Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Azurill
The obstacle course was one of the more physically demanding tasks we had planned for the ladies over the course of the competition, but it would also tell me a lot about each of them.
I wanted to ensure it was done early on, so I could see what each of them could potentially bring to the role of queen.
Each obstacle within the challenge would reveal much, not only about their problem-solving capabilities and their physical endurance, but also their cunning and willpower. All qualities that would be needed in the role.
This trial had been a bit of a team effort, with the original idea coming from Balthazar initially before being expanded upon by Arianell.
They had first recommended this course as a way to test that the ladies were both intelligent and physically capable, but we’d adapted it to include challenges that would tell us much more.
I was quite fond of Emrys’s addition; he’d had the idea for the illusions.
If the ladies could face their fears and resist their desires to find the right way out, it would prove their fortitude and willpower to fight through base emotions and focus on finding the correct path forward.
That was essential when it came to ruling…and to me. I wanted more than anything to find someone who could be more than a piece of eye candy or a womb to breed heirs. I wanted a partner. Like my mother had been to my father.
When Faiza began running the course, I was curious to see if she would throw the whole thing right away.
I’d had to practically beg her to join this farce to begin with, since it required having someone from Diamond included.
Thankfully, however, she made a convincing show of trying, and I let out a sigh of relief as she made it through the obstacle course.
Though it was not without issues. We knew some would struggle mightily, had intended for it even, which is why we’d insisted on blindfolds so that none of the ladies could watch the others go through the course.
Faiza had gotten especially tripped up on the illusion tunnel.
She’d followed the illusions out of the wrong exit twice before she figured out that she needed to look past them, forcing her to have to redo the course from the beginning each time she got the wrong one.
I had no idea what fear or desire had led her in there, since we couldn’t see what illusions the ladies experienced.
We thought that was only fair since the magic was pulling out such deeply personal information.
We didn’t have the right to see their deepest fears or desires, nor did the crowd of thousands.
Faiza wasn’t a very active person in her day-to-day, so she’d struggled through much of the course. She did find a workaround for the tightrope, using her hands to swing through it like the bars on the prior obstacle, which also meant that she managed to avoid the swinging beams entirely.
But it was with the lion Ruri had masterfully created to guard the path to the rock wall that she’d surprised me the most. Faiza had always been the sweetest of the noble ladies at court, which is why I viewed her as something like a surrogate sister, and her actions today not only proved that but were also incredibly amusing.
She somehow managed to charm the lion, sitting down and letting it sniff her, getting it acclimated to her until she had its giant head in her lap.
When she had the fierce supposed protector as docile as a kitten, she merely waited for it to drift off and then snuck out from under it, crossing the rest of the platforms to the rock wall.
I knew from the start that Jacinth would be very different. I tried my hardest not to show any special interest in her, not as a potential spy or as a potential anything else. Yet somehow, my eagerness to see her run the course must have been more obvious than I’d thought.
“My cousin will prove herself most adept with this task, I assure you, Your Majesty.” Lord Carnelian announced boldly, smirking from where he sat a few chairs down.
“I suppose we’ll see,” I replied, giving him a nod and keeping my face as controlled as possible.
His smug superiority was grating, and I preferred to deal with him as little as possible.
On the other hand, Ruri’s suspicions were clearly at the forefront of his mind, making him more than willing to jump in.
“And what makes you so sure, my Lord?” Ruri asked, raising a dubious eyebrow at Carnelian as he leaned around me to face him.
“Jacinth is, as you’ve seen, quite lithe and agile,” he responded without hesitation, condescension dripping from every word. “I have no doubt she will manage the physical aspects with aplomb.”
“And what about the mental aspects?” Ruri pressed, staring him down. “What kind of mental fortitude have you instilled the girl with?”
I closed my eyes momentarily, wishing I could shake my brother.
He was doing everything he could to try to get information from the lords, testing their loyalties and looking for lies, all in the hopes of solving the mystery of our brother’s death.
While I wanted to know just as badly, I couldn’t help but be concerned about the way he was chasing this.
“Well, I unfortunately can’t take the credit.
” Carnelian sniffed, almost as if in distaste.
It certainly wouldn’t surprise me. “I had little to do with her until recently, since she wasn’t raised in my court.
But her cunning is without question, despite the lack of influence I’ve had over the girl. It must be something in the blood.”
Ruri snorted softly, shaking his head in disbelief as he turned to me, raising a brow. Carnelian’s deflection was expected, but his wording took me aback. While Ruri may doubt the truth of it, I knew Carnelian better than that.
The man preferred his lies to be told with nothing but the honest truth. He’d twist and turn his words until the meaning was unclear, sure enough, but he rarely outright lied.
This could be one of those rare times, but it could also be the absolute truth that he had ignored the girl until she was useful to him in some way. Say when the High King needed a lady from Ruby to compete to be his wife.
Lady Jacinth had been something different from the first moment I saw her. Every interaction with her left me more intrigued by her, needing to find out more about her. I couldn’t tell whether it was from suspicion or attraction half the time, which was definitely concerning.
As king, I needed to maintain control over my desires as well as my actions, but…especially after the picnic, when I got to spend some one-on-one time with her for longer than the span of a single dance, I found myself lost on what I was feeling or what to do about it.
Watching Jacinth as her blindfold was removed, allowing her to take in the obstacle course set before her, I could see the fire scorching through her eyes as they narrowed.
Her body straightened as she set her shoulders back, bouncing on the balls of her feet, preparing to take the course on with a determination I’d rarely seen in other ladies at court.
I was anxious to see how she would do. There were some ladies that I knew would have a terribly difficult time, Zumra and Safira coming to mind immediately, and I was already amused imagining them taking it on.
Some I wasn’t sure about, as I didn’t know Sania, Amatista, Allirea, or Ophira well enough to guess, but I was positive that Jacinth would demolish this trial.
Thinking of Sania, remorse grew in my heart.
Looking from her to Jacinth, it was too easy to imagine Jacinth as someone else.
Sania wouldn’t be the daughter of Pearl standing here today; instead, Lady Linnea herself would be here to represent Pearl Court.
Her vivid pink hair and eyes would have been so similar to Jacinth’s.
It was on me that she wasn’t alive today, and that was something I had to live with forever.
It was never easy when children got caught up in the political games played in court, but little Linnea’s death had always weighed on me the most. Perhaps it was her father’s fondly amused comments to me about her wish to marry me one day, or the brutality dealt out on a child who never should have gotten in the middle of that mess—either way, her blood stained my hands and refused to wash off.
Watching Jacinth now, her long mane of candy-pink hair braided back behind her head as she ran forward, I pushed all thoughts of the past away, focusing instead on the future.
Watching Jacinth contort her body over the bars and balance across the rope, I was wholly impressed.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that a dancer had such skill, since she’d shown off her flexibility and agility quite clearly during her routine, but this was on another level.
While I’d never admit Carnelian was right, she showed her cunning plainly as she found a way to work around the water attempting to drag her down or the beams trying to knock her off.
She didn’t even take one of the false exits the illusions would try to lead her to, meaning she was able to master herself when it came to fear and desire without much hardship.
A remarkable feat, surely, but as she approached the lion, I found myself leaning forward, intensely curious as to how she would handle the challenge.
I could practically see her mind spinning as she looked over the platforms she had to navigate, like she was mapping out the best course to take in her mind.
When the lion appeared, my eyes eagerly awaited her reaction, and the narrow-eyed glare she sent me made me want to smirk back at her, but the eyes on me from everyone nearby kept me from letting my lips do more than twitch.
I was thankful Ruri thought of this just for her reaction alone.
Something about the way she had no hesitation in challenging me was thrilling.
It was so rare that anyone dared these days.
It had been years since I’d had interactions with anyone outside my friends and family that felt so normal.
Even the ladies I took to bed treated me as the king, not as a man.
With Jacinth, things were very different. I found myself wanting to earn the pleasure of her smile or the disapproval of her upturned nose. Every reaction had me wanting to push for the next.
It was ridiculous, and Ruri would certainly kill me if he found out. Only his avid desire to avoid kingship might save me.
Jacinth tried to run quickly around the lion, but that had no hope of working, and once she seemed to realize that she…
turned and ran in the opposite direction she needed to be going, leaving both the lion and me utterly confused.
Mutters rose around me as the nobles in the box continued their incessant chatter about every little thing that happened.
“What is that foolish girl doing?” I heard Carnelian mutter to himself, a scowl firmly set on his face.
I leaned further forward, trying hopelessly to get a better view of her.
I watched as the perplexed lion looked back toward the wall, then huffed and sat down, which is when Jacinth turned her head to look back with a smirk.
She somehow spun on her feet faster than I’d ever seen, and raced back toward the wall.
She jumped from platform to platform more swiftly than I’d thought she was capable of.
And the lion hadn’t noticed what she was doing at all. My breath caught as I realized the beast had assumed she’d given up—and thus let its guard down. It was only as Jacinth sped past him that he finally realized what had happened.
The crowd roared just as the beast did. Its ground-shaking anger was nearly silenced by the people standing up and cheering as Jacinth raced forward, outpacing the lion now running swiftly after her. My hands curled around the bar in front of me as my heart picked up speed in tandem with her.
Jacinth’s head whipped backward to check on the lion, and seeing it was beginning to catch up, she faced forward once more, flat out sprinting across the platforms now.
She neared the last one she needed to cross, but the lion was gaining on her, so close that when he swiped out a huge paw, her braid flew with the wind generated by the motion—
Until she pushed off her feet and sailed upwards in the air and over the chasm, clearing the last platform and landing nimbly, now standing before the wall she’d needed to reach.
My hands relaxed their tight grip as the crowd went wild, the lion dissipating into thin air with its role fulfilled for now.
I sat back in my seat, a small smile on my face as I looked forward to watching her complete this last challenge, which we would get to see at least. Almost as much as I looked forward to her comments about this later.
Only Ruri’s watchful eyes kept me from truly feeling relief at that moment.