Chapter 3
Chapter three
Iwouldn’t miss this throne room when I died.
In fact, if the afterlife was cruel to me, then my soul would be banished to a room just like it.
I hated how the dark-red carpets muffled my footsteps and made my presence unremarkable.
I hated the appearance of the obsidian walls that reflected the company I kept, and I even hated the smell of evergreen that seemed to linger in the room.
It was sharp and overpowering, like King Septimus planned to dominate even my sense of smell when I was forced to stand before him.
The doors closed behind me with the thud of a tomb being sealed. I looked down at the red carpets as I approached the throne, praying that my spilled blood would manage to leave a wicked stain on his finery.
The guards forced me to my knees before Septimus’s throne, and I finally dared to look up at the monster who reminded me far too much of the one who’d claimed to raise me.
He had the blackest eyes I’d ever known, rivaling the obsidian that framed the room.
He looked more like his elder sons than Cedric, but not even Lochlan could compare to the monster staring back at me.
“Well, today was enlightening,” King Septimus said in a sharp tone, already looking to make me wince.
“I learned a lot about you today.” He leaned back on his throne, and his relaxed state actually made me feel more unsettled than if he’d been more aggressive.
He planned to take his time tormenting me. “And I really hate surprises…”
Lochlan had told him, then. A lump formed in my throat, the girl behind the prince wanting to cry after trying so hard only to fall so fast. However, the prince in me still refused to cry, especially before a king who resembled the father who’d punished every one of my tears.
“It’s almost poetic,” the king continued, lazily tracing his fingers along the arms of his throne like he was doodling my face.
“I brought you into this castle as a trophy to award my sons and parade over your kingdom, but I thought you’d succeed in winning over my sons only by bowing to them and submitting to their commands.
Yet it’s been your defiance that drew their eye. ”
His finger stopped tracing, itching for something more solid to grasp as his eyes drifted toward my throat.
“Another surprise,” he clipped, the staccato note thick with venom. “I never imagined that my sons would fall for someone so unruly. It hardly seemed possible.”
He stood, his dark eyes haunting me as his shadow consumed me. I couldn’t even swallow, but I forbade my legs from shaking as I knelt as still as stone.
“Is it?” he asked in a bone-chilling tone. “Is what my son told me possible?”
Lochlan.
The carpet felt like it was on fire underneath me, but I was so cold.
I’d always feared this day would come, had even practiced for it in case I was ever brought before my own father with the truth.
King Septimus was hardly any different, but I hadn’t imagined his eyes or played his voice in my head.
I couldn’t beg him to spare his daughter, nor could I use my mother as a shield.
King Septimus had already thought me dead, and killing me twice would be the vengeance he’d never imagined he could relish.
“You should ask him.” I forced myself to speak, my tone quieter than I’d hoped but still audible. “Or do you really have so little faith in your own flesh and blood that you have to confirm his story with someone like me?”
I couldn’t admit it, not yet. He had to say it first. He had to confirm I was dead.
“Don’t speak so little of yourself,” King Septimus said, taking a step down from his elevated throne. “Not just anyone can best a prince like you just did.”
Sweat rolled down my back, and my lungs felt like someone was squeezing me. I had to control my emotions as he stalked closer, forcing air in and out of my lungs at an even pace just like Mother had taught me.
“Yet, somehow…you did,” the king growled, pausing a few feet away from me. “The kingdom sees you as a champion and my son as a fraud. But I know you’re no champion…you’re a cheat.”
What?
I raised my head, my panic eclipsed by confusion as I held a caught breath.
“A cheat?” I repeated, my voice breathy.
“Don’t deny it,” he snapped, his pent-up aggression finally bursting free. The sudden shift made me jump, but more because I wasn’t expecting this to be what set him off. “I know you couldn’t have won that fight on your own. At least not without the help of my sons.”
His sons? Had he heard the rumors of cheating that Mara and Beckham had mentioned?
“What—what did Lochlan tell you?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking, my heart barely holding it together as the impending fear prepared me to self-destruct before his torture could commence.
“Nothing I didn’t expect,” he scoffed, a vein bulging on his neck as his blood pressure seemed to rise. “He told me exactly what you wanted him to say. That his struggle in the battle was genuine and you won the fight fairly, but I don’t believe any of it.”
He said that? And nothing else?
Lochlan kept my secret.
“He had to have let you win,” the king continued, completely oblivious to the whiplash I was enduring.
“Lochlan spared you in battle, Atlas trained you in that same arena, and Cedric’s proposal sparked the flame of it all!
Your rebellion has infected my sons, turning each of them to your side one by one until they’ve all become fools! ”
His volume rose, reflecting off the walls and piercing my ears. I had expected him to be angry at Prince Damon, but he was only after Lady Diaspro.
“You’re upset because your sons like me?” I asked, testing the waters with a gentle inquiry. “I don’t understand. I thought that was what you wanted. For them to choose me and marry me.”
“I wanted you humiliated!” His voice boomed, rattling my skull. “Stuck to the side of one of my sons and flaunted like a boar’s head pinned to a wall! But this stunt has drawn the eyes of the entire kingdom, and now the captured Ivalonian is more favored than pitied. That is not what I wanted.”
I understood now. Actually, I was massively confused by a great deal of things, specifically Lochlan’s choice to conceal my true identity, but I did understand Septimus.
Marrying me to one of his sons wasn’t for political gain or for his son’s benefit—it was a juvenile way to spit on Leopold’s grave.
He wasn’t satisfied with Ivalon being buried; he wanted thistles to sprout from its place of rest. My victory over Lochlan had showcased too much strength, and though I didn’t think he’d admit it, he was threatened.
Does this mean I’m still dead?
“I see,” I said with a calm nod, his anger sliding right off me as I processed much worse fears. “If I’m too troublesome to marry your sons yet too favorable to be useful in your plans to deface my home, what uses do you have left for me?”
“I want nothing of you now,” he said, my eyes reflecting in his bloodthirsty gaze.
“You’re going to kill me?” It was easier to ask than I expected, but I had been preparing for the answer most days of my life. It would seem that dying by the hand of an angered king had always been my destiny.
“If only.” His answer caught me off guard, and I had to agree with him that surprises like this were brutal. “Killing you now would only make you a martyr to the leftovers of your kingdom. I won’t have you causing more trouble from beyond the grave.”
A martyr?
I thought back to all the Ivalonians who had caught my eye just on the walk to the throne room. There was hope in them that I’d never thought could return. Typically, hope was foolish in the hands of wrists that were tied, but in this case there was a guardian backing that hope.
What exactly had my victory sparked? And how much would my death fan the flames?
“Besides,” he continued, “killing you is too merciful for all the damage you’ve done; I plan to pick you apart bit by bit in front of the public’s eye. Until not even my smitten sons can deny that you’re worthless.”
A fate worse than death, then? Funny, I’d already been living one since the moment Damon died.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked, feeling foolishly bold.
He knit his brow when he heard the newfound strength in my voice, but for once, the threat of killing me was worse for him than for me.
“Something that will satisfy me,” he said with an eerie smile that smothered the shred of confidence I’d found. “You’ve proven that Leopold chose you for a reason—even I can admit that you’re an acceptable match for a royal—but that doesn’t mean you’re the best.”
He snapped his fingers, summoning one of the guards behind me to step forward. I expected him to hit me, or at the very least drag me to my feet; what I didn’t expect was for him to hand me a piece of paper.
“What’s this?” I asked, accepting the note from the guard. I looked up at the king, whose expectant smile burned into my nightmares. I scanned the note, finding that it was a list of names.
I recognized one of them, the Princess of Taynia, but the rest I didn’t know.
“That’s your competition,” the king said, pride beaming in his voice.
“I’ve already sent out the invitations. As I said, your talents are acceptable, but my kingdom deserves perfection.
Upon their arrival, you will be put to the test against the rest of my sons’ suitors.
A challenge that I look forward to seeing you fail.
The further your reputation falls, the less your death will impact the kingdoms.”
A competition to marry the princes?
This was the biggest insult he could have thrown. All of the work I’d done to prove I was worthy, only to make me do it again, this time against real princesses.
Except…I’m a real princess too.
“And what makes you think I’ll fail?” I asked, trying to convince myself that I was bred to be a princess despite being raised a prince.
Uninvited nerves tangled inside my chest the more I thought about it.
It wasn’t the kind of royal I was trained to be, but surely it couldn’t be much harder than what I’d already endured… right?
“Because I’ll be the one orchestrating every challenge,” the king said, his gloating tone doing little to settle my nerves.
I understood his confidence now. The list in my hand, the challenges in store, and the competition as a whole. It was all designed with me in mind. He was making a show of my downfall, and the grand finale would be when everyone celebrated my death.
“Prepare yourself, Lady Diaspro,” he said. “It’s time to see who’s truly fit to be a princess.”