He nodded. “She was not my aunt. She’d been my nursemaid at the palace.”
“Yournursemaidkidnapped you?” she asked, clearly stunned.
“She was part of it,” he said.
The woman he had always believed to be the sister of his poor mother was no relation to his mother or to him. The mother his aunt had described never existed. “I should have realized this,” Marek admitted. “Neither my aunt nor uncle had the same coloring as I do,” he said. They were both very pale, whereas his skin color was tawnier. His aunt—nursemaid—confessed to him that he was the firstborn son of the King of Wesloria, presumed kidnapped and dead. She confirmed the history that Marek knew through his studies—the king assumed the throne at a young age after the death of his father. He was green, untried, and there was a lot of strife in the country. Rumors abounded that members of the king’s family—cousins, uncles, what have you—and other disruptive factions wanted to invade Alucia. But Maksim’s father had been an advocate of peace, and the young king vowed to continue on that path.
“It was the half brother of the Alucian king who was the most troublesome. He was—and still is—hungry for power and wealth, and will stop at nothing to get it. If he can’t depose the Alucian king and claim the throne, then he’ll depose the Weslorian king and claim it.”
“Felix Oberon,” Mrs. Honeycutt said.
Marek paused. “You know of him?”
“Yes. He tried to kidnap my brother-in-law.”
Of course. Marek had read about the attempt to kidnap the crown prince of Alucia when he was in London two years ago. The plot had gone wrong, resulting in the death of the prince’s private secretary. “Felix Oberon has been a threat to King Maksim and his family since the king ascended the throne. I believe I am living proof of it,” Marek said darkly. “His claim to the Weslorian throne is through a distant relation. There are many in Wesloria who would welcome his rule—he is ruthless and sides with the capitalists who seek wealth. Many have long suspected him of attempting to usurp my father’s throne. If he were successful, he would undoubtedly wage his war against his half brother in Alucia and unite the two countries under his iron fist.”
Mrs. Honeycutt released a breath when he said it. “That’s my sister,” she said softly. “She is an Alucian now. A Chartier. So is my dearest friend, Caroline.”
Marek nodded. “He would stop at nothing to depose them, I think. All those years ago, everyone assumed he had something to do with my kidnapping. And I have read that many thought he had murdered me, because a king with no heirs is a very weak king.”
“Was it him?” Mrs. Honeycutt asked. “Can you be sure?”
“No. All I have is the confession of a woman on her deathbed.”
“Did she know him?” Mrs. Honeycutt asked.
“I don’t think so,” Marek said. “She had an illicit affair with one of the traitors. She was to make sure I was accessible to them. A window left open, a door unlocked. I suppose her conscience got the best of her—on the night the kidnapping was to happen, she couldn’t bear it. She took me, and with the help of a friend, she fled with me. There was a fight in the fields outside of St. Edys, and she became separated from her friend. I gather it was a wild chase, and her friend did not survive. Somehow, she escaped to her brother’s house. She made the trek across Wesloria with a child who was not her own, and there, on the rocky shores of the Tophian Sea, she hid for the rest of her life.”
“Oh my,” Mrs. Honeycutt said, her voice full of wonder.
Marek looked down at his hands. His aunt, his nursemaid...had been a good mother to him. He’d loved her unquestionably, up until the moment she told him the lie that he’d lived all his life. He still hadn’t worked out his true feelings for the woman who had raised him as her own, all the while holding such a devastating secret from him.
He still hadn’t worked out how he felt about himself. He was the son of a king. He should have grown up in palaces and been shown the world. But then again, he’d liked his life on the sea. Now, he supposed he didn’t quite know where he belonged.
Mrs. Honeycutt spoke, but the words were watery, and he looked up.
“I said, I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “How extraordinary it all is. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you to learn the truth.”
“Quite,” he said darkly. “I didn’t believe her at first. It was too outrageous to be believed. My uncle was very little help—he swore he only knew what she’d told him of the affair.”
“And you’re certain it’s true?”
He smiled ruefully. “Aren’t you? You have noticed the bit of white in my hair, and the color of my eyes, my partial deafness owing to a fever I had before I was abducted. The missing prince was made partially deaf by the fever—that’s been well-documented.”
“I suppose there are those who could argue those are coincidences.”
It was an astute observation, and Marek had thought the same himself. “Je.But there is one more thing.” He reached into his collar, and with some effort, pulled out a thin gold chain. Dangling from the chain was a small gold cross. It was encrusted with pearls and inscribed on the back was his given name, Villu Marek Ivanosen,and the date of his christening. He removed it from his neck and handed it to Mrs. Honeycutt.
She examined the cross. “It’s beautiful.” She turned it over and squinted at the inscription. “How did you get the name Brendan?” she asked.
“An old fishing village that had once flourished near my home but had disappeared in years past. It was called Brendan.”
Mrs. Honeycutt handed the cross back to Marek and watched him slip it over his head, then tuck it under his collar. “I believe it’s true. I believe you are the missing prince.”
As shocked as he’d been by Aunt Laurlena’s confession, at the same time, things had almost immediately started to make sense. Like the tutoring, which he’d received well past the point other young men were being educated, and especially young men who were destined to become fishermen. Or his Uncle Dondan’s obsession with keeping him safe when they were on the sea. Even their lack of society, in hindsight, seemed strange. They lived remotely, and no one ever came to call except the tutor.
And there was something else, too, something that had been with him since as far back as his earliest memories—a feeling as if he didn’t belong to that sea or that land, at least not really. A feeling that he was, in some ways, a stranger in his own life, and had somehow stumbled into it.
