The Crown (The Selection 5) - Page 36

“Maybe a better word would have been admire. It’s a very brave thing she did.”

Mom rolled her eyes. “If you want to lie to me, that’s fine, but I’d suggest you stop doing it to yourself before you find you’re in a position you can’t get out of.”

With that she walked on, taking a seat next to Miss Lucy and General Leger. The studio was usually cold, but I felt sure that the chill that went through me wasn’t related to the temperature.

“And you’ll wait right here,” the producer said, dragging Henri to stand beside me. “We still have some time, but don’t go running off. Has anyone seen Gavril?” she shouted to no one in particular.

Henri pointed to the tie that Eikko had just fixed. “Is good?”

“Yes.” I brushed at his shoulders and sleeves. I looked past him to Eikko, who had done an amazing job at pulling himself together. I hoped I appeared as calm on the outside as he did. Inside it felt like I was a sweater with a loose string being pulled and pulled until I’d be nothing but a knot on the floor.

I walked around Henri under the guise of double-checking his suit from all angles. I dropped my arm as I passed Eikko, and our fingers met in a kiss before I moved back to stand in front of my fiancé.

The thrill running up my skin was electrifying, so I clasped my hands together in front of me, focusing on the feeling of my engagement ring against the back of my fingers. In my periphery, Eikko’s figure disappeared through the crowd, presumably so he could find his own level of sanity in this moment.

“So,” I asked, facing Henri, “are you ready?”

He looked at me, his usually jubilant expression dim. “Are you?”

I wanted to say yes, and I could hear the word in my head, but I couldn’t manage to work it down to my mouth. So I just smiled and nodded.

He saw right through me.

Taking my hand, he pulled me toward the back of the room, toward Eikko.

“En voi,” Henri said, his tone more solemn than I’d ever heard it.

Eikko’s eyes flashed between us. “Miksi ei?”

“I am slow here,” Henri said, pointing to his mouth. “Not here.” He pointed to his eyes.

My breathing sped up, knowing my life was all about to fall apart, and terrified of what might happen after it did.

“You are love,” he said, motioning between us.

When Eikko started to shake his head, Henri sighed and picked up his right hand, pointing to the signet ring. And then he picked up mine, which still wore Eikko’s.

“Eikko, please explain to him. I have to follow through with my Selection. Tell him he’ll never need to doubt me.”

Eikko rattled off my appeal quickly, but Henri’s expression remained undeterred.

“Please,” I pleaded, grabbing onto his arm.

His expression was incredibly sweet when he spoke. “I say no.” He picked up my hand and gently pulled off my engagement ring.

The room started turning fuzzy at the edges. I was minutes away from a live announcement, and I’d just been jilted.

Henri grabbed my face, looking deeply into my eyes. “Love you,” he vowed. “Love you.” Then he turned and clutched Eikko’s arm. “And love you. My good friend. Very good friend.”

Eikko swallowed, looking ready to cry from Henri’s words. Through most of the last two months, all they’d had were each other. Forget what this moment meant for me. What did it mean for them?

Henri pulled us both in close. “You being together. I make your cake!”

Despite my worries, I laughed. Looking into Eikko’s eyes, I ached to let go and give my heart the one thing it truly wanted. But I couldn’t get past my fear.

I scanned the room, searching for the one person I needed right now. When I found him, I turned to my boys. “Wait here. Please.”

I ran across the studio. “Daddy! Dad, I need your help.”

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to marry Henri. I want to marry Eikko.”

“Who?”

“Erik. His translator. I’m in love with him, and I want to marry him. And even though he hates having his picture taken, I want to take a thousand so I can put him on my wall and wake up to us laughing every day, just like you do with Mom. And I want him to make me doughnuts, just like his mom does for his dad. Even if I have to let out all my dresses. And I want us to find our own thing or maybe find out that our own thing is everything, because I feel like if I have him, even the stupid stuff would matter.”

He stood there, mouth slightly agape.

“But a word from you and I’ll never mention it again. I want to do the right thing, and I know you’d never let me do something stupid. Tell me what I should do, and I won’t question it, Dad.”

He looked up at the clock, his eyes still wide with shock. “Eadlyn, you only have seven minutes.”

I followed his gaze, and he was right. It was seven ’til.

“So help me. Tell me what to do!”

After a stunned second, he turned back to me and pulled me out the studio door.

“We all know that you wanted to move fast because of Marid, and I think there’s some value to your line of thought. But you can’t let one bully decide the rest of your life. Trust me. You don’t have to announce anything today.”

“That’s not the point. I want to be with Eikko so much it hurts, but I’ve done so many selfish, idiotic things in the past that I fear the people won’t forgive me if I break even the tiniest rule. I can’t bear to let them down, Dad. I can’t bear to let you down.”

“Me? Let me down over a silly little rule?” He shook his head. “Eadlyn, you come from a long line of traitors. You couldn’t let me down.”

“What?”

He smiled. “Your brother running off to France was technically enough to start a war over. I think he knew that. Did it stop him?”

I shook my head.

“Your mother,” he said with a laugh. “She conspired with the Italian government to fund the Northern rebels, a move that would have sent her to her grave had my father found out.”

I stood there, stunned.

“And me? I’ve been keeping someone who ought to be dead alive for over twenty years.”

“The Woodworks?” I guessed.

“Ha! No, I forgot about them, though officially they were pardoned. It’s actually someone much more dangerous in the eyes of the monarchy.”

“Dad, I don’t understand.”

He sighed, looking up and down the hall, checking for spying eyes, before quickly unbuttoning his shirt. “I’m afraid there’s only one way to explain this.” He turned around and swiftly shoved his shirt down along with his suit coat.

I gasped in horror as I took in my father’s back. He was covered in marks, some wide, as if they’d healed without any treatment, and some skinny and puckered. There didn’t appear to be any uniformity to the marks except that they all must have come from the same cane or whip.

“Daddy . . . Daddy, what happened to you?”

“My father happened to me.” He pulled his shirt back on and buttoned it as fast as he could, speaking in a rush. “Sorry I never took you to the beach, honey. I just couldn’t do it.”

My posture sank. Of all the things to apologize for. “I don’t understand. Why did he do that to you?”

“To keep me in line, to keep me quiet, to make me a better leader . . . he had a myriad of reasons. But there are only two of these beatings you need to know about. The first is one that happened after your mother proposed we eliminate the castes.”

He shook his head, almost smiling as he remembered. “She chose to say this on a Report while she was still in the Selection. Of course my father, who already hated her, saw this as a threat to his control. Which it was. Such a suggestion is treasonous. Like I said, it runs in the family. I worried he would punish her, so I let him take it out on me instead.”

“Oh, my goodness.”

“Indeed. That was the

last beating I ever endured, and for the life of me, I’ll never regret it. I’d take it a hundred times over for her.”

I’d never known about that. All I’d ever known was that they took on caste elimination together. So many of the unpleasant details of their history had been glossed over. There was plenty of awful along with the wonderful.

Tags: Kiera Cass The Selection Science Fiction
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