Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Azurill
Irammed my fist into the closest wall, feeling my knuckles crack under the pressure.
I had known she was up to something. I couldn’t truly hold it against her when I’d suspected she was doing something for Carnelian.
But the confirmation was…
I had never been more conflicted, and as high king, that was saying something. The truth of her identity was both a shocking discovery and somehow completely unsurprising.
Lady Linnea Marit lived.
I had beaten myself up over the loss of House Marit for years.
A critical failure of our spy networks, of the protection we offered our lords, of justice itself.
Elros and Lulit were amazing, loyal Elves who deserved better.
Everyone in the household that was slaughtered that night did.
But I’d agonized over the loss of little Linnea most of all.
She was so young, and to die so brutally was an injustice that I could never reconcile.
It had lived like a shadow in my heart, one that had only begun to lift when I met her.
Not even knowing who she was, seeing the vision of what I’d expected the daughter of Pearl to be was enough to begin healing the long bleeding wound.
It filled me with joy to know that she lived, even as I despaired and raged at what she’d been forced into.
From having to see her family executed, twice over now, to living on the streets and having to turn to a life of crime, all the way to being manipulated by Carnelian into becoming his assassin.
And then there was the fact that I struggled with most now—knowing she’d planned to kill me the entire time. She’d flirted and teased while behind her smile, she plotted my destruction.
It stung badly. No, that was hardly descriptive enough to encompass what felt like a dagger to the heart. Our connection had been built over the length of the competition, but for half of that, she’d not just been playing a game; she’d actually planned to joyfully assassinate me.
It was enough to make my head spin. The two extreme revelations on such opposite ends of the spectrum that I swung from one to the other like someone had flicked an arrow to spin quickly around them.
I suppose the real question was, what did I do now?
I had to speak with everyone, but I first needed to get a handle on what I wanted before they tried to decide for me. I didn’t want them throwing her in the dungeon. So that was one thing I knew for sure. She had to continue in the competition, which was another.
I also knew we had to deal with Carnelian and his son.
If Jacin—Linnea, had desired vengeance for this long, and been willing to kill the fucking High King for it, then she deserved to take their lives herself.
But we needed to plan how to handle the downfall of House Rousseau, a nice bit of turnabout for what they did to House Marit.
I knew she had to be involved in all of it, but I wasn’t ready to see her yet, to speak with her…it was just too much.
And yet, when I thought of who I wanted to talk all this over with, my mind landed on her immediately. My heart ached for her still, despite all the lies revealed.
I’d known she was lying, I just hadn’t known the extent.
And who could truly blame her? She’d heard as a child that the High King was responsible for what happened to her family.
After seeing such gruesome tragedy in action and having a perfect target for that rage, it only made sense for her to protect herself.
Why would she have trusted me when she expected me to kill her the moment her truth was revealed?
It explained why she needed the potion, and I suppose I was grateful that our connection was enough to make her doubt what she thought she knew. That she couldn’t reconcile the truth of me with the image in her mind. It explained why the potion had affected her so powerfully.
Veritx, she relived her the night her entire family was murdered just to find out the truth.
That took extreme courage, the kind of courage a queen needed.
The kind that would put the good of others above their own preconceptions and search to find the truth, no matter the negative effects for themselves.
If I hadn’t wanted her to win this competition already then that might have cinched it alone. Though the last trial would be the one that truly determined the outcome. Or at least, that had been the plan.
Before her.
I had never expected to find someone like her here.
It was almost funny. She was pretending to be a lesser lady, when she was in fact a lady of a great house. She deserved to be Pearl Court’s competitor.
I nearly winced at the thought. Sania had been trying to up her game, but the more I fell for Jacinth, the harder it was to entertain her, or the others.
Frustration rolled through me like thunder. I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t know what to do.
And that was before I even considered that she’d seen what I’d done to those men who’d attacked her house. Shame still lived within me to this day for what I’d done. For failing House Marit and for the monstrous actions I took following it.
She’d seen me covered in blood and surrounded by the bodies of the men I’d just destroyed. She didn’t seem too disturbed by it, but she must have been. Balthazar was my best friend, a seasoned guard and warrior, and yet he’d been fucking terrified of me.
If—if I decided to move forward, well, she’d given me the truth of her, terrified as she’d clearly been to do it, so perhaps I owed her the truth of me in return.
If she knew the truth of me, the way I now knew hers, and we both somehow managed to accept one another…we could build a foundation stronger than the diamonds my throne was carved from. We could see Gemaria prosper for hundreds of years—together.
But could I trust her?
After all her lies?
When she had been planning to assassinate me?
I honestly didn’t know if we could move forward from that.
Maybe fighting her in the upcoming challenge would help illuminate the issue. Fighting her did hold a certain appeal; just the thought of her moving gracefully around the ring as our weapons clashed sent a thrill through me.
We’d already tested the ladies’ skill with magic; now we needed to test their martial prowess. For a queen needed to be able to protect herself, her king, her heirs, and her kingdom. And potions weren’t always available, nor the the raw gems we could use for broader, more wild magic.
That could be just the thing I needed to work all of this frustration out.