“You won’t,” he said simply. He lifted an arm up, and holding his palm out, he made the tarp above him lift up and strain against the bungee cords holding it down. It settled down, and he looked over at me. “Do that.”
“Can I take a break?” I asked, almost pleading with him. My brow had started to sweat, and stray curls were sticking to my temples.
“If you must.” He lowered his arm and folded it behind his head again. “If you’re really having a hard time with this, maybe you need to work up to it more. Tomorrow you can practice on Duncan again.”
“No, I don’t wanna practice on him.” I pulled my knee up to my chest and rested my cheek against it. “I don’t want to break him.”
“What about that Rhys?” Tove asked. “Can you practice on him?”
“No. He’s completely out of the question.” I picked at a spot on the marble floor and thought for a minute. “I don’t want to practice on people.”
“It’s the only way you’ll get good at it,” Tove said.
“I know, but…” I sighed. “Maybe I don’t want to be good at it. I mean, controlling it, yes, I want to be good at that. But I don’t want to be able to use mind control on anyone. Even bad people. It doesn’t feel right to me.”
“I understand that.” He sat up, crossing his legs underneath him as he turned to face me. “But learning to harness your power isn’t a bad thing.”
“I’m stronger than Duncan, right?”
“Yes, of course.” Tove nodded.
“Then why is Duncan guarding me?” I asked. “If I’m more powerful.”
“Because he’s more expendable,” Tove replied simply. I must’ve looked appalled, because Tove hurried to explain. “That’s the way the Queen sees it. The way Trylle society sees it. And … if I’m being really honest, I agree with them.”
“You can’t really believe that my life has more value simply because I’m a Princess?” I asked. “The trackers are living in squalor, and we expect them to die for us.”
“They’re not living in squalor, but you’re right. The system is totally messed up,” Tove said. “Trackers are born into a lifetime of debt simply because they’re born here, and not left somewhere out in the world collecting an inheritance. They are indentured servants, which is just a polite name for slaves. And that is not right at all.”
It wasn’t until Tove said it that I realized that’s exactly what it was. The trackers were little more than slaves. I felt sick.
“But you do need guards,” Tove went on. “Every leader in the free world has bodyguards of some kind. Even pop stars have them. It’s not a horrible thing.”
“Yes, but in the free world, the bodyguards are hired. They choose it,” I said. “They’re not forced.”
“You think Duncan was forced? Or Finn?” Tove asked. “They both volunteered for this. Everyone did. Protecting you is a great honor. Besides that, living in the palace is a sweet deal.”
“I don’t want anyone getting hurt over me,” I said and looked directly at him.
“Good.” His mouth curled up into a smirk. “Then learn to defend yourself. Move the tarp.”
I stood up, preparing to conquer the tarp once and for all, but a blaring siren interrupted everything.
“You hear that, right?” Tove asked, cocking his head at me.
“Yeah, of course!” I shouted to be heard over it.
“Making sure it wasn’t just me,” Tove said.
That made me wonder what it sounded like inside his head. I knew he heard things everybody else didn’t hear, but if that included things like blaring sirens, I understood why he always seemed so distracted.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Fire alarm, maybe?” Tove shrugged and stood up. “Let’s go check it out.”
I put my hands over my ears and followed him out of the ballroom. We’d barely made it out into the hallway when the alarm stopped blaring, but my ears kept ringing. We were in the south wing, where business was conducted, and a few of the Queen’s associates were out in the hall, looking around.
“Why is that blasted thing going off?” Elora shouted from the front hall. Her words echoed from inside my head too, and I hated how she did that mind-speak thing when she was angry.
I couldn’t hear the answer to her question, but there was definitely a commotion going on. Grunting, yelling, slamming, fighting. Something was going down in the rotunda. Tove kept walking without hesitation, so I picked up my pace.
“Where did you find him?” Elora asked, but this time I couldn’t hear her inside my head. But we were close enough to the front hall that she sounded quite loud.
“He was hanging around the perimeter,” Duncan said, and I hurried at the sound of his voice. I wasn’t sure what he’d gotten himself into, but it couldn’t be good. “He’d knocked out one of the guards when I saw him.”