Chapter Thirty-One #2
“I’ve known him the longest, so I get to decide!
” Delilah insisted, tugging on Angelica’s arm until she sat back down on the cot.
Then Delilah whirled around to face me, eyes wide and pleading.
“Go ahead, Trey. Tell us what happened.” Before I could even begin, she launched into her own theories.
“It was all an act, right? You realized the evil mage mistook you for his son and played along so you could stay free and rescue us? And that’s why you’re here now! ”
I could have grasped the lifeline she tossed me, used it to pull myself out of the mire of betrayal and back into their good graces.
But if they were going to succeed, they needed the full truth.
“He didn’t make a mistake. My real name is Treasure Arnulf.
” When Wilde had revealed me to them, the geas had broken, so it no longer twisted my words.
Speaking my real name aloud for the first time in twelve years left my tongue parched and clammy.
It took a few seconds for me to continue my confession.
“My real father is the Lord of Grimnight. He sent me to infiltrate the Bane royal family as the first step toward conquering the Desolated Lands.”
With each word, the eager smile slipped from Delilah’s face. “But you’re my cousin! I’ve known you for years! We played together! You helped me down from trees!”
“I’m sorry, Delilah,” I whispered.
“Do you think that pathetic apology is enough to satisfy anyone?” Angelica demanded.
She wrapped her arm around Delilah in a comforting hug and glared at me.
Realization dawned in her eyes, quickly transforming into righteous fury.
“Wait, that means you aren’t even a prince!
All those times you acted as our equal, and you’re just a peasant playing dress up! ”
I rolled my eyes in exasperation. “Is that really the part you want to focus on, Angelica?”
She stuck her nose in the air. “You will address me as ‘Your Highness’ or not at all.”
“How did the Lord of Grimnight even know the truth about the Desolated Lands?” Fitz asked, forcing the conversation back on track.
“My mother was born there,” I explained.
“But she was kicked out when she dabbled with the wrong kind of magic.” At least, that was the story the old man had told me.
Any memories I had of her were so faded I barely remembered what she looked like.
Just an impression of red hair and sharp eyes.
“After she left, my father spent years obsessively seeking a way to remove the Kingdom Defense Spell.”
Delilah gasped. “To find your mother?”
If it was that easy, I might have understood his motives. But he wasn’t after love, or even revenge on the woman who had abandoned us. “No. He’s an evil mage, Delilah. All he wants is power.”
“What about Wilde?” It was the first time Maximus had spoken. His sunshine smile had darkened into storm clouds, his voice a rough rumble as he continued, “Was Wilde using you for power?”
“Wilde is … he’s not an evil mage yet,” I hedged. “He’s only an apprentice.” But every time I’d asked him what he wanted, he’d said ‘everything’, so I guess that included power. How different was he really from the old man?
Maximus snorted and crossed his arms, but he didn’t probe any further.
“Explain your part in this plot,” Fitz said.
“I could see beyond the illusion of the Desolated Lands.”
Fitz’s brow furrowed. “How? Our lands are supposed to be hidden from all evil. That’s the whole point of the spell.”
“People aren’t inherently evil. They have to commit evil acts before the spell activates.” Frustration leaked into my explanation. I knew he’d react this way—painting the story in black and white while I was trying to show him the grays.
“Are you claiming that lying about your identity, impersonating a prince, all with the intention to one day betray the people who cared for you, wasn’t evil?”
I flinched at his damnably accurate summary. “I was a child.”
“You’re an adult now.” Even though he was practically blind, Fitz glared daggers at me. “The fact you followed through with this plan proves you are evil!”
“No! I’m not—I had no other choice!”
“There’s always another choice,” Angelica snapped.
“You chose to follow in your father’s footsteps.
To betray the people who raised you. To lead us into danger!
To put every citizen of our kingdoms at risk!
You made the selfish choice, Trey, either because you were too afraid to stand up for yourself or because you wanted to benefit from the Lord of Grimnight’s power! ”
“I made the only choice that would protect everyone!” My shouted words echoed off the walls, drowning out whatever other accusations they would hurl at me.
“I had twelve years to learn that normal fathers don’t send their children on missions!
To realize that he’d sent me here to hurt good people who had done nothing to deserve his hate other than have what he wanted!
To think about exactly what it would mean if he won!
And I couldn’t fix any of it because I am not Brendon Banes’ son! ”
Maximus put the pieces together first. “Bane doesn’t have any children to represent them for the Kingdom Defense Spell.”
All my angry energy drained out of me. I ran a hand through my hair and looked down at the damp floor. Maybe now they would finally understand. “The spell was doomed to fail from the beginning.”
“No, Bane was doomed from the beginning,” Angelica said. “The rest of our kingdoms would have been fine if you hadn’t interfered. We could have simply cut Bane out of the deal, allowed them to fend for themselves.”
Everyone turned their stunned stares on her. It was nice to not be the only one on the receiving end of hostility.
“What?” she demanded. “We’re all here for the sake of our own kingdoms.”
Fitz threw his hands up in exasperation. “We’re only here because our kingdoms agreed to work together! That’s the whole point of the spell—that we are stronger when we’re united.”
“Don’t spout cliché’s at me. I can be a united front all on my own.” Then she gasped and glared at me. “This is your plan, isn’t it? To pit us against each other? You’ve been turning everyone against me from the start!”
“Actually, that isn’t the plan, you’re just a bitch,” I said, deadpan.
She reached for another pillow, but Delilah wrestled her arm down.
“What is the plan?” Maximus asked, his voice calm and quiet.
I took a deep breath, trying to emulate his calm as I continued explaining. “I had to make sure your quest failed. The moment the spell falls, the Lord of Grimnight will swoop in and conquer the five kingdoms.”
“What’s he going to do with us?” Delilah whispered. “Is he going to kill us?”
“No!” The word tore from my throat and I stepped toward her. I needed her to understand that despite everything I’d done, I wouldn’t hurt her. “He promised not to hurt you. You’ll just be … hostages. To ensure your families cooperate.”
“Oh, that’s such a relief,” Angelica said. “We get to watch how our failure leads to our kingdom’s demise. Isn’t that generous of you.”
“If you’re alive—if the future rulers of the five kingdoms are alive—you can take them back one day,” I explained.
“Wait.” Fitz held up a hand. “You want us to rise up and defeat your father?”
“The truth is, the Lord of Grimnight is a shitty evil mage. He didn’t even have a title when I left home, just a few half-baked plots and several unhealthy obsessions.
He never thinks anything through—if he did, he wouldn’t have sent his only son on a years-long mission to live with loving foster parents in a land of prosperity.
He wants to conquer the Desolated Lands, but rule them?
He doesn’t know where to fucking start. Laws, taxes, all the day-to-day aspects of power would confuse anyone who hasn’t studied them for years.
Ruling one kingdom is hard, let alone five!
I give him a year before he gets overwhelmed and decides to leave the real work to shadow rulers while he plays king. ”
I looked at all four of them in turn, waiting for them to realize what I had years ago.
Everyone looked confused, even Maximus, who usually connected the dots the fastest. Sighing, I asked, “Who do you think would make the best shadow rulers? Someone who is already familiar with all the laws and operations of their kingdoms?”
After a hesitant pause, Delilah pointed to herself and guessed, “Us?”
“You expect us to fail the quest and just … bide our time until he gets bored and reinstates us as rulers?” Fitz asked.
I nodded, happy he finally understood.
“That’s the stupidest fucking plan I’ve ever heard.”
Alright, so understanding didn’t exactly come with agreement. “Since Bane didn’t have an heir, the spell was always going to fail—”
“Debatable,” Angelica muttered.
“Some villain, probably one a lot more capable than the Lord of Grimnight, would take advantage of the failed spell to attack the kingdoms. Someone who wouldn’t want any old royalty sticking around.
” I took a deep breath and looked Delilah in the eye for the next part, “Someone who would kill my family.”
“You said I wasn’t your family,” she whispered.
“I said that to sell the act. You’ve been my family since the first day you pounced on me and shoved me into the dirt.”
She wiped tears from her eyes. “You’re a jerk.”
“I know.”
Angelica scoffed. “Don’t forgive him just because he pulled the ‘found family’ card!”
“I’m not!” Delilah insisted. “But it seems like he had good intentions.”
“Good intentions? Tell that to everyone who’s going to suffer under an evil mage’s rule! What happens when people resist? The mage will kill them or ruin them some other way. I won’t allow someone to conquer my kingdom, temporarily or not!”
I stared at Angelica for a long moment before asking, “Do you really want to fight him?”
She grabbed the cell bars and leaned in close to hiss, “I would rather die fighting him than remain a helpless prisoner in his cell.”
Angelica had talked about choices. The whole time, I’d been trying to choose their next steps for them.
They’d be safer as hostages, somewhere I could keep an eye on them to ensure the old man treated them properly.
But I’d be forcing them to watch their kingdoms fall, with only a vague dream of taking them back in the future.
I pulled something out of my pocket, fiddling with the little metal tools. I had no idea how to use them, so I passed them through the bars to their owner.
Maximus’ brow furrowed in confusion as he took them. “My lockpicks?”
“I stole them when you were distracted so that the guards couldn’t confiscate them.”
“What are you doing now—” Angelica’s words cut off as a small pink pouch hit her in the face. It fell to the ground at her feet. She snatched it up, so angry that she didn’t even look at it before hurling it back toward me.
It smacked against my chest hard enough to make me grunt, but I caught it before it hit the floor again. “You’re supposed to take it, stupid,” I said, chucking it back at her.
This time, Delilah snatched it out of the air. She examined it for a moment, confirming that it was Angelica’s bottomless pouch, then passed it to her.
“Everything’s still in there,” I explained. “Your clothes, Fitz’s books, the potions.”
“Oh!” Fitz waved his arm through the bars. “I put a spare pair of glasses in there!”
Moving stiffly, as if she expected to find it lined with teeth, Angelica searched through the pouch. She pulled out a small glasses case and passed them to Delilah, who passed them to me, and I passed them to Fitz.
He practically ripped the case open in his eagerness to see again. Once the glasses were perched on his nose, his eyes relaxed and he sighed in relief. Then he immediately squinted at me in suspicion. “Why are you helping us now? You went to some lengths to ensure we’d be captured.”
The lock clicked and the first cell door opened. Maximus stepped out and crouched in front of the girls’ cell to work on the second lock.
“Because you deserve a chance to fight back,” I said. “Go home, warn your parents, prepare everyone for when the Kingdom Defense Spell falls.”
Maximus popped the lock on the cell in record time, then dove out of the way as Delilah thrust the cell door open. She pounced on me, her full weight dragging me to the floor in a half-hug, half-attack.
A fluff of hair got in my mouth, and I spit it out in annoyance. I tried to carefully roll her off me, but her weight pinned me down. She looked at me with huge, sad brown eyes, then whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for? I’m the one who—” I yelped in surprise as two pairs of hands grabbed each of my ankles and yanked me backwards. The wet floor soaked through my clothes and made them stick to my skin. As I was dragged, Delilah leapt off me and grabbed the cell door.
Maximus and Angelica dumped me at the far wall of the cell and raced toward the small opening. I barely had time to push myself up on my elbows before the door clanged shut. “What are you doing?”
“What we planned from the beginning.” Probably for the first time in her life, Angelica raised a middle finger at me. “You’re just taking the place of the guard.”
“You don’t need to lock me up,” I said, struggling to maintain calm as my heart raced. “I was already helping you.”
“We don’t need your pathetic version of help,” she snarled.
“And you won’t want to help us,” Fitz replied, “since it will mean defeating your father.”
I scrambled to my feet and grabbed the bars. “What do you plan to do?”
Fitz tilted his chin up and proclaimed, “We’re going to break the curse on the Grimnight Forest and renew the defense spell.”
“Bane won’t be included,” Maximus said, his eyes downcast, “but everyone else will be safe.” His jaw clenched with determination. “We’ll erase the evil from this place.”
What did he mean ‘erase?’ My father may be incompetent, but he still had a lair full of minions who would fight back. And Wilde was sleeping upstairs. If they fought him, someone would get hurt: Wilde, or one of them. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t let that happen. “Wait!”
None of them looked back at me—not even Delilah—as they ran straight toward the fight I’d tried to save them from.