6. Not-So-Righteous Retribution
6. NOT-SO-RIGHTEOUS RETRIBUTION
~ RUSH ~
Even though West had planted the suggestion of a new suspect in Saturn’s murder hastily, the illusion held. It might have been because the queen wasn’t seeking to discredit this new potential, rather she embraced it with her signature ruthless ferocity. She more than made up for her initial faltering stumble in her grieving-mother act with the zeal with which she later hunted this supposed killer.
The day following West’s suggestion had tangibly pulsated with her courtiers’ fear. It cloyed thickly to the air like the scent of blood, tangy and unmistakable.
No member of the nobility was allowed to depart from the palace without her explicit permission; we all knew that. It was yet another way she kept a chokehold over all of us.
Immediately after a tense luncheon during which the queen glared at all of us from the head of an endless table, she called her entire court to the throne room. As was usual lately, the king was absent, taking even his meals now in his private chambers.
There were a few hundred of us, and yet she commanded each of us to walk before her, one by one, while she examined us for signs of suspicion.
Her “suspicion,” it turned out, aligned conveniently with her current level of annoyance toward any given aristos. She singled out several minor scales and scalesses, a pair of lords and ladies, whose only crime seemed to be their constant wheedling and pandering. They all wanted something from the queen, and she only concerned herself with what she wanted.
She’d studied the viscount and viscountess of Encarantos the longest, her face carefully composed into a balanced mixture of grief and disapproval. The viscount and viscountess were Eliana’s parents, and though she was one of the women lined up to compete in the Nuptialis Probatio, the queen had made them stand before her until a small wet patch bloomed across the groin area of the man’s britches as if he were doing everything he could to keep from fully loosing his bladder. She’d finally dismissed them all with a grunt of disgust that didn’t reveal whether or not she was finished with her implied accusations.
She’d asked them all only a single question: “Did you kill the great Prince Saturn, my dear beloved son?” Beyond that, she hadn’t interrogated them, nor had she ordered anyone else to do it—though both Ivar and Braque had looked plenty eager to grill them for answers, perhaps literally.
Court life and its attendant duties usually began late in the day with an extended meal that took place in the early afternoon to accommodate the all-night revelry the queen so openly encouraged. But today, a long-legged, gangly fae, who appeared as agile as if he were graced with wings, panted as he slid to a stop beside the training ring beyond the gardens where Hiroshi, Ryder, West, and I sparred during the morning hours. Since I’d sent my mate into the Wilds, I’d needed an outlet to release my frustration, torment, and endless worries— Would I ever see her again? Had she fully healed? Had I sent enough fae to keep her safe in the savagery that was the Sorumbra?
My muscles were sore from all the additional time wielding blades, but I was grateful for it. Beyond the need for the distraction, I had to remain strong and sharp. The queen was more dangerous than ever.
“Yes, what is it?” Ryder asked of the messenger, sweeping his pale hair from where it stuck to his face.
Before the man could even answer, Hiroshi slipped his sword in its sheath and reached for his shirt, which hung over the wooden railing of the ring.
“Her Majesty the Queen Talisa Zafira Tatiana of Embermere demands your immediate presence.”
“Why?” West asked, also pulling his shirt over his head. There’d be no time to wash up or change out of our sweaty clothing.
The messenger breathed more deeply, intentionally slowing down the marked rise and fall of his chest. “I wasn’t instructed to say. Just...” His gaze darted to either side of them, as if the queen herself might appear to scold him for any deviation from her orders. “Just hurry.”
“There’s no one listening here, man,” I said as I climbed the fence to stand next to him. “Tell us what’s going on so we don’t head in unprepared.”
Again, the messenger glanced around us, but this time he nodded. “Yeah, all right.” His brows rose. “You sure no one can hear us?”
“Fully,” West answered, though I wouldn’t have been able to share that level of assurance, not after Elowyn could actually see eyeballs and ears floating around that we couldn’t.
The messenger blew out a long exhale and ran a slim forearm across his forehead, as sweaty as ours. “After yesterday in the throne room, Lord Yorgen and Lady Idra of Magiarantos tried to run for it in the middle of the night.”
They’d been a married pair the queen had singled out.
“Oh no,” Hiroshi said.
The messenger pursed his lips and nodded. “Yep. It didn’t end well for them. You’ll see for yourselves in the throne room. And if you value your own heads, I’d recommend you run there. She didn’t expect anyone to be this far away from their rooms. The nobles were supposed to still be sleeping.”
Ryder palmed the slender man on the back. “Thanks, man. We owe you one.”
“Anytime,” he answered, but surely only partially meant it.
Around here, it was every man for himself.
And then the man was off, sprinting back in the direction of the palace.
My friends and I delayed just long enough to exchange a loaded look. Whatever we’d be walking in on, it’d be as dangerous as any battlefield. We took off too, following the messenger.
It was the fastest route to the queen.
When my fellow drakes and I entered the throne room, we were nearly the last to arrive. The nobles present had obviously taken shortcuts in their haste. Gone were the towering hairdos and vividly painted faces. The Dowager Countess Dayana wore a bodice and skirt of unbleached linen so plain they were likely intended as undergarments beneath one of her usual fancy dresses. And the Dowager Countess Jolanda appeared to be wearing a satin and lace nightdress, her vibrant copper hair quickly woven into a single braid along her back.
I could easily guess at the frantic debate they’d all endured: should they hurry and appear as they were lest their delay enrage the queen, or should they take the time to dress with the decorum she required in her court and risk ... enraging the queen?
I met stares with my second cousin, Tula, on the other side of the large room, as the guys and I filed behind a row of others. Her hair was a frizzy halo around her head, indicating she’d slept in the unkempt braid that hung against her back, but her eyes were surprisingly determined despite her otherwise matching frazzled appearance. They seemed to say, You have to do something about her. She can’t be allowed to continue with her tyrannical rule.
Or perhaps those were just my thoughts ... and that was before my attention skimmed past the hundreds of standing nobles to the unfortunate Yorgen and Idra—or the parts of them the queen chose to display anyhow.
Once more, just as when I’d been forced to stab Elowyn in this very room, only one throne sat atop the dais at the front. The queen alone had taken the usual time to prepare herself before coming. In a dress of brilliant, scarlet velvet, with a neckline that plunged to her waist, revealing stretches of smooth, pale skin, the queen sat tall and rigid.
Angry .
Her fingers gripped the armrests of her throne until her knuckles whitened, making the matching scarlet of her nails seem all the brighter. Her lips were a crimson so deep and rich she’d opted not to wear jewels of any sort beyond a delicate white-gold crown. Her long dark hair, straight, shiny, and loose, served to further accentuate the milkiness of her skin and the red that was surely intended to remind everyone so much of blood—and how the queen dealt in it.
At her feet rested the heads of the husband and wife.
Yorgen’s and Idra’s final moments were preserved on their faces. Their eyes were wide and pleading, their mouths open in silent screams. Their skin was already taking on a waxy, bluish tinge.
The lord and lady of Magiarantos couldn’t get any deader.
And yet, whenever their heads had been delivered to the queen, they’d been fresh enough for blood to drip from their severed necks and run down the steps of the dais to pool on the floor in incongruous, pretty, shiny puddles.
The hair atop their heads stood up in obvious handholds, where her guards had likely carried them back by their manes.
It was impossible to live at the palace for any length of time and not be aware of her cruelty, and yet, even after almost four years here, I still couldn’t help the shock that rippled through me. It was what she wanted: to stun and terrorize us all until there’d be no one left to oppose her.
That reminder alone led me to steel my resolve—without any outward sign. No, I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of witnessing the effect she still had on me after all this time.
“You,” she began, her abrupt accusation startling me despite my resolve, “have betrayed me.”
A stunted whimper and a soft cry rose from somewhere in the crowd, but I didn’t search for their source. I didn’t move a muscle that might draw her attention.
It seemed to be the plan of everyone there. My brothers had perhaps never stood so still. Beyond those frightened, hushed outbursts, there was no rustling, no murmurs, no coughs or throat clearings.
We scarcely breathed.
“The”—she sneered—“ lady and lord of Magiarantos believed they could leave my court without the requisite approval, that their will was their own.”
Her stare swept the crowd, somehow seeming to bore into every one of us at once. “No!” she boomed, and even I jerked. The woman to my left jumped and squeaked, then immediately bit her lip to keep from crying out. Her fingers shook, and the woman on the other side of her gripped them in silent support. I didn’t look to recognize their faces.
“Those aren’t the rules!” she bellowed. Ivar and Braque stood to either side of her, their approval etched across the hard lines of their faces.
A line of her royal guards, standing behind the field of their scrutiny, allowed themselves to appear as frightened as the rest of us. They defended the queen, yes, but she ordered them to.
Only Braque and Ivar seemed to choose her. Not even the king would have, he’d made that much apparent to any of us who dared note his behavior.
“No one leaves unless I say so,” the queen continued, more softly now and yet, somehow, even more menacingly. “And no one runs away from me in the middle of the night when I suspect they murdered my son .”
Her upper lip curled in disgusted derision, then she spat on their heads. Her spit glistened along their hair, catching the sunlight that streamed in through the many large windows that lined one side of the room—the very wall Elowyn had leaned against when I’d had to make the most difficult and frightening decision of my life, the one that would forever haunt me.
“I declare this woman and man guilty of the worst crime conceivable, of the murder of the crown prince of Embermere. For the murder of my son, and for the promising future they stole from him and this very kingdom, I condemn them to the death that has already been served, and to the immediate death of every descendant of their bloodline. I strip them of all of their belongings. The titles of viscountess and viscount of Magiarantos, and all their holdings, will be absorbed by the crown until such time as I decide to dispose of them.”
The free hand of the woman beside me shook violently. Still without even looking to see if I already knew who she was— likely—and whether she was one of the many unbearable pests that buzzed around court, seeking any advantage, I clasped her fingers in mine. She squeezed my hand hard.
“Bring out the descendants,” the queen commanded, and royal guards, several ashen-faced, delivered three women and one man to stand beside the heads of who I presumed were their parents. The ages were right; they appeared to be in their early twenties, though with faekind and our long lives and slow aging, I couldn’t be certain.
The guards stepped back, the rows of nobles also sliding backward to make room for them, and one of the women, the youngest, turned to run away. A guard caught her easily and held her in place beside her siblings.
“Do you know why you’re here?” the queen asked them.
The girl who’d run shook her head violently. Her hair, loose from sleep, scattered jerkily. Her thin nightgown and bare feet indicated they’d been dragged from their beds from their family home somewhere beyond the palace.
The young man dipped his head. “No, Your Majesty.” His reply was a wave of sadness so intense I could feel it mingle with my own. His downturned stare was pinned on the severed heads of his parents.
“Your parents betrayed me. Betrayed the crown of Embermere. There is no greater sin. They killed my son, the very prince of this great kingdom.”
None of the children responded other than for a truncated whine.
“Well?” the queen snapped. “What do you have to say to that?”
The young women glanced at their brother. He cleared his throat and ventured, “That, uh, Your Majesty, doesn’t sound like something they’d do. I don’t believe they’d kill the prince or otherwise harm the royals of Embermere.”
“Only they did!” she thundered, and the woman beside me gripped my fingers so tightly my bones creaked. “They ran from me instead of pleading their innocence. They’re as guilty as any of you.”
“U-us, Your Majesty?” another of the sisters asked.
“You!” she snapped. “Your parents’ crime is so heinous, so vicious, that their bloodline cannot be allowed to taint the mirror world.”
As their faces were all pointed toward the queen, I couldn’t make out their expressions, but I imagined their dread was the same as that which swept the queen’s audience, only magnified a thousandfold.
The sister who’d tried to escape cried openly, dropping her face into her hands.
“Guard,” the queen snarled, and the one who held her clasped her arms behind her back and yanked on her hair to keep her head pointed at the queen.
On my other side, I grazed Hiroshi’s hand with my own and leaned my head ever so subtly toward him. My mouth already poised to perform whispered ventriloquism, he beat me to it by saying, “We can’t let her do this.”
It was my thought exactly. Only … how could we stop her? If we stood up to her now, all the years of sacrifices, killing Elowyn in a twisted attempt to save her, all that would be for nothing. The kingdom would remain under her control, its darkness growing stronger and more awful, until nothing good at all would be left of Embermere, and the rest of the mirror world would soon also crumble.
It was the same quandary Finnian had found himself in when the queen had accused Sandor. Was the life of one—more or less—innocent man worth that of so many thousands who’d be saved if our plot against the queen was successful?
Regardless, I squeezed Hiroshi’s hand in quiet agreement. No matter what—no matter that Elowyn, Ramana, and hundreds of others had already died for the cause—we couldn’t stand by and watch her murder four innocents. Already, it seemed likely she’d murdered their parents fully aware they weren’t guilty of the crime she pinned on them.
Knowing Hiroshi, he’d signaled his and my readiness to West and Ryder down the line. Whatever we were about to do, we’d do it together.
But how could we spare the four condemned and also the kingdom and its endless future of descendants?
“Drake Rush Vega of Amarantos,” the queen’s cold, hideously seductive voice called out, slicing into my gut like a dagger. “As the one likely to be the next crowned prince, I cede to you the remaining honor of avenging the death of your predecessor.”
The woman next to me obviously realized who I was, as she snatched her hand out of mine. My feet, however, seemed fused to the floorboards beneath my boots.
Hiroshi flicked the back of my hand sharply, and then my legs were moving, squeezing between the noblemen and women who parted to make way for me, shifting a little farther than necessary, as if unwilling to even be spotted standing next to me.
“To the essences of Yorgen and Idra and all their descendants, may your memories erase from existence, and may your essences bypass the Etherlands and burn in the Igneuslands for all eternity.”
Before I’d decided what to do, I discovered myself bowing to the queen. More guards pushed the four to be executed to their knees and held them in place. Two of the three young women wept; the third glared venomously at the queen. The man stared blindly at the vacant heads of their dead parents.
“Draw your sword, Rush.” Her command vibrated with what sounded like righteous retribution but couldn’t be.
Without a single idea of what I might do—when the only person I wanted to kill right then was her—of how I might find the kind of loophole I had with Elowyn, I drew my blade.
Its soft ring echoed through my ears as my heart raced.
By dragonfire, what the fuck am I supposed to do?
I needed the kind of miracle Elowyn had called on in the arena when the dragon head posing as a footstool had zoomed to her aid.
But since living at the queen’s court, I’d stopped believing in miracles.
“As you die,” the queen was telling the devastated descendants, “know it’s your traitorous parents’ cowardly actions that have delivered your death. I am merely the hand of justice.”
My heart was beating so fast I was growing lightheaded and clammy, and still I had no plan. My grip was sweaty around the hilt of my sword.
“You may begin, Rush,” the queen announced, having the gall to sound magnanimous, as if she were truly bestowing some grand fucking honor on me.
All I could picture myself doing was spinning to plunge my blade straight into that gaping, plunging neckline.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” she snapped.
Help , I plead to nothing and no one in particular. This can’t be happening .
I’d already lost a sister and mortally wounded my mate. I’d done everything this horrid woman had ever demanded of me. I couldn’t live with any more regrets.
I spun .