “Oh, boo hoo, hot water will give you a rosy complexion,” Heidi said. “Now, get to work. You’ve got to do more than think pretty thoughts.”

  “But that’s what you said to do.” I didn’t want to have to make decisions right then, and I looked up at Heidi, pleading for her to just tell me what to do.

  “Clean yourself up. We’ve only got an hour before the start of the festivities, and I’m going to need every single second of it to make you look presentable, much less turn you out to look like a real queen.”

  Instead of answering, I slipped beneath the water to wash my hair.

  …

  Forty-five minutes later, I stood in front of the mirror, staring at myself while Heidi laced up the back of my dress. “You owe me so much for this when we get home,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m actually dressing you.”

  “Sorry. If there was anything in my closet with a zipper I would have worn that.” I plucked my fingers against the skirt and wrinkled my nose.

  The dress I was wearing was a heavy white silk with golden roses embroidered over all the full skirt. The bodice was tight, off the shoulder, and covered in heavy golden embroidery and jewels around the neckline. It had to weigh at least ten pounds.

  “Is all this really necessary?” I hefted the skirt up slightly. Yep, it was as heavy as it looked.

  “The pixie in charge of your wardrobe told me that this was the coronation dress for the Golden Rose of Nerissette. I told her that you didn’t have the personality to pull it off, but she insisted.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “The pixie said that every queen of Nerissette has worn this dress to accept the crown. It’s sort of gross that they make you wear a secondhand dress, but at the same time they seem to think it’s tradition.”

  “Every queen? Even the last one?” I asked.

  “The pixie said every queen,” Heidi repeated. “It would be pretty stupid to make you wear it if the last queen didn’t, anyway. This dress is so not you.”

  I looked at the dress in the mirror and swallowed. My mother had worn this dress and the same crown they were going to put on my head tonight. She had been the queen of Nerissette who had let it down. Now it was my turn to save it.

  “She must have been a lot smaller than you, though,” Heidi said, tugging at the laces at my shoulders.

  “Who?” I asked absently.

  “The last queen. She had to be smaller than you because I’ve barely got enough ribbon left to tie you closed up top. Everywhere else fits though. Has anyone ever told you that you’ve got enormously wide shoulders?”

  “She was tiny,” I said, ignoring the jab about my size.

  “How do you know? Have you seen her picture or something? Is she in the book you had your nose stuck in last night when we should have been getting our beauty sleep?”

  “She was my mother.”

  For the first time, Heidi was stunned into silence. I waited a beat before continuing. “My mother was the former queen of Nerissette. She was—is—the Lost Queen.” I ran my fingers over the skirt again, wondering if she had touched it the same way the night she’d worn it.

  “Wait, you’re saying that you’ve been a princess the whole time and didn’t tell anyone? You’ve always been royalty?”

  “I didn’t know until we got here. And even if I did know, would you have believed me anyway? Seriously, if I’d have come to you and said I’m the princess of a fairy-tale land, would you have believed me?”

  “If you’d have used some of the money they’ve got around here and lived like a princess, then maybe. I mean, come on, how cool would that be? I could have been best friends with a princess.”

  “We’re not best friends.” I gave her reflection my best death glare.

  “We would have been if I’d have known you were a royal.” Heidi snorted. “Duh. Imagine how that would have looked at the Miss Teen Pennsylvania pageant. Me with a royal princess in my entourage.”

  “Right, well, sorry I couldn’t be more help with your attempt at beauty pageant domination. If we ever get home I’ll come up with some way to make it up to you.”

  “You better.” She gave the dress an extra-hard pull.

  I sucked in a breath and then wheezed. “Can’t breathe.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Heidi said. “If you can’t breathe then you can’t eat. No temptations there.”

  “But what if I want to eat?”

  “Don’t. No one wants to watch a queen stuff her face. So don’t eat, don’t breathe. Just sit there and try to look pretty. Besides, knowing you, if you try to eat you’ll just spill something on that dress. It is white, after all.”

  “Unfortunately,” I sighed, “you may have a point there.”

  I took a deep breath and ran my hands over my mother’s skirts one last time, trying to dig up whatever residual courage some former Golden Rose—a braver Rose than me—might have left in the dress in case I needed it for later.

  There was a knock at the door, and Heidi and I stared at each other in the mirror. “Time for you to go,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah.”

  “Allie?”

  “What?”

  “Good luck.” She rolled her eyes. “You know, just in case you need it.”

  Before I could say anything she stalked over to the door and jerked it open. She sighed and glared at Jesse standing in the doorway, dressed to match me with a white jacket covered in golden roses over the top of his black pants.

  “Are you going to let me in or just stand in the door?” he asked.

  “Stand in the door,” Heidi said. “What do you care?”

  “I’ve come to pick up my date.”

  “Obviously,” she said.

  “So, are you going to let me pick her up or not? We can’
t keep the Fate Maker, and our people, waiting.”

  “Or not.”

  I shook my head. The last thing I needed tonight was to deal with their drama on top of everything else.

  “Heidi.” I stepped around her.

  She slunk back then, her hands shaking with anger and her eyes blazing.

  I reached out to grab her hand and gave it a squeeze, trying to comfort her. “Come down for the party later. It’ll be fun.”

  “Or you could go help in the kitchens,” Jesse said, gloating. He took my hand in his and laced our fingers together. “I’m sure they’ll need another pair of hands to do the dishes.”

  “Jesse!” I gaped at him. Sure, I’d always known he was a bit of a tool, but this was way harsher than I’d ever heard him talk to anyone before—even the Computer Club people, and he was normally brutal with them.

  “What?” He turned to stare at me. “She’s a maid. That’s what her fate is, isn’t it? Washing up after other people. That’s what the Fate Maker says, at least.”

  “Yeah, well, he also thought that the two of you should have died that day in the tower. And it was me, not Fate, who saved you from that. So apologize.”

  “I’m sorry Fate made you ugly.” He grabbed my elbow and started ushering me out the door.

  “That’s not what I—”

  “Oh, go trip down the stairs and die.” Heidi snarled at him and slammed the door in both of our faces.

  “Sorry about that.” Jesse shook his head at me and started leading me down the stairs from my tower to the corridor below. “She’s such a pain. Up until we got together, Allie, I thought all girls were like Heidi.”

  “We’re not together. How many times do I have to tell you that? And how you treated her was horrible.”

  “Allie, come on. I’m a prince, and you’re a princess who’s about to officially become queen, and that’s as together as you can get without being married or something,” he said, completely ignoring how he treated Heidi.

  “No, it’s really not.”

  “Yeah, it is,” Jesse said. “Anyway, like I was saying, before we got together I really did think that girlfriends were just one of those headaches that you had to put up with. Like Geometry homework.”

  “You thought having a girlfriend was like Geometry homework?” I asked when we reached the bottom step.

  “That was when I was dating Heidi.” He stopped once we’d reached the crossway between the two corridors and pulled me close. “Once we got the chance to be together I realized that girlfriends aren’t like Geometry at all.”

  I tried to follow his logic but it wasn’t going to happen since I didn’t speak moron.

  He leaned closer. “You’re more like winning the state soccer championships every single day.”

  “Wow.” I tried not to roll my eyes at the comparison.

  “And once you’ve crowned me as Nerissette’s first official king, then it will be even better.”

  Like that was going to happen.

  “And then we’ll be the most powerful couple in all of Nerissette.” He brought his face closer, and I realized he was going to try to kiss me.

  “Hey, did I ever tell you about the really cool trick that Esmeralda taught me to get around the palace?” I asked quickly, trying to distract him from both his attempted coup and the kissing.

  “What?” Jesse pulled back.

  I slipped out of his arms, then grabbed his hand and dragged him over to the carving. “See this?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Watch.” I rubbed my fingers over the carving and closed my eyes. “The main entrance.”

  There was a puff of smoke—this one with glitter, because the corridor outside my tower liked to make things more festive than the rest of them—and we were standing in the main entrance of the palace. I coughed and waved my hands in front of my face before Jesse could say anything.

  “That was—”

  “Princess,” Timbago cut Jesse off and bowed low in front of me. “You are exactly on time.”

  The goblin took my hand in his gnarled one and pulled me forward. Once we reached the doorway he stopped and looked up at me with a big grin. “You look as beautiful as your mother did.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” He motioned to the goblin on the other side of the doorway. They both wiggled their fingers, and the double doors opened slowly, leaving me standing between them, staring at a crowded courtyard full of people who’d come to see me off to the Hall of the Pleiades to be crowned queen. And quite possibly commit suicide. All in the same night.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Come with me, Your Majesty.” Timbago tightened his grip on my hand and gave me a small smile. “Watch your step.”

  “Thank you.” I walked forward carefully down the main stairs as we followed Jesse toward a large glass, wheelless carriage that rested on a big marble block.

  I kept smiling as he nodded to the men at the carriage door, and I swallowed when I realized that, instead of horses, there were large golden birds tethered to the front. Their heads tossed back and forth, the feathers on their wings ruffling as they shifted from taloned foot to taloned foot.

  Which was why the carriage didn’t have wheels. We weren’t going to drive into Neris—we were going to fly.

  “Almost there.” The goblin’s voice was steady as the door to the carriage opened and a small set of jeweled steps unfolded.

  Jesse climbed into the carriage and then waved to the people watching us. I slowed down, but Timbago urged me forward, toward the carriage that would take me into the unknown.

  When we reached the jeweled staircase he let go of my hands, and I turned to look down at him. “Come now.” He motioned me up the stairs. “Time to go out and meet your fate. You’re leaving here a princess and will soon be back a queen.”

  “Then as my last act as a princess…” I knelt down beside him and grabbed his face between my hands, pressing a kiss into his forehead. “Thank you. For everything.”

  The crowd began to cheer wildly, and one of the birds at the front of the carriage gave a loud squawk, trumpeting his agitation at the crowd.

  “It has been my distinct pleasure, Princess,” Timbago said as the people around us continued to cheer. “I’ll see you after the official ceremonies when you return to the palace for the ball.”

  I stood up and climbed into the carriage. The steps folded up behind me as I straightened my skirts, and the door slammed closed before I could really catch my breath.

  I leaned my head out the tiny window and smiled at Timbago. “You’ll save me a dance, right?”

  “Any dance you like, Your Majesty.”

  “Yaw!” a man called from the front of the carriage. I heard the sharp crack of a whip before the birds let out a loud cry, and we began to rise into the air.

  I turned hurriedly and stared out the glass behind me at the crowd waiting in the courtyard of the palace and waved at the goblin standing in the middle, his own hand raised to me. Soon though, Timbago and the others faded from sight as the carriage flew toward the small capital city of Neris. I turned back to stare at my kingdom as it appeared beneath me.

  The carriage dropped down to fly through the streets, and people stood below us, cheering up at me, their voices one loud roar. They were standing on the roofs of the tall, skinny houses, waving signs and throwing flowers. “Princess! Princess!”

  I pressed my face to the glass and waved, trying my best to smile as I drank in the sights around me. There were so many people. Men in dark velvet suits and women in bright dresses, all of them waving. I saw children dancing in the streets below as they sang songs I’d never heard before.

  There were so many things that I’d never suspected even existed from inside the palace walls. So many people whose lives I could make better.

  The carriage swooped toward a large square, packed with more people than were at the palace. The crowd parted, and the birds landed gently in the center of the square on another stag
e, this one surrounded by wizards who all had their arms raised, casting spells that kept me from crashing to the ground, I imagined.

  Jesse reached for my hand, but I pulled away. Instead, I hung on to the window, watching as we landed on the spot they’d laid out for me in the midst of the cheering throngs.

  The carriage door opened, and I tried to collect my nerves before the footman held a hand out to me. I caught his gaze, and the young man nodded, his green eyes sparkling.

  “Almost done, Your Majesty,” he said. He took my hand, and I let him help me down, Jesse right behind me.

  “Present arms!” Rhys called out as I stepped out of the carriage.

  The crowd fell silent, and I heard the sharp snap of a hundred boots clicking together, then the loud snick of their swords being pulled free and lifted.

  I took a deep breath and looked out at the people in the square, kneeling in front of me, and decided then and there that the very first law I was going to enact was one that forbade all this bowing when I was around.

  I lifted my chin and let go of the footman, preparing to step down and make my way to the Hall of the Pleiades. My eyes drifted upward, taking in the building that was shaped like a crowned woman with her arms raised, a brilliant glass dome cupped between her hands. A crystal ball the size of a billion wishes and unanswered prayers.

  Taking in one more breath, I planted a smile on my face and started forward between the swords. Roses started to fall in my path, the people who threw them silent as I made my way up the aisle, my path carpeted in flowers.

  When I reached the hall, the Fate Maker, along with a dozen other nobles, stood at the door waiting for me. The nobles all dropped to their knees, their heads bowed, and the Fate Maker stepped forward, his hand out to escort me up the stairs.

  “Princess.” He bowed his head slightly.

  I tilted mine forward in return, my eyes narrowed. “Fate Maker.”

  “It seems that it’s time for you to become a queen.”

  “Long live the queen, then.”

  “And the king,” Jesse supplied helpfully, and I had to fight the urge to smack him upside the head.