Page 39 of Royal Resistance

I’m glad when Magnus turns on the flashlight.

“No, I’ll do better,” he promises. “You’ve seen the ballroom, and most of the main floor, I think.”

“Is there a throne room?” I ask. It’s very much a castle, but not one for a king.

“There used to be a throne in the ballroom,” Magnus explains as we creep farther into the tunnel. “Ugly thing – I think it was made out of a tree but gilded. And wing-like things out the back, that weren’t really wings.”

“What are wing-like but not wings?”

Magnus huffs. “Back in the day, when Vikings were Vikings, they would punish prisoners by ripping the ribs out of a man and spreading them. Like… wings. Someone thought it would be attractive to carve those in the throne.”

“Pleasant.”

“When my grandfather took over the castle, he had it removed. And never really got a new one. He wasn’t the sitting-on-a-throne type. He liked to do things – fighting mainly. You hear talk of how many times he’d get thrown out of the bars in town. Physically thrown out, like through windows and doors. I never understood why he wanted this. Who gave him the idea to be a king? Because based on what I know of him, he wasn’t the king type.”

“My grandfather was definitely the king type,” I muse. “I can’t see him even going into a bar, let alone being asked to leave. King Leif sounds more fun.”

Magnus glanced over his shoulder. “He could be. He died when I was still young, but I remember pieces of him. He’s the one who showed me the tunnels. Said I could escape from my brother.”

“So you and Dante? This isn’t a recent thing?”

“We’ve never really gotten along, but it’s definitely gotten worse recently.” The disappointment is there in Magnus’s tone. For a man who has sought out attention, the limelight, it must be difficult to have a family that dismisses him so easily.

“Why did you have to escape from him?” Sizewise, I can’t see the younger Dante ever intimidating Magnus.

“My brother would follow me around, looking for ways to get me into trouble.” Another glance over his shoulder. “And when I was younger, I didn’t really need help with that. I was never bad, just had a way of finding trouble. Or maybe it found me.”

“I can see that.”

“I suppose, being a psychiatrist, you could explain the reasoning for that.”

“Psychologist,” I correct. “And I probably could, with a few questions.”

“You haven’t really asked many since you’ve been here,” he says. I don’t need a psychology degree to hear the faint passive aggressiveness of the comment.

Magnus wants me to ask. He wants me to learn about him and his history. His country.

“I guess I’m still trying to process everything,” I tell him slowly. “There’s been a lot, in a very short time.”

“It has been. I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s not you. You’ve been… wonderful.” And as I say it, I realize that it’s true. Magnus has made this move as seamless as he could. “It’s that I had managed to accept that I wouldn’t ever be queen of Avelaine, and honestly, that took a bit. And then, all of a sudden, here I am, queen of Laandia. It’s been quite the mindshift.”

“Never thought of it that way.”

“I do want to learn more. Everything,” I admit. “But I’ve been a bit focused on myself.”

“That’s fair. And I want to learn about you. Everything. So it’s nice to hear things.”

Tell me more, is what he’s saying, and as we walk through the dark tunnels, I do.

15

Magnus

Being in the tunnels makes me feel like I’m a kid again, exploring with my brother, before he became the Dante he is now.

I miss the old Dante.