His Princess (A Royal Romance)(13)

The general, Brad, and a few other stragglers kneel in a row along the side of the room. I hold my breath, leaning forward to listen to him speak.

He starts in Kosztylan, but slowly and clearly, with a harsh, aristocratic accent, very precise and deliberate. I can make out enough of it to understand what’s going on.

He’s declared a trial, and the resistance fighters and Brad are the defendants.

He looks over his shoulder and glances at me. I can’t see anything of his face. I only know he’s looking my way because of a narrow slit in his helmet. I can just barely make out his eyes through a smoky material, too hard to be glass.

“You. Come forward.”

Shuddering, I get up and start limping toward him. One of his guards, a woman, slips under my arm and helps me over, and provides me with a folding chair.

“You can’t do this,” Brad spits. “You have no right to put me on trial. This is a farce. You can’t act as judge and jury.”

“You do not need your tongue. You will lose it if you continue to speak.”

Brad shuts up.

“Tell me who you are and where you came from. Do not lie. I will know.”

I shiver.

“You may speak freely.”

“I’m an American. My name is Penny. I was working across the border in Solkovia in an aid camp.”

Oh God, I can’t tell them Melissa was involved.

“The truth. All of it,” the prince booms.

I swallow and look at Melissa.

“It wasn’t her fault,” she cries out, sobbing. “It was me. I was helping Brad bring stuff here. I’m so sorry. Don’t hurt Penny, please don’t hurt Penny, I swear I—”

“Silence,” he booms. “Continue.”

“As she says. I followed Melissa out of our tent and found her helping Brad load a truck with boxes. We didn’t know what was in them. Please don’t hurt her, she thought it was food. She just wants to help people, she didn’t know what this place was like.”

I feel like I’m talking to a statue. I look away from him.

“They brought us here and talked about us in Kosztylan. I don’t speak your language very well but I understood what they were saying. They were going to sell Melissa. That man,” I point at the general, “said he was going to keep me. He already had another girl. Danielle. She’s the one who was shot. He…hurt her.” I can’t make myself say it.

The bearded general calls me a name that doesn’t have a direct English translation. It’s a mix of slut and cunt and it compares me to a female cat.

The butt of a rifle silences him.

“I don’t want to tell what happened when he took me. Please.”

“Did he…?” the question hangs unasked.

“No,” I take a deep breath, eyes closed, “but if you’d arrived a minute later he would have.”

“What is the role of the American man here?”

“He brings weapons. They said something about selling drugs. He didn’t explain it to me. I don’t know any more than that. He left us to be sold or killed. He was going to leave us here.”

It spills out of me with a sudden intensity, until I start to shake.

“I want to go home.”

“I will decide that. I saved your life. Now your life belongs to me.”

I freeze.

Brad laughs. “I told you.”

“I have heard enough to pass judgement,” the prince says, rising to tower over all of us. He turns and barks a single word in Kosztylan.

It means sword.

One of his men marches forward stiffly, like this is some kind of ritual. At the same time, two others drag the bearded general to the center of the room and force him to his knees, kicking him forward until his chest lands on a crate, his head hanging over the side.

Oh my God.

The prince draws the sword from the scabbard. The blade is five feet long and as wide as a man’s hand, the grip big enough for him to hold two-handed in his huge gauntlets.

There’s some kind of connector on the grip. It touches a plate on his gauntlet and the sword starts humming, crackling like a high-tension wire. He steps beside the bearded general.

“I, Prince Kristoff of the House Kosztyla, Crown Prince, sentence you to death by beheading. Speak your last words, have you any.”

The general bellows out a string of profanities, accusing the prince of fornicating with apes and insinuating that his mother is a whore who lies with pigs, among other obscenities.

The prince listens to him for a good thirty seconds then looks at me like he’s noticing me for the first time. The blade hovers over the general’s neck.

“Take the women out,” the prince commands. “They need not see this.”

Walking outside feels like floating, even limping on a sore ankle. Once I’m outside the tent, I hear it. The general lets loose a string of obscenities, his last words, as it were. Then they cut off.

I giggle. Cut off. Good one, Penny. My laughter breaks down into sobs.

I can hear Brad.

“You can’t do this!” he shrieks, high and thin. “I’m a f*cking American! I’m with the CIA! Do you know who I am?”

I turn back and look.

They push him down, and the prince brings the sword close to his face. The very tip touches Brad’s cheek with a hissing pop and I can smell him burning.