“One night, the palace guards left their posts and threw open the gates, and an angry mob pulled the king and his family from their beds,” I say, almost to myself.
Noah and Megan stand beside me. Together, we ease a little closer to the fence.
“The king,” Megan says. “The queen. Two princes, and a baby girl who wasn’t even a month old yet. Five of them. They pulled them from their beds, and they killed them.” She points to a line of windows in the center of the palace. “That’s where they hung their bodies.”
For a second, I think about Alexei and the crowds that have taken over Embassy Row. What would it take for that mob to pull him from his bed? How easy would it be? But then I remember that there are some questions to which you never want to know the answer.
“And that, Gracie” — Noah leans against the barricade and eyes the palace — “was the start of the War of the Fortnight. Fourteen days that changed Adria forever.”
Fourteen days, I think. Noah seems amazed that change can happen so quickly, but I know better. It doesn’t even take that long. The whole world can change far faster. In the time it takes a thirteen-year-old girl to point and fire a gun.
Some people in the crowd carry torches, and the air is filled with smoke. Gaslight shines from sconces that adorn the palace’s fence. The light that surrounds us is the color of fire.
In the distance, I hear a child laugh. A mother yells. And I close my eyes, try to block out the din of chaos that fills the air. I want to run, to leave. I don’t know why, but I know I need to get away from these people before it is too late.
Frantically, I push away from the fence and am just starting to turn, to leave, when the trumpets sound. The sound is so foreign and ancient and regal that I stop. Then I remember where I am, standing outside an ancient palace, looking through the fence at history.
The crowd stands still. It’s like even the fire in the torches stops moving. Everything is absolutely quiet as the palace doors open.
That is when I notice the rich red carpet that runs from the doors to the gates. A few weeks ago, that was where I ran, clutching a ball gown in my hands, away from the Scarred Man and my mother’s memory. But tonight the people who exit through those doors are walking slowly toward the hordes that gather on the other side of the fence.
The king is in the center, the queen to his right. On his left stands the crown prince of Adria. And beside him his wife, Princess Ann.
The royal family keeps walking until they reach the fence, and then the most amazing thing happens. Slowly, the gates open wide until there is nothing between the crowds and the four royals who stand, almost at attention, as if daring history to repeat itself.
Two hundred years ago, someone threw open those gates and the people of Adria rushed in. But now the gates stand open and the royal family looks out.
I expect cheers from the crowd, applause of some kind. But the people outside the palace stay silent, as if imagining that centuries have not passed. As if they have traded places with their ancestors and are pondering this chance to do things differently.
But I know better. I know you never really get a second chance.
The king leads his family toward four black wreaths that sit on stands before them. They each pick up a wreath and carry it through the gates. Slowly, the royal family members raise their wreaths and place them in front of the palace, directly beneath the place where the king’s ancestors once hung for all to see.
Again, I expect applause, but there is no sound except the buzzing of the gaslight, the solemn breathing of the crowd.
It’s like all of Adria is waiting, watching as the king picks up a nearby torch and brings it to the wreath he’d carried. I can’t believe it as he lowers the flame to the wreath and lights it. In a flash, the fire spreads, and soon all four wreaths are ablaze.
I realize then there is a small path through the crowd. Barricades hold the people back, and soon I know why when the fire shoots away from the wreaths, chasing the darkness toward the wide grassy promenade where just last week the closing of the G-20 summit was held.
But now the grassy area is filled with the silent crowd that stands, watching, as the fire hurtles toward them from the palace, then leaps onto a massive tangle of timber and broken furniture, tree limbs and debris. In a second, it ignites. The fire shoots and spreads, spiraling up into the night.
Only then does the crowd applaud, the sound almost a roar as they stand in the orange-red glow of the spark that the king himself sent into their midst.
It’s supposed to symbolize something, I’m certain. But I’m not quite sure what. Maybe it’s a sign of peace. Maybe it’s a warning.
Like a rainbow, is this supposed to be a sign that the people will never destroy their king again? But I know better than anyone just how quickly the world we know can turn to flames.
“It will burn for fourteen days,” Megan says, but I only half hear her.