Three more days passed this way, slowly for me, a prisoner in my own castle. By the end of the first day, I had memorized every stone of the wall, every pattern on the wooden floor and beams on the ceiling. By the end of the second, I knew by heart the shape of every tree that covered the only mountain I could see from the window. By the third one, I had cut enough linen into bandages to last through a siege. I had also decided that my mother and I did not share the same taste in books. The ones she had brought me were impossibly boring.
The problem was, I had too much time to think, and my thoughts were not pleasant. Memories of the archers aiming their arrows of death, of bodies floating on the river, and of the sticky feeling of blood on my hands as I pushed Don Julián away kept coming back as soon as I let my guard down.
I felt trapped in this room, trapped like a deer held against the steep walls of a ridge at the end of a hunt, with the enemy king as my only company and he only half alive. I missed my freedom.
In the morning of the fourth day, just as I finished dressing his wound, Don Julián opened his eyes. For a moment he looked at me with a vacant stare that slowly became focused. “Princess Andrea,” he said, his voice clear.
I curtsied to him. “Your Majesty.”
Keeping my eyes on the floor, I moved to the table. Taking the cup with the medicine in my hands, I returned to his side and offered it to him.
Don Julián shook his head. “No, Princess. I don’t want to be drugged again.”
“But you have to drink this, Sire, so your wound doesn’t get infected.”
Don Julián frowned.
“The medicine is from the other world. It will protect you.”
He drank it then without arguing. Once he was finished, I took another cup. “This one is for the fever.”
Gently but firmly, Don Julián grabbed my arm. “I don’t have a fever.”
“You need to rest, Sire, and this will help you.”
“I have had enough rest, Princess. Let me be alive now, at least for a while.”
“But Mother said—”
“And you always do as your mother asks, don’t you, Princess?”
His voice was even, but there was laughter in his eyes and something else I could not read. Averting my face from his impish stare, I returned the untouched cup to the table.
“Have you really been there, Princess? In the other world?”
The other world. His words echoed in my mind, and I was back there again. Back in California, visiting the missions with Tío, riding with Kelsey in her red convertible . . . Been there?
“Yes, Sire. I have been there.”
Don Julián bent forward. “And is it—this other world—is it worth a kingdom?”
Again I nodded. “It is.”
Don Julián smiled and said nothing. Sitting against the pillows, he stared at me, his dark eyes probing mine. And because he said nothing, I smiled back and told him about the house by the beach and the white pale moon. I told him about bicycles and cars, about computers and TVs, and about candles that never burn out. And about the classes and the library and the basketball games.
I talked for a long time until I realized the earnestness in his eyes was not only excitement, but fever. Worried that when Mother came, she would realize I had disobeyed her orders, I gave him his medicine. Then I walked to the window so he wouldn’t see my pain as I remembered that for me, that world was closed forever because I had promised my mother I would never leave the castle if she helped Don Julián.
The following day, I taught Don Julián how to read the time on my watch while I answered his questions. His enthusiasm was so contagious, I found myself swept away with it. I forgot where I was and who he was, and I was happier than I had been in a long time. Until he asked, “Why did you come back, Princess?” and the spell was broken.
“It was an accident,” I whispered as I remembered the last day at the beach, the storm, the rain pouring over my head as John and I ran toward the arch, and the shimmering of the air as we crossed the door.
Don Julián was talking again. “Is the . . . accident in any way related to your coming to my camp on your own?”
“Maybe.”
“When I talked with you that day, Princess,” Don Julián continued, ignoring my discomfort, “you seemed to have a personal reason to stop the war, as if you felt somehow responsible for it. But why? It was Don Juan and not you who took my bride away—Oh, of course! Don Juan! Don Juan is from the other world, isn’t he, Princess?”
“Yes. I met John—Don Juan—in the other world. I brought him here by mistake. I was going to take him back. I just needed time for the door to open again. But you laughed at me. You . . . you didn’t want to listen. You just wanted an excuse to fight.”
Don Julián stared at me for a long time in silence. “I apologize, Princess,” he said at last. “I didn’t want to offend you, then or now. I just didn’t know . . .”
His eyes lost in the distance, he let the sentence trail off. When he spoke again, his voice was strained and hollow, and his words came in halting breaths as if he were forcing them out of a place they didn’t want to leave.
“Things are not simple, Princess, especially for a king. Preparing for war is very costly in both money and time. I wanted time to build the bridge, to design a dam. An alliance with your House seemed like the perfect solution. Besides, it is not true what I told you the first time we met. About not caring for your sister. The truth is, I really believed I loved Princess Rosa when I proposed to her. Your sister, Princess, is very beautiful and I . . . I had never been in love before.”
I considered his words. Who was I to judge him? What did I know about love? Hadn’t I cried my heart out only two weeks past when I had learned of John’s engagement to Rosa? And right now, I couldn’t even recall his face.
“Do you believe me, Princess?”
“Yes, Sire. I believe you.” But as I was saying it, I remembered how his eyes had shone with hate the day we had met by the river, and I could not keep myself from asking, “But if you wanted peace, why were you so intent on killing Don Alfonso and me when you met us by the river?”
“Because if you were ever to escape and tell Don Andrés about the bridge, my plan would have failed. I couldn’t let that happen, Princess. The future of my kingdom depended on it.”
“And you would have killed your own brother?”
“My brother is one. My people, many.”
I looked away.
“I’m not a monster, Princess. I do love my brother. But—”
“No, you don’t. If you did, you would have found another way to solve your differences. That day I saw hate in your eyes. You would have enjoyed killing Don Alfonso. Killing him with your own hands.”
Don Julián returned my stare, his eyes cold and hard like frozen rain, reflecting nothing. “You are right,” he said, and his voice was firm now. “That day I did hate my brother. I hope, Princess, that you will never understand why.”
Without a word, I turned my back on him and walked to the window. Shadows were crawling over the ramparts, and the mountains beyond were barely visible. Another day was coming to an end. Inside me something else was ending too. Something I couldn’t name. A chance at peace? We had come full circle, Don Julián and I. And now we were enemies again.
That night I dreamed of the battle again. This time Don Alfonso was the one bleeding in my arms, while Don Julián, his sword red with blood, was looming over us laughing. I woke up in a cold sweat, the images gone, but the laughter was still there. It was coming from Don Julián’s room.
Still half asleep, I left my bed. My bare feet silent on the naked boards, I rushed to the door and pulled it open. In the flickering light of the candles, I saw Margarida and Don Julián standing by the window. My sister was holding Don Julián by the waist, while his arm rested on her shoulders. They were laughing as she helped him to walk. Feeling like an intruder at a party to which I had not been invited, I closed the door and returned to my bed.