"Why do you hate me so much?"

Did she hate him? It certainly sounded like it, from the way she talked to him. But she had no reason to, really. Felipe hadn't done anything to make her hate him.

"I don't hate you," she concluded, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on top. Her voice had lost its vitriol now, and she was just left with horrible sadness. "You just remind me of the awful parts of being here. That we spent time together because my mother up and left. That you're already living a future that I'm bound to. And there's nothing I can do but shout at it."

"Do you not want to be queen?"

"I want to," she said immediately. It was the one thing in this entire ordeal that she was sure of. She was bound to that legacy, regardless, and Nina knew she wanted to have the job when it was time. "It's just that I may not be the queen they're expecting. I'm certainly not Aunt Delia."

"No, you're not," Felipe agreed with a little chortle, and her head turned sharply at him with a seething glare just before he backtracked. "In a good way, of course."

"How could you possibly know that?" She snorted, shaking her head. "I'm a flight risk, I dress inappropriately, and I'm ten scandals waiting to happen. I threw up on a vintage Chanel dress just the other night. I'm a PR nightmare."

"You came back to own up to all of it," he said, resting the back of his head on his hands, which he'd clasped at the nape of his neck. "That's more than what other people would have done."

Nina wondered how much of her 'transgressions' Felipe was actually aware of. Had he heard of her affair with the TV star in Los Angeles? Had he seen the half-naked photos of her that he'd leaked online after? Did he judge her for it? Did she really care if he did or didn't?

"People think that bamboo trees are weak," he said apropos to nothing. "They bend and sway at every gust of wind. But bamboo poles are actually pretty strong in tensile and compressive strength, which is why people still use them to build bridges and small structures. Bamboo plants are strong because of their roots. They lay them deep and strong, so when typhoon season comes along, they can handle a little wind speed."

Nina's face was blank.

"Are you saying I'm a bamboo tree?"

"No." He chuckled. "You're definitely not a bamboo tree. You're Saturnina Inez Mercado, the Crown Princess of Cincamarre. I think you're going to be really good for this place. Your father certainly thought so."

It was the most encouragement she'd heard from anyone and so far, had been the only words that brought her comfort. Nina sighed and stretched her legs forward.

"Now that's how you greet a Crown Princess." She grinned at him. "Come on. Time to face the music."

She stood up, brushing stray bits of grass away from the back of her dress as she put on her shoes.

"My ankle still hurts." He complained, but held up his arm to her anyway.

"Come on Your Serene Highness, take it like a queen." She joked, hoisting his arm over her shoulder so they could walk back.

"There's a group of people gathering at the pyre," he said thoughtfully as they reached the palace doors. "I saw them when we came close. It almost looked like a party. Flowers lining the street, people doing what they do when people die—"

"Drink and play card games?" Nina smiled at him. Funerals and wakes in Cincamarre were huge, loud affairs. People had to hang around, entertain mourners, whittle away time with food, drink, and games. They were the perfect time to tell stories of the person who died, to share any possible memory you had of them while they were no longer there.

"They're coming together," Felipe corrected her. "And if you don't find comfort in an assembly line of ass kissers..."

"A line that includes you, if I recall."

"Maybe you can find it with your people," he finished.

Nina looked up and spied the palace garage just a few ways away from where they had stopped. She wondered if her dad's favorite car, a Mercedes Benz convertible in flashy, cherry red, was still there. He taught her how to drive a stick shift in that car, letting her maneuver the stick shift as he handled the rest. When Nina started driving the sports car herself, her father was always close by, reminding her when to ease off on the clutch, when to shift gears.

Nina's eyes actually brimmed with tears when she saw the car in the driveway. The car looked exactly the same, waiting for her like her father always had. She leaned into the car and honked the horn, and the sound made her miss her father so much that she actually choked a sob.

"Your Highness," a voice said, and both she and Felipe turned to find her father's driver Albert in the garage doorway. He took off his hat and gave her a deep bow. "My condolences. Your father..."

"It's alright, Manong," Nina had called him manong all her life, she wasn't going to change it now.

"He would have wanted you to have the Mercedes," he decided, making a beeline for the room where the keys to every car in the palace were kept. Then he placed the key in Nina's hand, the two of them exchanging sad smiles as she squeezed his hand in gratitude.

"Thank you," She said before she and Felipe got in. As the garage doors slowly opened, Nina grinned at the bobblehead dog that she'd given her father for his last birthday. She tapped the dog's head lightly, making it nod along to the sounds of Nina revving the engine on their way to the party.

***

"You okay?" Felipe asked as she drove them both back to the palace a couple of hours later.

Driving through the curvy, narrow roads of Cincamarre had obviously cleared Nina's head, and he could see it in the way she started to smile, how she let her thick, black hair whip away from her face. Her big, brown eyes were sharp as she focused on the winding drive up to Palasyo Pacita. Her face was lovelier than he had remembered growing up.

Heads of State generally didn't drop everything and travel to neighboring countries when their monarchs died. It certainly hadn't been on his agenda, but he knew he had to come to Cincamarre for the funeral, because to him, the neighboring country still felt like a second home. A place where he wasn't needed or demanded anything of.

"I had no idea how much they all loved him," Nina observed, as she turned a particularly sharp corner on the road, making him wince as his ankle protested. "I mean, I knew they respected him, but to love him this much? It's wonderful and sad."

Felipe pointed out that Nina had given more comfort than she sought when they went out to the funeral party together. The people all came to her with the sincerest condolences, the most loving smiles.

A man, a father holding a baby on his hip came up to them and told the story of how he'd lost his home and his wife during a typhoon, how King Sergio came to their town and talked to the local officers how to go about the repairs, how he'd given them hope. The man broke down in tears, and she didn't resist the urge to wrap her arms around them.

It was a beautiful sight, seeing her interact with the people. She had been right. She wasn't going to be the queen they expected her to be. But in her, Felipe could see that there was more to Saturnina Mercado than being shouty and bossy.

"Thank you," she said in a tiny voice as they pulled up to the palace garage.

"That's a change." He chuckled, turning just in time to see her smiling too. "But grief shared is grief halved," he said lamely as one of the house staff came in with a wheelchair for him to ease himself into. Manong Albert at the garage must have noted that he was limping and called for the chair.

"When did you become so smart, Spaceman?" She waved the fussing staff away as she grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and pushed it herself.

The nickname made him laugh. Nina used to call him that when they were kids, particularly when she was cross with him.

"I was always smart." He joked, and warmth filled his chest when she laughed again.

When she hopped into his car that morning, her grief had surprised him. He was overcome with the urge to give her comfort, but unsure of what level was appropriate for the situation. He'd been wondering if he'd been enough, if he'd helped.

"And . . . Spaceman?" He asked.

"Yes." She nodded empathically. "Like the Little Prince, all alone on his planet. What was it called?"

The mention of the children's book struck a chord with Felipe, only because he was the one who introduced it to her.

It was on his first visit to the neighboring kingdom, and his mother, the Crown Princess, had encouraged him to bring along one item as a gift for the princess of Cincamarre. Something they could bond over. Felipe chose Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella, his favorite as a kid. He could still remember handing the copy to Saturnina with reverence and excitement, only to see her chubby cheeks drop with disappointment when she saw the book.

"Asteroid B612," he told her.

"Of course, it was." She smiled. "And Cincamarre is B613."

"Side by side but never meeting?" He raised an eyebrow. "It should be A612. So they float next to each other, together."

As a guest, Felipe knew he was only supposed to observe, and keep a polite distance from his hostess. That was how he was raised. But Nina wasn't exactly his hostess, was she? Maybe he could even call her a friend.

"My condolences," he managed to say.

"Thank you," she replied in a small voice as they made their way to the portico.

The houses in Cincamarre were built with brick or stone, painted white when appropriate. As the islands were conquered by the Spanish in the 1500s, the palace had a sprawling villa feel to it, with bright magenta bougainvillea cascading down from the second floor.

Felipe spent a lot of time as a kid measuring the growth of those flowers, noting their flowering cycles and colors and trying to ignore Nina as she puffed up her chest and stated random (sometimes, he later learned, completely untrue) facts about every corner of the palace.

"Your Highness," a gruff voice said as a group of men in sharp, black suits blocked the entryway to Palasyo Pacita. Felipe didn't miss the scowl on Nina's face when she saw them. He looked at the pin on the men's collars, and realized that they all bore the crest of Chawa, Aunt Delia's lands. The men must be part of the regents' guard. "The regent would like to see you in the portico."

"I believe I asked for privacy, and His Serene Highness needs a medic," Nina said, maneuvering the wheelchair to the side, only to have her path blocked by a guard. "Excuse me."

"Your Highness, please," he continued. "We don't want to cause trouble."

"Gentlemen," Nina sighed, "You have not even begun to see trouble."