Tandem (Many-Worlds Trilogy, Book 1)

[Juliana 1]

***

It was almost midnight. The Castle was quiet, but through the open windows she could hear the breeze rustling the leaves and flowers in the garden below her bedroom terrace; the smell of roses and lilacs rushed inside upon those same soft winds and wrapped itself around her neck like a scarf. Up in the sky, the aurora danced; the incandescent whorls of green light usually lifted her spirits, but tonight they gave her a melancholy feeling. For days she’d been on high alert for ill omens, signs of impending disaster, something that would tell her definitively that she was making the wrong choice, heading down an unsafe path. She wasn’t normally so superstitious, but anxiety buzzed beneath her skin like a fly trapped against a pane of glass, and she wondered if, maybe, the universe might intervene in some unforeseen way on her behalf and make everything clear, for once. But here she was, in the eleventh hour, and no clarity had come. She was truly on her own, with nothing and no one to guide her. The door was closing on her fate.

She could turn back. That was still an option. She didn’t have to leave at midnight. She could lie down on her comfortable, familiar bed, close her eyes, and wait for the next day to begin the same as always. She could remain who she was—Juliana, Princess of the United Commonwealth of Columbia, heir apparent to the throne; in six weeks she would be eligible to rip the regency out of her stepmother’s cold, greedy hands and step into her appointed role, the one that she’d been born for. And if that was all that awaited her, she might have stayed. But who she was, was not the whole story. There were other elements at play.

For one, there was her father, a once-great man now reduced by a sniper’s bullet to little more than a body on a bed. Not long before he was shot, the King had bestowed upon her a truth she did not yet understand. The bullet that had put him at death’s door, that had destroyed the very essence of him—his mind—had come from an assassin’s gun. The King’s Elite Service simply assumed it was Libertas, though the rebel group hadn’t claimed the crime and there was no proof. In the months since it happened, she’d started to have doubts. But no matter who was behind it, someone had tried to kill her father. It stood to reason that the same person would try to kill her as well. She didn’t want to die, and yet she knew that, if she stayed, she would live the remainder of her life in a sniper’s crosshairs. Perhaps it was cowardly of her—in fact, she knew it was—but she had encountered nothing in her life up until now the love of which would compel her to step bravely forward to greet her own end.

The thought of running from her obligations to her country didn’t fail to shame her. If Thomas knew what she was planning to do—what she had already done—he would try to stop her. Six months ago, before her father’s attempted murder, the King had broken the news that he was marrying her off to the enemy in order to secure some measure of peace and safety for the Commonwealth. He’d tried in vain to convince her that this was the only way, but she’d refused to accept his reasons, had raged against him, scowled and snapped and played the spoiled brat, anything to make him change his mind, but he would not. Thomas had told her that sometimes sacrifices must be made for the good of all. She’d been so awful to him after that, had hardly spoken to him since that conversation, even after what happened to her father. All she’d wanted was to ask Thomas what she should do, but she couldn’t bring herself to say a word to him. Now here she was, five minutes from betraying him, betraying everyone, all the people that depended on the royal family for strength and leadership and salvation, and she knew that whatever happened next, however and whenever her life did eventually end, like all lives do, she would always regret not thanking him for his friendship, and not saying goodbye.

It was three minutes to twelve. She had to leave now if she was to meet her co-conspirator at midnight. When he’d come to her a few days ago and offered her this choice, she’d been repulsed. She’d never really liked him in all the years she’d known him. He’d always seemed too slick to her, slippery as an eel; he reeked of insecurity and desperation, which she especially hated because she feared she might sometimes come off that way, in her weaker moments. Her father had always told her that the things people hate most in others are likely the things that they hate in themselves. When it came to this particular person, the thought made her cringe; if she was anything like him, perhaps that was the reason she was doing what she was doing. Running away, hiding, avoiding her duty—it was what he would have done. After all, he was the one helping her to do it.

At first she hadn’t understood what he was offering her. How could he, of all people, give her what she really wanted—the chance to live a normal life, away from the Castle, away from her responsibilities, the chance to be who she wanted to be, whoever that was. But then he told her about Libertas, that they were willing to help her disappear for the right price. He was only the messenger, the transporter, the thief inside the Castle. It was the Monad who really wanted her. It was the Monad who would set her free.

There was one last thing to take care of before she went. The note for Thomas was already written; she was holding it in her hands. Knowing that it needed to look inconspicuous or it would never reach him, she folded it into the shape of a star, pressing her thumbnail against its edges so that it would puff out, and placed it in the drawer of her nightstand. Her message to Thomas was short, for there wasn’t room to write much, and she didn’t have much to say:

T—I’m sorry, but I can’t. I wish I was better, but I’m not. –J

She closed the drawer, then crossed the room and stood beneath a painting that had been done long ago. It showed her mother’s country estate of St. Lawrence, which belonged to her now. She’d spent every summer there as a child, on the banks of Star Lake; it was there that some of her happiest memories were set. It broke her heart to imagine that she might never see it again, might never see her mother again. Her mother was an exile, forced to live out the rest of her days in a northern country for the mere crime of having loved the King and not having been loved enough in return. That old wound throbbed as she took her last look at St. Lawrence and recalled the childhood she’d lost, but then she put it aside, knowing full well that nostalgia was a phantom limb, painful but useless.

There. All the loose threads were clipped and tied. She stepped out onto the terrace to take one last, long look at the Castle gardens, her favorite place in the whole Citadel. High above her the Tower stood, blacker than the night itself. She imagined Thomas asleep in his quarters, blissfully unaware of the fact that when he woke the next morning, she would be gone. She imagined the General in his office, painstakingly plotting out a future that she would not be around to take part in. The first she would feel guilty for turning her back on; the other could rot in hell for all she cared. Above the Tower, higher still, the aurora spun and turned the way it always had, the way it always would, with or without her. It had an indifferent beauty that reminded her how minuscule she was in the face of infinity. For some reason, tonight, this was a comfort. In the grand scheme of things, she didn’t matter at all. Knowing that made it easier to do what she was about to do.