After making sure Elena had left the yacht, Alistair sneaked into John’s cabin to borrow her latest novel. He retreated to his own room, settling in to read the words his sister had gone to great lengths to produce, and worked even harder to keep him from ever seeing.
In the story, the crime of regicide never fell upon the princess, even as the final chapters unfolded. Instead, the guilt was pinned on an "unfortunate" knight—a man driven to a supposed fury after the King had refused him the princess’s hand in marriage in the very beginning. The novel reached its visceral peak with the knight standing in a state of shock over the corpses of the King and Queen, only to be struck down by dozens of arrows before he could utter a single word in his defense.
Alistair flipped through the pages with a practiced caution, his eyes skimming quickly past the more intense, gory descriptions for which Elena was famous. He reached the epilogue, where the princess is finally revealed as the true architect of her parents' deaths. In the final pages, the young, newly crowned King discovers the truth of his sister’s involvement years later.
Rather than a public execution, the King acts with a cold, quiet mercy. He has the princess discreetly sent away, locked in a cellular prison within a run-down, forgotten estate. To the public, it was announced that she had succumbed to a brief, sudden illness.
Alistair closed the book, the weight of the ending settling heavily in the silence of the cabin.
He closed his eyes and leaned back, the book heavy in his lap. He wondered if the princess, in the silence of her prison, had wished she’d killed her brother too. Or had she accepted her fate, acknowledging a desperate need for punishment for the blood on her hands?
In the novel, she never had the chance to meet the new King after he discovered her crime.
Alistair found himself haunted by the what-ifs . If they had met, would she have tried to explain herself? Would he have even asked for her reasons, or did he already know the truth? Perhaps she didn't ask to speak to him because she believed he understood her motives but sent her away regardless. Or perhaps she simply felt he didn't deserve to know.
He massaged his temples, the weight of the novel’s ending pressing down on him. Was there more to the story than the reader had been allowed to see? He wondered if there was a hidden history in how the former King and Queen had treated the princess, a shadow of neglect or cruelty that had never reached the new king's — the young crown prince then— ears.
Or perhaps it was worse. Perhaps they’d had a darker plan for her future, a cage she was meant to occupy long before the prison at the end of the book.
He stared at the wall, thinking of his own parents. Had he been the golden child, blinded by his own privilege, while Elena was being sharpened into a weapon by their expectations? Or was her violent descriptions a response to a threat only she had been brave enough to face?
A throb of pain pulsed behind his eyes. He shouldn't have hesitated to drink that cup.
Checking his pocket watch, Alistair stood up and hid the book deep in a drawer, burying the princess’s secrets beneath his own clothes.
He didn’t need the brass-framed directory bolted to the bulkhead next to the phone; he had the numbers of this vessel memorized.
He dialed the cabin directly to his right. It was John’s room—placed there by Elena’s design. She understood the need for proximity better than anyone, ensuring that a safety net was always within arm’s reach for Alistair, even when she wasn't there to hold it herself.
A deep, hesitant voice answered on the third ring.
"Hello?"
"Get up. No more sleep," Alistair commanded, his voice tight. "Let’s have tea in the lounge."
He only received a noncommittal “Mmm” in response.
Alistair pressed harder, his patience thin. "Are you coming or not?"
"I am, I am," John muttered, sounding more awake now. "Give me five minutes. I’ll be there."
John leaned back in his armchair, eyes closed as the soft, rhythmic clinking of porcelain drifted toward him. Alistair, busy pouring the tea, made no move to wake him; he knew John wasn't truly asleep. The moment the cup touched his side of the table, John’s eyes flickered open. He reached for it, the warmth of the ceramic only feeding his lingering laziness.
"You’ve been dragging me around these past few days," John grumbled, blaming Alistair with a tired smirk. "And now you won’t even let me have a proper nap before the long night ahead." He took a slow sip and sank back into the upholstery.
Alistair looked at him with mock disgust. "You’re tired? What should I say— I’m dying? Did I pressure you into coming? You chose this. I could have come alone."
John sneered at the remark. He thought of how pointless the last several years of his life would have been had he not tagged along. Missing this "grand show" would have been a tragedy he couldn't afford. His breathing slowed as he mentally replayed the steps of the plan, searching for any overlooked variables or sudden outside changes, until Alistair spoke again, his words pulling John sharply out of his thoughts.
"Elena told me she’s already started her next book," Alistair said. "She said she has had plenty of inspiration. She even promised to let me read it. She said it won't be like the previous ones... she sounded so excited. Like she’s finally writing the book she always dreamt of, the ultimate masterpiece that blends all her ideas into one."
John straightened up instantly, the laziness vanishing. "Already writing? And she’s letting you read it? Did she mention anything about the plot?"
He waited, the silence heavy, as Alistair finished chewing a cookie. Alistair shook his head. "No. But she did mention that the activities she has planned for the rest of the week will provide even more inspiration. She specifically asked if I was still planning on leaving tomorrow.”
Alistair kept the rest of the remark to himself, the chilling way she had thanked him for proposing the sea trip. He had a dark inkling of what Elena meant by that gratitude.
The perfect, isolated, and inescapable stage had been set to host a grand play. Some guests will move about with a deep, misplaced self-confidence. Proud to be the main characters of their own stories.
None of them realized that the strings attached to their limbs were being held loosely by someone else.
Not controlling their every breath or every step; the person was far more patient. Instead, they held only the most crucial threads, waiting for the exact moment the plot demanded a fall, conducting an orchestra that didn't know it was being led.