Chapter Two: Doppelganger

Aya Ronin gave another full minute of sniffling and whimpering as Prince Carnen hauled her up into the carriage. Those gauntletted fingers had been digging into her upper arms in controlling vice since the minute his men had dragged her into the duke’s study, and she wanted most solidly to snap some snide rebuke of this fair-faced savage’s manners. The true Lady Charlotte would not have been nearly composed enough to speak with such authority at a time like this however. The true sheltered seventeen year old still burst into tears at the sight of dead animals and needed someone to hold and comfort her during thunder storms. She was still afraid of the dark for pity’s sake, and as much as Aya loved her and was used to fussing over the girl, it had still irritated her to no end that Duke Marseir so coddled and enabled his daughter to remain such a timid weakling.

Charlotte was beautiful and intelligent though, an expert botanist and lover of literature, and she did not need to be strong. That’s what Aya was here for. Charlotte could idle away her days perusing the library, tending her gardens and sipping her tea, and Aya would see to all the dirty duplicitous work. She was Charlotte’s companion, her maid, and her deadly assassin doppelganger, there to defend her if ever there was an attempt by one of the duke’s rivals at kidnapping or ransom.

Aya had been picked out from the orphanage at four years old precisely because she had such a close resemblance to little Lady Charlotte. Both had the same big brown eyes and honey colored hair, and Aya trained and did her work in special gloves, so she would keep the supple uncalloused skin of a lady. The resemblance between the two girls never faded as they grew, but it became purely superficial, for Aya was made into Charlotte’s polar opposite in every other respect. Charlotte was schooled in etiquette, and Aya was schooled that every rule of etiquette was an important game of pretend so that your target would allow you close enough to drive a knife into their heart. Charlotte learned needlepoint, and Aya learned how to hide poisoned needles in her hem lines and hair. Charlotte learned to play the mandolin, and… Aya loved to play the mandolin actually. It was her favorite pastime to relax, but she could also use that dense wooden instrument to bludgeon a man to death, and she would do so without hesitating if the duke but commanded it.

This night was the test she had been preparing for her entire life, as the enemy leader hauled her up into his carriage and remained completely blind to the arsenal of little blades and poisons hidden in her costume of night-shift and sleep-mussed hair. The fool sat down right beside her and draped an arm around her shoulder. “Do not cry, dearest,” he cooed, brushing aside her perfectly pretended crocodile tears. “You’re going to be queen of a country, wed to the most handsome man you have surely ever laid eyes on,” The bastard really was an egomaniac. “and if you serve me well, my wife, then I will only hurt you in ways you will enjoy.”

Curse this filth. It would be such a simple thing to kill him now, but the time had not come for that yet. She had to hold to her master’s plan and play her role until the opportunity came to carry out her mission.

Duke Marseir had known the barbarian king would need to unite his house with that of the royal line. The duke was the youngest brother of King Frances Marseir, the man Yuri Gristhm had cut down in cold blood the day he stormed the capital with his hordes this past spring. The Gristhms were from a country where the strongest simply took the land they wanted. Yuri was the younger brother, he wanted his own throne, so he simply sailed south with his sons until he found rich lands of previously forbidden territory for his people.

Yuri’s family had not been idiotic enough to send raiders to these lands for a hundred years of course, for the very key reason that the United Nations of Serkos were an allied protectorate of powerful militaries. You could not attack one of them without attacking all of them. Aya’s country of Stalis however, did not have much of a navy. They had relied on the east continent’s arsenal of ships to defend them in times past, but Arakesh and Viccerion had been off waging resource wars of their own when Yuri Gristhm had launched his sudden most brutal invasion. Stalis troops had been far too used to peace these hundred years, and before the royal family knew it there were barbarian hordes right inside the gates of the capital, King Frances and most of his brothers were dead, and Yuri declared Stalis fully conquered.

Duke Etienne Marseir, last son of the royal line, would never stand for that of course. This nation’s entire army was still very much alive after all. Duke Marseir stationed them in careful defense around his country estate, sent word to their allies overseas, and began plotting the immediate removal of the foreign invaders from his beautiful seaside capital.

Marseir’s methods had never been outright attack however. His sister in law, Queen Clara, was still a captive in Yuri’s stolen palace, and Marseir refused to sacrifice her life. He offered peace instead, and sent a marriage proposal off to Yuri Gristhm, claiming he could secure him his seat if he but promised one of his sons to wed his daughter, Lady Charlotte. He would send in Aya in Charlotte’s place of course, and she would see the entire family of invading royals dead.

The only hiccup to that most brilliant scheme had been Yuri’s shocking refusal of that initial offer. He burned their missive, sent his troops to attack Marseir, and forced a marriage to Queen Clara that was most certainly not willing on her part.

Marseir gave his surrender once his fields were torched. This entire country was going to starve if the barbarian hordes kept up that arson of their farms, so Marseir ordered his men to stand down. He swore his allegiance to the Gristhm clan, but he told Aya firmly that it was only a matter of time before Gristhm came to his senses and sent men to their manor to abduct his only daughter as bride to the prince. It was the only thing that would give them real legitimacy after all, and sure enough, only two weeks later, with the capital rioting and incoming ships being reported off the eastern coast, here was Prince Carnen barging into their home with the proposal of peace.

That man’s version of diplomacy was utterly repulsive of course. Aya had expected to walk solemnly downstairs after the summons of her ‘father’ and accept her engagement with ladylike decorum. Instead, Carnen had sent some brute to break down the door of Charlotte’s rooms and literally carry her downstairs. The barbarians needed desperately to portray this as a show of power on their part, not a caving to Marseir’s wishes, and so they blustered and intimidated, and now that bastard was leaned right up in her face with his thumb stroking her lips. At least he had taken off his gauntlets. Still, it was hard to refrain from stabbing him.

“You are a pretty thing,” Carnen attempted a compliment. “Even with those puffy red eyes. To take what you want, the instant you want it, is the creed of my people. So what do you want right now, dearest?” His other hand slid down around her back. “You of course, do not have the power to just take. Still, I’m not opposed to you begging for it.”

To hell with Marseir’s plan. If this brute moved any farther with this out of wedlock seduction, she’d drive her needle into his jugular.

A knock came from the front of the cab before she was forced to resort to that however. The carriage had already ground to a halt, miles from their destination still. Carnen pulled back from his captive bride and turned to the driver with eyebrow arched in exasperated question. “I presume you are seconds from telling me why exactly we’ve stopped?”

“Blockade on the road, your highness. They have those new weapons.”

Carnen peered out the metal shuttered window and gave a heavy sigh. “Grand. Well, dearest, looks like you’re back to being hostage for a bit.”

“What do you..?”

He drew his dagger and shoved open the carriage door, hauling her out with him onto the road. They landed in a spray of mud, and Aya did not need to fake her flinch. It was twelve degrees and pouring rain. Good news for the capital, still visibly smoking in the distance. But decidedly awful news for the skinny eighteen year old clothed in nothing but a night-shift being hauled by her fiance right toward an armored blockade.

He still had that bared blade in his hand, and Aya knew she should be tearing up and stuttering out questions as Charlotte would have done, but she found her patience for that game rapidly evaporating, because she could already see what Carnen was up to. He was going to get himself killed, long before the intended time.