Ryu managed to wipe the scowl off his face. “Yes, sir.” Damn this incessant need for meaningless small talk. There were times he wished he was a garbage collector, or a window washer, just so he could tell people when to go to hell without causing a diplomatic incident.
“And just in time for the Festival of the Goddess,” Elise crooned, arriving at his side. “I’m so glad the exams will be finished by the weekend. It wouldn’t do to have you so distracted during your studies.” She beamed at him, then turned to Kentario. “Take good care of him today,” she told the bodyguard. “And please make sure he’s home on time. I know he’ll probably want to stop for ice cream, but he still has one more exam to study for.”
‘Ice cream’ was Kentario’s go-to explanation for any time Ryu was late home from school. Sometimes it was because he’d dared to spend ten minutes hanging out with his friends, pretending he was a normal person instead of the Crown Prince of Galandeen, while other times, he simply needed to take a walk in the park, precious time to clear his head before diving back into the cesspool of royal politics. But Elise thought it endlessly endearing that her almost-adult son liked to stop for ice cream, and so Ryu had gone along with the ruse, regardless of the fact that it gave his mother an excuse to treat him like a child on the odd occasion.
“He’s in good hands,” Kentario promised, offering the queen a short bow.
“Your Majesty,” Maro said to Elise. “While you’re here, might I have a word?”
“Of course.” They withdrew a short distance, their words drowned out as the car arrived, the engine on the elegant limousine rumbling like the purr of a giant cat. Kentario reached out to open the door, but Ryu couldn’t help glancing back at the pair standing by the guards’ station. Just as it was odd for Danag to need anything from Ryu, it was even more peculiar for Captain Landis to need to speak to the queen. All the security around the palace was arranged via his father’s desires and commands, and aside from occasionally needing a few guards to monitor a garden party, Elise had very little to do with him.
As he watched, Maro suddenly smiled, a most baffling expression on the usually stern and serious Captain, and then Ryu’s mother returned the smile, a demure, almost bashful look that sent an unwelcome thread of disquiet down Ryu’s spine.
“Ryu? Are you coming?”
Kentario was still holding the door open, and Ryu obediently picked up his schoolbag and climbed in, the scowl returning to his face as he remembered what Kentario had done last night. But through the tinted window of the limousine, he caught a glimpse of his mother taking both of Maro’s hands in her own, and she said something with a look ofunmitigated gratitude on her face. But even more disturbing was the sudden flush of red that lit the Captain’s cheeks. Maro, getting embarrassed? What the hell was going on around here lately? It seemed at every turn, his carefully constructed world was being taken apart, piece by piece, leaving Ryu feeling more and more like he was stranded in some fanciful dream.
Once the car pulled away, Kentario lost no time in activating the privacy screen. The driver was a trusted man, the same chauffer who’d been driving Ryu around since he’d turned sixteen – the time when Sou had decided he deserved a little independence – but nonetheless, the conversation they were about to have was likely to get heated, so it was best to do it without an audience.
“Okay, so what the hell was last night about?” Ryu demanded, the instant the panel was closed. “If that’s really what you think of omegas then you and I are about to have aseriousdisagreement.”
“Of course that’s not what I think of omegas. Goddess, Ryu, you’ve known me for how many years now? A little faith would be nice. Cael is not helpless, and he’s not worthless, and you know damn well how much I love my brother.”
“Then why the hell did you just -?”
“Because Caelwantsto go to Palarn. He wants to study marine science. And more than anything else, he wants the freedom to choose his own path in life, instead of having every single decision dictated to him by outdated notions of who he should be based on who his father is. I would have thought that you, of all people, would understand the pressure of being born into a role that fits like a badly made suit. But Dad was never going to agree, so we had to come up with some way to persuade him. Emica was in on it, and for that matter, so was Cael! Heaskedus to come up with a reason that would pressure Dad into letting him go.”
Now that Kentario had explained it, it all seemed completely obvious, and Ryu mentally kicked himself for not seeing it sooner.
“I would have told you about it earlier,” Kentario said, “but Emica and I had planned on having a chat to Dad about it privately. We weren’t expecting that meeting, and we didn’t have time to put a better plan together. But Dad apparently decided he wanted the king and queen to back him up on it. Thank the Goddess they’ve got bigger things to worry about right now.”
“What about Maro?” Ryu asked. “Heagreedwith you. Did you give him the heads up, or does he really think that?”
Kentario shrugged, leaning back against the plush leather of the limousine’s seat. “Hard to say for sure. I didn’t get a chance to warn him, but the man’s as sharp as a tack. It’s just as likely he figured it out by himself and decided to play along.”
“Okay, so I get that it was a last minute plan, but it sets a really bad precedent,” Ryu said. “There are three other omegas who’ve applied for Guard training next season. What’s Maro going to do, just expel the lot of them?”
Kentario muttered a curse under his breath. “I don’t know. Maro would happily just admit that he was wrong, but with Dad breathing down his neck, he’ll have to come up with a better excuse if he wants to let them train. But at least we have a week or two to talk to him about it. Firstly, to figure out which side of the fence he’s on, and then to come up with a plausible reason to let the omegas train. This wasn’t the way I’d planned it, Ryu. But now it’s done, the best we can do is try to clean up the mess.”
“Okay. Well… sorry for yelling at you, then.” He slouched down in his seat, feeling once more naïve and foolish. How was he supposed to make sensible decisions if no one gave him the right information?
“At least you kept your mouth shut in the end,” Kentario said. “Even if you did get a bruise in the process.”
Ryu snorted. “Well, that’s more than I can say for my mother. For crying out loud, sheisan omega. You’d think she of all people should know they’re just as capable as anyone else.” He stared out the window as the streets of the city rolled by, wondering if he would ever feel comfortable in this strange role. The younger generation of Galandanes largely agreed with his points of view, with huge progress having been made in the last few years with regard to omega rights and growing international alliances making Galandeen far less insular than it had been in the past. But the older generation still clung to traditional values, and changing their minds seemed an insurmountable challenge.
“She might be the queen, but she’s still taken a fairly traditional role in the royal family,” Kentario said. “The biggest problems she has to worry about are making sure the flower arrangements at the next ball are set up correctly.”
“Some of those palace functions can include anything up to five hundred guests,” Ryu said, feeling an inherent need to defend his mother.
“Hey, I’m not having a go at her,” Kentario said, his tone a touch softer. They’d arrived at the school, the driver pulling up in a reserved space outside the front gates. “It’s not my place to tell the queen how to do her job. But even you would have seen that she tends to leave the tough jobs up to your father, like judging criminals and making decisions about when to send in the army and when not to. I’m just saying that someone who doesn’t like dealing with the uglier sides of life might not see why an omega would be capable of serving in the Guard.”
Ryu rolled his eyes, making no effort to get out of the car. Seeing that Kentario hadn’t moved, the driver got out and came around to open his door. “That’s not an excuse,” he said. “After the revolution in Arctesia, andnow the civil war in Biermarg, she’s seen enough of life to know how things work.” The look on Kentario’s face said it all. “I know, I know, preaching to the choir,” Ryu grumbled. “I just get so sick of the pair of them living in the past.”
“As much as this doesn’t solve the problem, try to put it out of your mind for the next couple of hours,” Kentario advised him, handing him his schoolbag. “Just focus on your exam. We can’t very well have the crown prince failing his final year of high school.”
◊◊◊
Kentario sat in the foyer outside the school hall, scrolling through the latest news on his phone. For all that he received regular security updates from the Royal Guard, it paid to keep track of any serious stories out in the media.
