His Princess (A Royal Romance)(15)

The chopper goes higher and swings around, and the gunner on the door visibly relaxes, even lighting a cigarette that somehow doesn’t go out or snap away from his lips as he puffs on it, casting a harsh red glow on his face and thick gloves.

I hug myself and rub my arms against the cold as the helicopter cuts swiftly over the lights. I can’t remember the name, but there is a city near the border, then open land. Even there, plenty of light illuminates the roads and small hamlets that pop up here and there among fertile fields.

Everything here is so small. Even as an East Coaster, growing up in America has left me with a skewed perspective on distance. A half-hour flight into Kosztyla and we’re in the center of the country.

There is a single mountain that spurs up in the middle of the tiny nation. The gold mines within are said to still be productive, and the capital surrounds it and climbs up its slopes but stops a third of the way up.

Near the top is an actual, honest-to-God castle. In the dark, lit by bright spotlights, it looks like something out of a fairy tale. Red lights blink slowly on the tops of the towers, glowing angry in the mists that surround them and flow down the mountainside in sheets. Some of the stone is dark gray, some is so black it swallows the light, like pools of ink. It’s bigger than it first appears, big enough that in one of the courtyards is a chopper pad that can easily accommodate the big transport helicopter carrying me in.

My grip on the seat tightens again during the descent, the vinyl squeaking under my fingernails. I close my eyes but that only makes it worse, and a gust of wind rips across my body and shoves the chopper to the side. It sways violently. When my eyes crack open on their own, I can look almost straight down at the helipad.

I snap them shut again and try not to scream. The chopper evens out but it doesn’t feel any calmer. There’s a thud and a sudden lurch and I’m sure we’re going to crash, but when my eyes open again I find myself looking out at worn stone walls and the same tall blonde woman undoing my safety harness.

She helps me to my feet, roughly but steadily, and two of the men lift me down to the concrete pad.

The castle is even more impressive from the outside. The courtyard is ringed by a curtain wall forty feet high and ten feet thick, topped with sharply pointed battlements that claw defiantly at the sky. The walls meet at sharp angles, giving the entire castle a star shape around an older fortress with lower walls, the heavy blocks of stone worn smooth and melded together by time. In the middle, three towers rise up, the tallest and widest as big as a good-sized skyscraper.

Flags, hundreds of flags, whip in the wind everywhere they can hang, the phoenix on a yellow field. Their constant snapping and flapping forms a chorus, like being trapped in a flock of angry birds. I gladly take the offered crutch and make my way toward an open door, flanked by two of the crown prince’s soldiers.

I feel like I’m floating. This isn’t happening. This can’t be real. I’m in some kind of crazy dream. I read The Lord of the Rings before I went to sleep and I’m having a nightmare about being trapped in Mordor.

I’ll wake up any second now.

Keep telling yourself that, Penny.

It’s warmer inside, at least. I expected a castle to be damp and drafty but it’s actually nice in here. It is a castle, though. The stone floors are covered in layers of thick rugs woven in intricate patterns, and the walls are plastered and covered over with tapestries.

Real tapestries, not some crap you’d buy at a mall. This random hallway is adorned with one fifty feet long, covered in scenes of battle. As a rough guess, I’d put the age at anywhere between three and four hundred years old, maybe even actually medieval. Hangings like this tell a story, and I try to puzzle it out as I hobble by.

It’s about a guy in black armor. I have that much down.

The corridor slopes up until it opens onto another one through an arched doorway. It quickly becomes difficult to keep track of all the turns. Without asking, my escorts support me by the arms as I hobble up a sweeping staircase that winds around a curved wall to a higher floor.

The one on my right opens a heavy oak door, banded with iron.

“You will sleep here,” he says in clipped, accented English.

“Uh, thanks,” I mutter, and lean on the crutch to work my way inside.

I look around for something to light my way and my escort helpfully reaches into the room and throws a plain old light switch.

“Holy shit,” I whisper.

This room is bigger than my house at home. The ceiling soars twenty feet overhead, with electric chandeliers hanging on big chains that run from one end to the other. Situated between two thick columns holding up the ceiling, an enormous four-poster bed, much bigger than a king size, sits piled up with pillows and blankets as high as my neck, with a little staircase to climb up.

Another heavy door stands open, leading into a bathroom. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe a bucket and a chamber pot, but primitive this is not. The shower cabinet could hold ten people behind its smoky glass doors, and there would be a showerhead for each of them, plus a detachable one on a jointed metal hose. I half expect the toilet seat to be made of solid gold.

No. I’m pretty sure it’s oak, though.

Hobbling back out of the bathroom, I try the doorknob on the main door. It turns freely, but the door won’t budge. It’s barred from the outside.

Great.

I stand there for a good ten minutes trying to figure out what to do. I search for a phone but don’t fine one, though there is a huge antique writing desk that’s probably older than the United States. Stone stairs lead up to a balcony. I make my way up and out into the open air, and jump back with a yelp.