Chapter Text
I looked forward to lunch on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays as my two friends in Security, Zeetha and Violetta, had a shift that allowed them to have lunch at the same time as I do on those days. Violetta blinked when I took them to Vanamonde’s, the café Tarvek introduced me to.
Zeetha was only too pleased with a new place to eat at and the chance to catch up. “Soooo! I heard the Queen of the Diss was extra bitch-faced yesterday and today! Any idea why?”
“I might’ve had something to do with that…” After Violetta checked to see if anyone could overhear, I quickly told them about what I’d caught Zola doing. As I talked, I noticed both Zeetha and Violetta’s expressions change, going from outraged to uneasy. “Problem is, it looked like an accident,” I grumbled. “I didn’t want Tarvek to get into trouble because of Spiteful Sirenée. Why is she gunning for Tarvek anyway? That report looked really important and he might’ve gotten into serious trouble. Sure, he’s pretty hot, and I see why the girls at the office call him a Prince, but he doesn’t seem like her type, y’know? Too serious. Not like the boss’ son, Gilgamesh.” He’d been the focus of her attention long before I’d started working at the bank.
Zeetha leaned close. “I know why she’s mad at him. Sturmvoraus turned her down hard when Zola tried to come on to him a few weeks ago. Said he wouldn’t be used as a weapon against his best friend. I don’t know where she gets the idea my twin would go for her; he won’t date employees ever. Just too risky, y’know?”
Violetta looked grim. “Look… can we get out of here? Go to the park. I need to talk to you, if you can keep a secret.”
Zeetha and I followed her to a nice spot in one of the grassy areas. “So what’s got you all nervous suddenly?” I asked.
Zeetha sighed, and gestured for Violetta to begin. “Zeetha knows, because she’s Gil’s sister… but you don’t, since you only came to work for Wulfenbach National Bank recently, and it’s a secret. Tarvek is a Prince, and should have been ruling the mountain nation of Balan. He’s a distant cousin of mine, but we were together when… when we escaped. I’m supposed to be his bodyguard, you see.”
I felt my jaw dropping and stopped it from going any further. “They said that the royal family was killed, all of them - that the royal children were blown up in a car bomb when they were escaping.”
“That’s a cover story that Archduke Wulfenbach put out. There was a bomb hidden in the road, and an ambush. Anevka - Tarvek’s older sister - was the one worst hurt. Tarvek and I were able to drag her and Veilchen - that was Anevka’s bodyguard - out of the car before the RPGs took out the car and our escort. We only had handguns. Tarvek… he fought like someone possessed while Veilchen and I did our best to get Anevka bandaged up. Veilchen got shot while helping Tarvek fetch weapons from the dead. We were trapped in that border mountain pass for three days before Wulfenbach forces found us and rescued us. The whole time, Tarvek didn’t sleep, he didn’t dare . He tore up his shirt to make bandages for Anevka and me, and it was so very cold at night, but he gave me his jacket.”
Violetta’s eyes got bright with the tears that she refused to let fall. “They brought us to the Archduke, and Tarvek begged for political asylum and help for his sister - begged! I never thought he would, that he would die before he would beg anyone for help, he was so proud. But those three days and nights changed him - he knelt and begged. The Archduke granted his request, but Anevka’s been in a coma since and we don’t know why. Tarvek was put to work as part of his cover, at his best friend’s father’s bank, as a lowly clerk, and a few weeks afterward they gave me a job as a security guard there. I’ve had to pretend to not know him since then, but… I’ve kept tabs on him. Almost all of his salary goes to his sister’s life support and protection at the hospital - and he lives in a tiny shoebox studio apartment, because that’s all he would accept from Gil. He works insane amounts of overtime and worked his way up to the position he has now.”
Zeetha looked sadly at her hands. “Gil said he tried to wrangle for a better job because they both went to the same genius school in Paris, but Dad told him no, that too much pity is no kindness. That Tarvek, having lost everything, needed the chance to rebuild his life with own two hands, or he wouldn’t ever feel like he’d ever be whole again.” Zeetha clenched her fist. “We Wulfenbachs were lucky that our people refused to join the revolutionary fever that swept Europa six years ago, though those usurping influences tried . Uncle Anthonus was just too popular, and we Wulfenbachs are too closely knit with our people.” She took out her phone and showed me a picture. “This was on our sixteenth birthday - just two months before the Balan Uprising. That’s Anevka.”
Sixteen year old Gilgamesh and Tarvek, his hair cut short, had their arms around Zeetha, and there was a beautiful woman with the same red hair as Tarvek hugging Zeetha from behind, her large blue eyes bright with glee as she pressed her cheek against Zeetha’s. All of them had their champagne glasses raised in a toast, grinning, and there was a carefree light in Tarvek’s eyes that definitely made him look his age. They all looked exactly like young, rich nobility - dressed in elegant designer clothes and Zeetha and Anevka glittered with jewelry. I noticed a winged sword on a stylised sun-shaped brooch pinned to Tarvek’s necktie - the sigil of the royal House of Sturmvoraus. A thin, plain circlet of gold was partly hidden under the bangs that curled stylishly on his forehead.
Holy crap. He really is a Prince! I stared at the picture, and found my eyes switching back and forth between studying Tarvek and studying Anevka. She looked like she could cause mischief and play pranks - and then I noticed the two fingers she had held up behind Tarvek’s head along with the champagne.
Zeetha looked at me. “I’ll send you the picture, and a few others.”
Violetta grabbed my hands and squeezed desperately, her eyes wide. “You said Tarvek was smiling when you and he were having coffee?” When I nodded she burst into tears. “He… he hasn’t smiled since the day his father, Prince Aaron Wilhelm, ordered him to take his sister to safety and flee Balan,” she sobbed. “I thought he’d never smile again!” She scrubbed at her face with her sleeve. “Thank you for being kind to him! Tarvek… I thought he was gone, too broken to really live! But if he can smile now… maybe he’ll be okay again!”
I was distracted for the rest of the day by what I’d learned, trying to reconcile the man I’d met with the history Violetta had given me. Setting the fact he was hidden royalty aside, finding out Tarvek was a refugee displaced by war was no surprise. Plenty flooded the borders of the peaceful, steadily governed Grand Duchy of Wulfenbach over the last twenty years of war and revolution that ripped through Europa, and Balan had been one of the last to fall. My own history was much the same but I had been too young to remember it. My parents had been forthcoming about my being a war orphan, and had promised to tell me the whole story when I was old enough and if I wished to know. I had been lucky, I’d grown up safe; many had not. I remembered my sixteenth birthday and how I’d gotten the present I wanted and we’d gone camping.
I managed to avoid Zola again and thought about what I was going to do. I’d already wanted to see him again, but that wasn’t the same as deciding to do so.
Then I stepped out of the elevator and walked out to see Tarvek standing in the crowd, waiting for me. Saw the way his eyes brightened when he spotted me, the small, hesitant smile that curved his lips.
I knew now how precious that smile was, and at that moment all I could think of was how much more I wanted to see Tarvek smile, and that I wanted to protect it, and him.
So I made my choice and smiled back, greeted him as he turned and began walking next to me, just close enough that I could feel the warmth of his hand next to mine. It made my skin tingle, and as he spoke, I felt my heart beat faster.
“May I buy you a coffee, Agatha?”
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Tarvek Sturmvoraus for Vanamonde's <--- if pic fails to load, click here
