It’s not as soothing as the range at home, because there’s less to concentrate on. Shooting a hay bale isn’t hard, but as I keep punching holes through paper, I can finally feel the knot inside me start to loosen.
I exhale again. Steady my hands. I shoot the paper’s right shoulder so perfectly through a hole that’s already there that I can’t even tell, then I do the same thing to the left shoulder. Now I feel in control, finally, after waking up at four in the morning again, the sheets soaked in sweat.
There are some problems that the shooting range solves better than a four-mile run or a brutal hour-long workout, and this is one of them.
I lower the gun and step back a few paces, but before I raise it again, I see someone standing far to the side, respectfully waiting. The other palace residents only had to learn once what a bad idea it was to tap me on the shoulder while I was at the range, particularly when I’ve got hearing protection on.
I nod at him, shoot my last two bullets into the paper target, then put the safety on and put the gun down, taking the earmuffs off. He finally walks over.
“Your father requests your presence in his study,” Niko says.
I look at my watch. It’s eight in the morning, and I’m wearing a sweat-soaked t-shirt and track pants.
“I’ll see him at the small council meeting in an hour,” I say. “He needs me before that?”
Niko shrugs.
“He sent me to request your presence,” he says. “You know he’d never give me more information than strictly necessary.”
I almost snort. My father isn’t in the habit of giving anyone more information than strictly necessary, and that includes me. The Crown Prince. The next in line for the throne.
The kind of person who should have some damned information sometimes.
“Thanks,” I say. I eject the magazine from the handgun and pull back the action, checking that there isn’t a bullet in the chamber.
“Has he said anything about the reports from the north?” I ask, still looking at the gun. I speak quietly, even though I’m certain it’s just the two of us.
“Kostya, if you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t know there were reports from the north,” Niko says, his quiet tone matching mine. “Your father hasn’t even mentioned them in my presence.”
“Of course he hasn’t,” I mutter.
My father, King Grigory II of Sveloria, is also suppressing them from the state-run media, which is the only media in our tiny country. After a year and a half, the guerillas are emerging from the mountains again. There’s going to be fighting, maybe bad fighting, and we haven’t warned our people.
Niko says nothing, but we share a long look. I know perfectly well that I’m one of the few people who can criticize my father, and even in private, it’s a good idea for others to keep their mouths shut. But Niko and I go all the way back to boot camp, then to Five Hundred Squad, and then to the Svelorian Royal Guard.
The Royal Guard is an old, old name. They don’t guard the royal family any more. Now they’re an elite military force. More like the Green Berets than actual guards.
After Niko got hurt, I convinced my father to hire him as an aide. Partly because Niko is sharp, experienced, and lowborn — the kind of voice the palace desperately needs. Partly because I wanted to have a friend around.
“He’s expecting you,” Niko says, and inclines his head, just barely.
“Thank you,” I say.
Niko walks away, shoulders straight, his limp very slight these days.
I don’t even change before I go to my father’s study. He wanted to see me now, he can see me before I’m presentable.
In the antechamber to his study, his secretary sits, straight-backed. Anna has worked for my father since his coronation nearly twenty-one years ago. She wears her gray hair in a bun at the nape of her neck, has cat-eye glasses, and if she’s ever smiled, I wasn’t around to see it.
All the same, I think there’s a speck of fondness for me in there, somewhere.
“Good morning, Anna,” I say, nodding at her.
“Good morning, Konstantin Grigorovich,” she says, using the most formal version of my name.
I’ve told her a thousand times to call me Kostya, like most people do. She’s known me since I was a child, after all, but Anna is old fashioned and I know she never will.
“Is my father in?” I ask.
She inclines her head slightly, the line of her mouth perfectly straight.
“You’re to go right in,” she says.
“Thank you,” I say.
I step through the door to my father’s study, and he looks up. I close the door behind me as he sits behind his massive, ornate wooden desk. It’s one of a handful of furniture pieces that survived the nearly seventy years of Soviet rule.
I clasp my hands in front of me, the sweat on my shirt cooling against my skin. He gives me a long look, his face nearly unreadable, but I think there’s a hint of disapproval there.
“You asked for me, father?” I say.
He finally looks up at my face.
“Yes,” he says. “The Queen and I are receiving Ambassador Towers’s daughter at the train station, and you’ll be joining us.”
For just a moment, I stare at him. It’s not that he calls my mother, his wife, the Queen. That’s what he always calls her. It’s probably what he calls her in private.
But why are they going to a train station to greet the ambassador’s daughter? And why the hell do I have to go with them?
“Father, I have a fairly busy schedule today,” I say. I try my best to sound respectful.
He just looks at me, then looks back at the papers on his desk.
“After the small council meeting, I’m being briefed on the situation in the north by several of the outpost leaders there, and then I’ve set up a meeting with General Vladov to talk about the most appropriate response—”
“The United Svelorian Front likely has Russian backing,” he says, cutting me off. He’s still looking at the papers on the desk. “If we want to stand a chance against that kind of threat, we need the Americans on our side. We have extended every courtesy to Ambassador Towers, and we will do the same for her daughter.”
“Father, I’ll be meeting her at the formal dinner tonight,” I say. I try to keep my voice flat and neutral, but I can hear the irritation creeping into it. “Surely it’s more important that I understand the threat that the USF poses than meet some American girl on her arrival.”
I want to say, we’re not still doing things the old way. We don’t broker treaties and trade agreements over vodka shots in back rooms any more.
“I’ll have Anna reschedule all that,” he says, barely glancing up at me.
I can tell from his tone that this isn’t up for discussion, but I can’t stand the way he’s treating me like a child. I’m not whining that I’ll miss my birthday party.
I’m trying to protect my country.
“The American government isn’t going to care that I met this girl at the train station when they’re deciding how many guns to send,” I say.
“Yes, but they’ll care about what Ambassador Towers has to say about you,” he says. He’s writing something, his voice going vague. “You’re coming with us, Kostya.”