The night was long and restless for Luke. Every time the glass door slid open, he would lift his head from whichever furniture he last leaned his head on to ask how Rhiane was doing. Every time he did, the nurses reassured him that the princess elect was responding well to the medications. The earphones and the movie did little to help him get better rest that at one point he just turned it off and forced his mind to shut down. But dawn came too soon, the prince was roused gently by a shy nurse and then a call from the queen.

The call was about a brief meeting over breakfast that the prince eagerly attended not because he wanted to be rid of his sick fiancee, but because in a few hours he would be leaving the capital without resolving the breach of security in their home. It meant leaving his sister as vulnerable as Rhiane was the day before. The thought didn’t sit well with him much more their overprotective mother. The queen wanted to double the bodyguards of her children, but Luke argued that it also doubled the chance that a rebellion sympathizer had access to one of her children. One thing Luke agreed, though, was to increase the bodyguards of Rhiane from just Tobias to something at par in number with his escorts. 

The head of Technology and Forensic IT came in when the prince was half done with his meal. The gentleman was not privy of the complete story behind the incident, but he might have had a clue. It was the prince consort who broke the details down to his cousin. They continued discussing about the options they had to be able to flush out the rebels among them. Most of which included an increased interaction between the suspects and their external contacts. 

Then again, Luke had to leave if he didn’t want to become the cause of delay of their itinerary. His mother insisted that he go and assured that he would be updated with every development of the investigation. On its initial phase, a special taskforce will be formed from the Tech & IT. Every member will be handpicked for their family background, competency, and the Houses they belonged in. The assumption was that the closer the tie that the queen had to the House, the more loyal its members were. Meanwhile, he was to personally look after the farmer without her knowing it – from her diet restrictions to preventing any sharp object from ever touching her skin.

The following days were filled with activities involving a lot of fake smiles and the media. Ms. Viscomi and her team were geniuses in planning PR activities for the crown. They orchestrated subtle, but meaningful nods to the efforts that the reigning monarch was doing for the betterment of the lives of the citizens. It aligned itself with the apparent acceptance of a low-born farmer into the royal line. As if her presence gave hope to the marginalized population that finally their voice would be heard. 

But if they knew what was going on behind his royal highness’ polite smile, they would think otherwise. If he could, the brown-haired gentleman would turn on his heels and fly back to the capital. He could be more useful elsewhere. Meeting with the head of the palace security was more important than holding his betrothed’s hand in front of the cameras. It was not to say that he did failed to fulfill his duties while they were hopping from city to city day in and day out. Luke was following a strict schedule, and none of his meetings was cancelled, except on instances like when he was asked to address the artisans or the young professionals. If the princess elect had more airtime than the prince, it was because the latter would sometimes excuse himself to attend a conference call. The queen permitted the arrangement only because it was a necessary evil. The only good thing it caused the couple was an improved allowable radius of up to 200 meters. 

Luke juggled his duties between staying pleasant in front of the camera and being stern when it came to his subjects. On the third day of their tour, after he had finished talking to the queen’s economic advisors, two of his bodyguards escorted him to a classroom teeming with cameras. The sea that was called media parted for the future king. And as he stood at the doorway, he was surprised to find the farmer sitting in the midst of curious stares of children absorbed in the way she brought the story to life. He could only imagine how the young creative minds were picturing the world that she painted with her words. Instead of walking up to her per the polite suggestion of one of the organizers, he leaned against the doorframe and watched her animated face in action. She did it on her own. Luke was the freeloader in that PR stunt. She achieved the public image that his mother so desired on her own, without taking notes from him. It was the better course of action, he thought, because none of the members of his family would admit to be an expert in blending in with the society that was not in the same class as they were. 

The day ended with the two of them retiring to a penthouse in the city’s most luxurious hotel. It was nothing like Luke’s private residence, but it was comfortable enough. They had dinner, and just like the nights before that one, Rhiane fell asleep on the couch while watching the news. Luke was on his computer, as always, talking to her about the local currency, when he looked up and noticed the person he was talking to had fallen asleep in the middle of the discussion. By that time, he was used to her odd sleeping behavior. Given that he was a light sleeper, he envied how the farmer could doze off seemingly anywhere she laid her back on. Smiling to himself, the prince left the charts on his screen and picked her up carefully. He did tell her that she should stop making him carry her to bed. 

“Good night, princess.” Luke carefully deposited the woman to the bed. On their first night, it was Tobias who found the woman sitting on a dining chair with her head resting on the pillow of her arms on the table. It was this occurrence that helped the prince to negotiate with the queen to increase the radius of the leash to a hundred meters after the daily itinerary. He was still bound to the princess elect, but he could do work and attend conference calls without disturbing her. 

Suddenly there was a knock at the suite’s door. After a pause, Nolan popped his head in, searching the living area. “Your highness?” Luke had just closed the bedroom door by then. “You have a visitor,” the older man declared.

The door swung wider as Nolan stepped aside to let the visitor enter. “Don’t ask how I know your room number,” Sophia’s smile was knowing. “Well, it is kind of obvious, to be honest. Hello Luke.”

He was expecting her, but not in the room he shared with his fiancee. They agreed to meet somewhere else, agreed that Luke would give the go signal after he made excuses believable enough for the queen to release him from his prison long enough to meet with her. Of course, she had no idea about the predicament that was inhibiting the prince to freely see her. He looked over his shoulder at the door he just shut, then back at the face he had longed to see those past days. “Have you had anything for dinner?” he asked. 

And just like that, the report he was reviewing on his computer was forgotten. The night became his and hers, a stolen moment under the bloodshot moon, perhaps something that he would later regret. They made up for the time that they were apart, not fearing that the morning might bring consequences that was out of their hands. But the morning did not find the woman in the prince’s suite. She left hours before dawn, just as the credits on the movie they watched rolled up the screen. 

“Luke, I’m flying for the United States with Alec,” she confessed before leaving. When he asked when, she just smiled and kissed him. A tear rolled down her cheek. Then another. Luke was speechless. There was nothing that he could promise to the actress that could reassure her enough to stay. He could not promise that he would be with her, because it was physically impossible. In the end, he had to let her go holding on to her word that she would return in a few months – maybe. 

[hr]

Two hours was all he had left before the retinue would arrive and force the couple to be presentable for the day. It was for a long-distance travel or about an hour flight to the kick-off point where they would be traveling on wheels up the mountain ranges to a much colder reaches of the kingdom. Luke had never been there, because it was a logistics nightmare to bring a royal to such a place.
 
When it was time to leave, the prince demanded to pilot the aircraft. He loved flying and claimed that it calmed him whenever he was coasting above the clouds. The night of his engagement, he flew an unmanned drone around the castle through a remote virtual cockpit to take his mind off the unavoidable event in his life. Once they reached the prescribed altitude and was stable above the clouds, Luke hit the auto-pilot button and excused himself from the co-pilot.

“Rhiane.” He was wearing aviator sunglasses, which he took off as he approached her. She was not allowed to sit beside him and play the co-pilot during the take-off for safety purposes. But once they were at the mercy of the flying machine, he asked her, “Would you like to see the view?” He had to take his mind off Sophia. In the past, someone else worthy of his attention would cure his pathetic lovesick heart. Maybe it would work again for him only until the charade was over. Besides, she was performing well when she was happy.

The sun was just rising above the clouds, not too harsh for the eyes, but still bright enough to hurt. It cast a golden orange glow just that stretched over the horizon, over the fluffy bed of pristine clouds. The color blended with the blue that stretched overhead.