The Missing Monarch (12 page)

Thad didn’t hesitate. “The sun will be setting shortly. This
may be my only shot.”

Though she’d earlier said she wanted to accompany
him, Monica
didn’t ask if she could come along. She stayed silent, her eyes focused on
guiding the car down the narrow ramp that led from the parking garage. “Should I
head straight to the palace?” she asked once they reached the exit to the
street.

“Not yet. If the paparazzi are swarming, they may be headed
there, too. Let’s wait until it gets dark out. Can you drive
around a
little?”

“Gladly.”

* * *

Monica zipped up and down unfamiliar roadways. At least
Kirk’s car had plenty of gas in the tank. Finally, she was convinced she’d lost
anyone who might be following them.

At the same time, she was also convinced
she
was lost.

“Um, Thad?” She brought the car to a stop at a scenic overlook
high above the city. She’d
instinctively gone uphill, hoping the vantage point
would allow her to see her way back to the palace. “Do you know where we
are?”

Thad had practically flattened himself against the upholstery
to avoid being spotted, but he raised his head and made a face. “Lover’s
Lookout?”

A blush immediately rose to her cheeks. “Sorry. I got lost.
It’s starting to get dark
out, and I thought perhaps if we could get high enough
to see the city...”

“It’s all right.” Thad opened the back door and crawled out.
“Let me stretch my legs and take a look around. I’ve only ever been here a time
or two, and it was years ago, but I should be able to remember the way
home.”

Following his cue, Monica stepped out as well, stretching after
the
tense car ride before taking in the view.

They were high on a bluff overlooking the city, which twinkled
below them as lights came on in windows and street corners, winking like yellow
stars reflected in the waters of Sardis Bay. The Mediterranean stretched out
like a rippling mirror, catching the reds and pinks and oranges of the setting
sun, casting them back like a
thank offering hurled to the heavens.

A canopy of tree branches above them and fragrant climbing
flowers framed the image, and Monica couldn’t help drawing in a deep breath.
“It’s so lovely,” she murmured softly, sitting down on the hood of the car.

Thad took a few steps closer to her, but his attention remained
on the vista before them. “My domain.” Irony stung his words.
“The kingdom I
defend.”

Finally,
Monica thought,
a moment to speak to Thad, alone
. She swallowed past
the lump that had risen to her throat, and tried to find the words.

“If we head east down this road—” Thad had already moved on to
finding a way home “—I believe we’ll come to a cross street that leads downtown.
From there, it’s no trouble to get back to the palace.”
He stepped closer to her
and reached out his hand. “Would you like me to drive? It’s getting dark, so
hopefully no one will see me.”

Monica stared at his outstretched hand for a moment. No wedding
ring. No sign that he’d ever worn one. She, too, had removed hers before
returning home to her parents. No sense giving anyone a reason to ask questions
she didn’t have
the heart to answer.

Thad cleared his throat. “We should get going. Every minute is
precious.”

“You’re right.” She handed over the keys, surprised how
reluctant she felt to leave Lover’s Lookout and such a gorgeous sunset. She knew
the clock was ticking and her son’s life was on the line. So why did she long to
lean against Thad’s shoulder and linger in the light
of the sinking sun?

Thad took the keys from her hands, but didn’t move.

She looked up at him, thinking that perhaps he’d taken a moment
to bask in the glow of the beauty around them. Instead she found him looking
down at her as though she was the dazzling beauty.

“Thad?”

He shook his head slowly, shushing her, and traced the outline
of her face with the tips
of his fingers. He stopped at her chin and tilted her
head upward a tiny nudge.

Without really thinking about it, she rose up on her tiptoes
and brought their faces closer together. His lips brushed hers with a sweetness
that whispered of promises neither of them could keep. He let out a plaintive,
almost inaudible moan. Then he took two steps backward before circling
around
the car to the driver’s side door.

Monica wanted to reach for him, to pull him close again. At the
very least, she wanted to confess her jumbled feelings. She longed to hear what
Thad was thinking and feeling, to learn if the man she’d once loved so deeply
was still buried inside his banished and battered frame.

She pushed the longing aside. This was no time
to let her
emotions get the best of her. Until they had the scepter in their hands, there
wasn’t any time to waste. Besides, if she wanted to talk to Thad about her
jumbled feelings, they could always talk in the car.

But once Thad had the vehicle headed down the road, Monica
still couldn’t find the words.
Please, God,
she
prayed silently,
help me know what to say
.

Finally she turned in her seat enough to see Thad’s profile as
he focused on the road, and she cleared her throat. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s no big deal. We’ll be back at the palace shortly.”

“Not for getting lost.” She sucked in a shaking breath and
plowed on, in spite of her trembling heart. “For getting mad at you. For
accusing you of running away.” She’d heard Lucca’s
words from the tiny hospital
bathroom, and realized that she’d spoken the same accusation that Thad’s
murderous enemy had used against him. “You did what you thought was best. I
realize that now.”

“No. I was wrong to run away. I should have faced Octavian
years ago.”

“Could you have defeated him then?”

“Can I defeat him now?” Thad’s mouth twitched as he stared
straight ahead, shifting with the manual transmission as they crawled through
the first of a series of stoplights.

“Can you?” Monica whispered into the fear-filled silence.

“I don’t see how.”

His prognosis fell like the blade of a guillotine, cutting off
her hope. Frantically, she scrambled to think of a reason why they ought to be
able to defeat Octavian. Surely
Lucca’s death counted for something. “Do you
think General Petrela is on our side?”

“If he is, even Octavian will know it after what happened at
the hospital today.”

“Who’s going to tell Octavian?”

“Any one of the men in the hallway could.”

“They didn’t intervene when Petrela shot Lucca.”

“I could have been shot. My father could have been shot.” Thad
punched
the car into gear. “And they did nothing. They’re nothing but
mercenaries. Octavian has hundreds of them—enough to defeat the Lydian Army, if
it came to a battle. We are outnumbered, outmaneuvered and he has our son.”

Monica felt her hope receding like an ocean drawn back by the
tide, sucked away by an invisible force, each wave a futile effort to escape the
immutable
pull from beyond. “God won’t let my son be taken from me.”

“He already has.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks, but Monica could think of nothing
else to say. Up ahead, she could see the dark shadows of the palace walls
looming through the darkness. Her heart hurt for Thad. In the bitterness of his
words, she could taste the despair he’d been living in. She wished she could
take that pain away from him and give him back his faith, but she didn’t know
how. “What happened, Thad? What made you so angry at God?”

Thad remained silent. Realizing her words—a desperate plea for
him to open up to her—might have sounded somewhat accusational, she softened her
tone. “I want to understand,” she whispered as they neared the palace.

After a painful
stretch of silence, Thad eased the car through
the back palace gates and brought it to a stop in an open, empty bay of the
garage. “I don’t want you to understand.”

His response was so unexpected, she sputtered. “Why not?”

The silence was deeper with the engine dead, and the sounds of
the city blocked out by the high wall that encircled the palace grounds. The
darkness
had deepened as night had fallen, and inside the garage was
pitch-black, the stinging scent of burnt gasoline far too reminiscent of the oil
rig where she’d found him. Monica couldn’t see Thad’s face.

“Because—” his voice echoed from somewhere in the utter
darkness “—if you
understand,
” he said, straining
against the words until she could almost hear his angry grip on
the steering
wheel, “that’s what Octavian wants. He wants you to spark that hope inside me so
I’ll chase after it. He wants me to abandon reason in favor of love. He wants me
to care more about you than my kingdom, and
I can’t allow
myself to do that
. I shouldn’t have kissed you back there. I was too
weak to resist. I’m too weak to defeat Octavian, too.”

Monica sat
in shocked silence, the garage vapors and vast
darkness reminiscent of what Thad must have lived through for six long years at
the edge of the earth, reminding himself daily of all he’d given up, and all he
would never get back. Something warm and tragic stirred in her lungs, and she
felt like that fish on the rocky Alaskan shoreline, flopping helplessly, wanting
to live,
but beyond all hope.

While she sat still, absorbing what he’d said, Thad got out and
headed toward the palace. Monica sighed and trudged after him. They’d used up
nearly all of the time Octavian had given them, and she felt as though they were
further away from succeeding now than they’d been in the beginning.

Worse yet, she supposed that was precisely what Octavian wanted
them to feel.

NINE

T
had dressed in black to blend in with the
darkness. He slipped his phone into his pocket and tried to think of anything
else he might need.

Comfortable shoes for walking, even jogging. It was a long
journey, making it a long night. He brought a flashlight, even an extra
flashlight, just in case something happened to the first one, and slipped a
bottle of water into one cargo pocket of his pants. Then, feeling lopsided, he
slid another bottle into the pocket on the other leg.

There really wasn’t anything else.

With time ticking relentlessly away, Thad headed through the
palace to the entrance of the tunnel that would take him to the place he’d left
the scepter six years before. And if he found it, for once
he’d have bested
Octavian. It might not mean he’d get his son back, but it would at least give
him a shot.

And if the scepter was gone, he’d have to come up with another
plan, though he couldn’t imagine what that might be.

The soft soles of his black cross-training sneakers made no
sound as he slipped down the empty palace halls, past tapestries, framed
artwork,
pillars with vases and the occasional suit of armor worn by the kings
of old. When he came to the open throne room, he paused, his back against the
wall, panting.

Had he heard footsteps?

Perhaps it was just the urgent beat of his heart, driving him
to hurry, or maybe the echo of his own footsteps against the cold stone
floors.

He glanced into the wide throne
room, where at the age of
twenty-two he’d signed the Article of the Crown, confirming his intention to
rule Lydia should anything happen to his father, who’d then just been crowned
king. And then the paper was rolled up and tucked back inside the Scepter of
Charlemagne, and stored away in a locked case until he’d taken it two years
later, hiding it away from Octavian.

This same throne room was where Octavian wanted to meet with
him in less than fourteen hours. In this same throne room, he’d face the man
who’d stolen his son.

Somehow, he had to protect them both—his son, and the crown.
But what if he couldn’t do both? What if he had to choose?

Light from the rising moon spilled in through the stained-glass
windows high on the
walls of the vaulted throne room, pouring in and landing on
the glass case that held the crown of Lydia. The amethysts sparkled lifelessly,
their cold light unchanged from that day when he’d signified his intent to rule
Lydia with faith, honor and love.

Love.

He’d been naive to think it could ever be that simple.

Shaking his head, he darted across the throne room,
tripping
down the shallow stairs that led to a back hallway. If he turned left, he’d end
up back at the front of the palace. Turning right instead, he ducked into a
chamber that was mostly used for storage, the wooden wall panels camouflaging
the secret door in the corner. Further obscured by a stack of tables that nearly
blocked the way, the door itself had no knob, but
was opened by sliding the
framework of the jamb out of the way, each piece in ordered succession, like a
massive brain-teaser puzzle.

Thad pulled one of the flashlights from a cargo pocket, and
held the light steady between his teeth while he slid the panels to the side. As
soon as the door settled back in place behind him, gravity would close the jamb
back around
it, as though the way had never been opened to the tiny room
beyond.

There was nothing there to give anyone who made it that far any
indication that there might be more to the space than stale, forgotten air.
Certainly nothing to hint that the side wall could be pushed back just far
enough to reveal a small handle on the floor, which, when pulled, raised a
trapdoor.
And no one would ever guess that from that trapdoor, stone steps led
down in darkness to an ancient tunnel under the sea.

* * *

Monica held the wooden jamb just far enough to the side
so that, blinking with one eye at the crack, she could see Thad shuffling in the
beam of his flashlight in a tiny room on the other side. Knowing he didn’t want
her coming with him,
but determined to see their mission through to the end,
she’d decided to follow him.

He never had to know she was behind him. As long as he didn’t
need her help, she wouldn’t let on that she was there. But the burning in her
heart told her she
had
to come. For one thing, there
was no way she could possibly sleep knowing what Thad was up to. And besides
that, Octavian
had given her the mission to retrieve the scepter, just as much
as he’d given it to Thad.

Peter’s life depended on the scepter. So she had no choice but
to follow Thad, even though there was every chance he’d be furious with her if
he found out she’d gone against his wishes.

His wishes didn’t matter. All that mattered was the scepter,
and getting Peter back, safe
and sound. So she watched Thad, taking great care
not to make the slightest sound that would give away her presence.

What was he doing, shoving at the wall? What was that he tugged
at on the floor? Monica wondered if she’d be able to open the secret doors he’d
passed through, but there was no way she could find out until he was gone. If he
realized she was following him,
he’d only send her back. They’d only end up
wasting time.

And they didn’t have time to waste.

* * *

Thad settled the trapdoor back into place above his
head. He then pushed hard on the levered hinge that would move the wall above
back over the handle of the trapdoor, effectively disguising his escape route.
There would be nothing to give away where he’d gone.
It would be as though he
had passed straight through the thick stone walls and disappeared.

He turned his attention to the steps, which bent in a narrow
trail downward, their steep descent almost ladderlike in places, as the tunnel
descended to a level far beneath the sea.

Of course, when this tunnel had been first carved hundreds of
years before, the sea hadn’t been
there. The king’s castle that sat now in ruins
on the Island of Dorsi had originally been built at the tip of a peninsula. But
violent storms and ravaging waves had long before washed away the sandy shores,
carving out waterways along the slender strip of land, leaving an archipelago of
islands stretching out beyond the city of Sardis.

The storms and waves hadn’t touched
the tunnel, chiseled, as it
was, through stolid stone beneath the bottom of the sea.

All the upheaval had, however, shifted the tunnel’s path in
places, so that the corridor, once an even meter wide by nearly two meters high,
jutted in on itself, nearly blocking its own way at times, so that Thad had to
turn sideways to squeeze through or duck to crawl under low-dipping
ledges,
shuffling nearly on his knees.

He was scooting along this way, crawling several body lengths
ahead with his flashlight in his teeth, reminding himself that he’d gotten over
his claustrophobia years before, when he heard a hollow boom behind him, and
froze.

It could be the sea. He’d spotted trickling water between the
blocks here and there, and stepped
through puddles and over trails of lime and
distilled salt where water had slowly oozed, filling in its own path with
sediment behind it.

There was nothing to say the archaic channel wouldn’t be
breached by the sea at any moment, filled with water like an aqueduct, drowning
anyone unfortunate enough to be caught inside.

Certainly it was possible—Thad found it remarkable
that it
hadn’t already happened years before. The only reason the tunnel had survived
this long was that no one knew about it, and no one used it. Had he disturbed it
enough with his shuffling along that the stones above him were starting to
crack?

If he had, it was likely too late to escape going backward. And
there wasn’t nearly enough time to make it out the other
end, not if water
started gushing in behind him.

No, all there was left was to soldier steadily onward,
regardless of how hopeless the situation was. It wasn’t as though any of it
mattered anyway. Even if he found the scepter, even if he brought it safely
back, there was no reason to believe he could use it to get his son back.

There were really only two choices left
to him: to give up
completely or to keep crawling, no matter how endless the tunnel seemed.

He stopped, and the cold stone bit into his knees
uncomfortably. The chill of the subterranean rocks crept its way up his arms
with a dull ache.

No, giving up was no good. It was too painful.

He pictured Monica standing on the oil platform, her tired eyes
telling him she’d
thought about retreating, her worn-out words repeating the
mantra she’d no doubt recited countless times.

I’ve traveled too far to turn around
now.

He tried out the words in a whisper. They fit just fine,
exhaling with every sigh and grunt of effort, tripping off his tongue at a
faster pace as the ceiling arched upward again, high enough for him to walk
upright,
and then to charge forward at something approximating a run.

I’ve traveled too far to turn around
now.

* * *

Monica had frozen when the trapdoor settled back into
place with a loud boom.

Thad had to have heard it, even if he was far ahead of her by
now.

His light had disappeared in the distance and, reluctant as she
was to give her position away, she
figured if she couldn’t see the beam of his
torch, he wouldn’t be able to see hers, either.

She clicked on her tiny flashlight and started moving as
quickly as she dared. She didn’t want to catch up to Thaddeus, but neither did
she want to give away her presence. Every so often she paused, listening,
turning off her light and squinting ahead, trying to determine how close
she’d
come to her husband.

A trickling drip of water met her ears, an unsettling reminder
that the tunnel they journeyed through was very old, and apparently less than
stable. Had she been foolish to follow Thaddeus? What if something happened to
her?

She thought about turning around. The warm bed in her palace
suite had soft sheets and more than enough comfortable
pillows.

But where was Peter sleeping tonight?

And how would she ever get him back if she didn’t keep
going?

Words echoed back to her through the tunnel, so familiar she
almost thought they’d come from inside her, instead of without.

“I’ve traveled too far to turn around now.”

She recognized that voice, and felt a tightening in her chest.
Thad was up there,
trudging onward, for Peter’s sake. She wasn’t sure precisely
why she felt such a strong need to accompany him, but she wasn’t about to let
him make the journey alone.

* * *

Whenever the tunnel passage allowed it, Thad kept to a
steady jog. The narrow trail crept for miles under the archipelago,
hand-chiseled through solid rock by hundreds of workers over the course
of
several decades. Though a marvelous feat of architecture, it wasn’t as long as
some modern undersea tunnels, such as the one that connected London and Paris,
or another he’d heard of in Japan. Unlike those, however, which were dozens of
meters in diameter, wide enough to fit trains and large machinery, the tunnel
that ran to the Island of Dorsi had been carved just wide
enough to permit two
average-sized adults to walk side by side.

In that respect, it reminded him more of Hezekiah’s Tunnel, the
famous aqueduct-turned-escape-hatch that had been chiseled under Jerusalem
around 700 BC, and still drew hordes of tourists every year. Knowing Hezekiah’s
tunnel was both older and more heavily traveled made Thad feel slightly less
foolhardy
for attempting the underground trip alone.

Unlike Hezekiah’s tunnel, however, the long passage to Dorsi
had shifted over the years, and in places threatened to give way again. It had
only three entrances: the opening in the palace, through which he’d entered, the
distant exit on Dorsi, and a short spur on the Lydia mainland, which opened to a
narrow cave on the sheer cliffs
north of the Sardis marina. He passed the spur
without hesitation. There was nothing for him to gain by going that way.

As Thad plodded onward, he came to a section where the smooth
floor of the tunnel was littered with smaller crumbling rocks.

A smattering of pebbles rained down as his footfalls echoed
against the floor.

He slowed his pace. Above him, cracks crisscrossed
the stones
like fissures in a sheet of ice. He placed his fingers in one of the gaps. His
whole hand slid in easily, but let out a yelp of surprise as the stones squeezed
inward, applying gentle pressure on his fingers before releasing them like an
exhaled sigh.

Thad pulled his hand out quickly. The tunnel seemed to be
shifting, almost like a living, breathing thing.
It wasn’t rigid at all, but
flexible, moaning and sighing with the pulse of the tide and the ocean waves far
above. That, Thad realized, was likely the secret to its long survival. It
wasn’t brittle. It gave under pressure, like an earthquake-proof building,
engineered to sway instead of snap.

Another crack inched its way upward toward the ceiling, and
Thad felt the
length of it, relieved to find no trace of moisture that would
have indicated close proximity to the sea above. At least here the salt water
wasn’t threatening to rush in. Most likely the tunnel ran under one of the
islands at this point, instead of the sea.

Deciding to test his theory on the flexibility of the tunnel
walls, Thad wedged his fingers in the vertical chasm.
Again, he felt the stone
move inward, squeezing his fingers. This time, however, the pinch felt tighter,
and he quickly tugged his fingers free before they could be smashed. To his
relief, the stones shifted under the pressure from his hands, rather than
crushing him. One of the large sections of stone moved to the side as he drew
his hand back.