The Man Behind the Mask. Christine Rimmer

      “I am doing my very best.” She was grinning. And then she wasn’t grinning. “Dulce…” I knew by her sudden change of tone, by the shadows in her eyes, that something bleak was coming. “Last night, at the ball, I noticed you and Valbrand really hit it off.”

      I made a sound that could have meant anything. “Um?”

      “Well, I, um…” She was having real trouble getting around to it. I kept my mouth shut. Though I loved nothing so much as finishing other people’s sentences, right then, I made no attempt to fill in the blanks. She tried again. “That’s the first time I’ve seen my brother dance, did you know that?” I shook my head. She looked so sad. “They say he used to love to dance.…”

      At that moment, I was absolutely certain that she knew how I felt—and that she was going to warn me off him. It was all there, in her worried blue eyes.

      And yes, I’m aware that reading minds is not dependable, that you’re just too damn likely to get it all wrong. A girl should have sense enough to go ahead and ask.

      But I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to hear her tell me how he was not the man for me.

      It wasn’t as if I didn’t already know.

      “I’m so grateful,” she said quietly, “that he’s back with us. But how can I tell you? Dulce, he’s…damaged, you know, by what happened to him? And I don’t just mean his poor face. He’s never going to be like your average guy.”

      “What, exactly, happened to him?”

      She was frowning. “I told you. A storm at sea. A fire. He was washed overboard.…”

      Yes, she had told me.

      When Valbrand went missing, Brit’s mother had phoned her with the news that the brother she’d never known was lost at sea and presumed dead. Brit had just moved in across the courtyard from me. She came over to my place and we drank strong coffee and talked all night.

      It was really hard for her, to think that he was gone. She hated it so much—that she’d lost him when she hadn’t even met him yet. There had always been all those family issues that had kept her from ever getting to know him. Since her father and her mother split—when Brit and her sisters were ten months old—there had been zero communication between the two halves of the family. I say two halves because it was some kind of trade-off, I think. Daughters to Ingrid. Sons—Valbrand and Kylan—to King Osrik.

      Kylan was dead within a year or two after the split, killed in a stable fire at the age of five. Which made Valbrand the only son left—and then he was gone, too.

      I’d assumed at first that Valbrand must have been on some kind of cruise when he disappeared. That night in my apartment, sipping coffee, trying not to cry, Brit had set me straight.

      In Gullandria it was tradition that any young prince who hoped to someday be king must accomplish a Viking Voyage. I instantly pictured wild men in horned helmets burning down picturesque villages and having their way with terrified women.

      But I had it all wrong. There was no raping or pillaging involved, just a sea voyage in an authentic reproduction of a Viking longship. It was a symbolic trip, Brit said. A nod to Gullandrian history, to the time when kings went a-Viking and were unlikely to live all that long.

      Valbrand had set off from Lysgard Harbor with a trusted crew of thirty. He made it to the Faeroes and set sail for Iceland. They’d heard nothing from him after that, though it was only a matter of days to Iceland and he had agreed to check in with his father when the ship made land there.

      The rest we’d learned later, after Eric went looking for him and returned to report that he’d found the few survivors, all of whom told the same story about a storm at sea.

      “The bit about the fire is new,” I said. “You never mentioned that until the other day.”

      Brit pursed up her mouth. “It’s not a bit, Dulce. It’s what happened to him.”

      “It’s vague. You know it is. Who started the fire? And what about these survivors? Who were they? Why did Eric have to track them down, if they were part of a trusted crew? I mean, why didn’t they come back on their own and report what had happened, if they were so trustworthy?”

      She gave me another long look. “Dulce…”

      I waited. She didn’t say anything else—I mean, beyond my name, in a weary sort of tone. Finally I said, “You’re my best friend. I know you. And I know when you’re not being straight with me.”

      “I’m being straight.”

      “Right.”

      “I am.” She lifted up, punched her pillow, dropped back down. “There’s just…things I can’t talk about, that’s all.”

      “Getting that. Loud and clear.”

      We lay there, on our separate pillows, looking in each other’s eyes, both of us frowning. Finally she sighed. “I’ve said all I can say about what happened to my brother. So will you just please let it go?”

      I could see there was no point in keeping at her. She’d made it painfully clear she wouldn’t say any more. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I’ll let it go.” For now, anyway, I added silently. I strove for a lighter tone. “Hey.”

      “What?”

      “You said that Valbrand was never going to be your average guy.”

      “Yeah?” She was looking at me narrow-eyed—probably anticipating the next question she would have to evade.

      “So. Was he ever your average guy?”

      The corner of her mouth twitched. In relief, I was certain. Here was something she could be honest about. “No. No, he wasn’t. Once he was…everything this country needs in its next king.”

      “And now?”

      “Now…” She paused, considering. “Now, I don’t think he’s really sure who he is.”

      I rolled to my back and stared up at the sculptured ceiling. “Maybe, over time, he’ll…get better.”

      “I have a lot of hope for that. We all do. He’s come a long way already. You cannot imagine…”

      I guess I couldn’t. And by her silence, I knew she wasn’t going to tell me. I rolled to my side again and propped up on an elbow. “Look. I think we’d better get it out there, much as it makes me cringe to do it. You’re telling me not to get interested in him, right? That there’s zero hope for any kind of…future between him and me.”

      She shut her eyes and let out a groan. “Yes.” She looked at me again. “That’s what I’m telling you— Oh, Dulce. I’m so—”

      I cut her off. “Do not,” I instructed, “say you’re sorry.”

      “Okay,” she whispered. “I won’t.”

      “And don’t look so worried. As of now, there is nothing going on between your brother and me. And nothing will be going on—or at least, I’m about ninety percent sure nothing will.”

      “Only ninety percent?” She looked so irritatingly hopeful. She wanted my guarantee that nothing had, was, or ever would, happen between Valbrand and me.

      I couldn’t give her that. “See, this is the deal. If your brother would give me half a chance, I would be on it. No hesitation. No looking back. Crazy as it probably sounds to you, considering I’ve spent a total of ten minutes in his presence, I have that strong a feeling for him. But as of now, things look seriously unpromising.”

      She sat up. “What if I were to ask you right out to stay away from him?”

      I held my ground. “Sorry. Won’t do it. I’m not going to avoid him.”

      She flopped back down hard on her back and stared