Chapter 76
Seventy-six
Edwin
I’d had the king’s office fumigated—James insisted upon this—then the room next door reorganized so our secretarial staff could share the same space.
It took some creative arranging of desks to fit everyone in, but we managed it just fine.
The king’s office didn’t have enough room for many people, so I arranged it so my desk was right next to James’s and we kept a waiting area for the runners off to the side.
They had their own work to do aside from running messages.
The palace insisted their runners be literate, so they had homework to manage between jobs.
Though it didn’t feel like it, today was technically our first official day at work, and I was quite pleased to have things ready to go.
James and I were due a honeymoon at the beginning of fall.
We’d put it off for a while since there was too much going on to even think of taking a break from work.
Right now, I wanted to get my feet wet with my new duties.
Our quickie in the closet hadn’t worked out all of James’s wiggles from the many, many meetings and ceremonies we’d suffered through last week, so he was training before joining me in the office.
I was quite happy to let him go beat up training equipment.
I’d enjoy a nice, quiet cup of tea and deal with some of the backlog of—
Ruffy, one of my favorite runners, burst through the door, wide eyed and very short of breath. “Princess Helena was almost abducted!”
I nearly knocked my tea over in my haste to leave my chair. “Almost?”
“Lord Glass brought her straight here for protection. She’s retreated to her rooms and said come quick smart.”
“Get Commander Harland,” I ordered, already rushing for the door.
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
I did something I rarely ever did. I ran in the hallways, straight down two flights of stairs and out into the eastern wing, where Helena’s rooms were located.
She hadn’t used them much in the past month, having switched her focus and time to her new job, which meant a new house to cut down on the commute.
If Lucien had brought her straight here, then this had been very bad indeed, and he wanted palace security around her.
I called James via my ring as I ran. “James. James!”
He sounded a touch out of breath as he answered. “Emergency?”
“Helena was almost abducted. Lucien’s brought her here to her rooms.”
He sucked in a breath, startled, and started swearing. “Is she all right?”
“I assume so, as she ordered us to meet in her rooms, but I don’t know any details.”
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
Alarmed didn’t begin to describe my emotional state.
Helena was not only my sister-in-law but my friend, and of course I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her.
If she was in her room and not the hospital, I had to assume she was physically okay, but having been abducted myself, I could attest to how badly the experience rattled you. I didn’t wish this upon her.
I was equally hung up on why and who would do this.
The same group who had attacked James and I outside Vuheia’s temple?
We never had gotten to the bottom of that.
Surely this wasn’t Victor or Valentina’s work, as they shouldn’t be in the country, but I supposed it said something if I still suspected them.
I reached Helena’s rooms, puffing for air, not used to racing about like this. Perhaps I too should be training daily somehow. I pushed the thought aside as I reached the open doorway, where Dame Verd and Dame Aphra, two of Helena’s knights, already stood guard. They bowed as I hurried through.
“Helena,” I called out, pausing only to ascertain where she was in the room. Her sitting room looked much the same as usual, with its pale blue settees and delicate finishings. Her curtains, however, were closed against the view of the sea, and the atmosphere in the room was taut indeed.
Helena sat on a sofa, Lucien next to her, both of them gripping each other’s hands until their knuckles turned white.
“Edwin.” Helena greeted me and waved me closer in the same breath. “I’m all right. Livid, but all right.”
“I can tell and am relieved, but what the hell happened?”
Lucien ran a hand over his face, blowing out a noisy breath.
“Insanity, to sum it up in a word. We were just leaving a restaurant, having had lunch together, and were headed back into work. Four people jumped us as I handed Helena up into her carriage. I fought them off, and Dame Verd managed to knock off the man trying to seize the reins. It was a pitched battle. We lost two of them, but the remaining abductors were knocked out in the process of the fight. We’ve brought them both here. ”
I opened my mouth to say, well, something, at any rate, when I heard the noisy footsteps of a man running from behind me.
I turned, anticipating James, and was proven right in a second.
He flew through the door, almost needing to skid to a halt on the carpet, and didn’t stop until he had his arms around Helena.
She hugged him back, her fear visible. For her brother, she’d let her guard down, it seemed.
“You’re okay?”
“Not harmed,” she promised him, her whisper low against his shoulder. “Lucien and my knights drove them off.”
“For which I’m profoundly thankful.” Sitting back, he looked her over carefully. “How are you otherwise?”
“Mad I didn’t get a hit in.”
Now why wasn’t I surprised by her answer? Helena was no pushover.
“What happened?” James demanded.
Lucien gave him the same quick summary he’d just given me. While he did so, I thought of an immediate follow-up question. Several, really. “Who attacked? Did you recognize anyone?”
“That’s the thing.” Helena looked both vexed and perplexed. “I recognized at least one person as being Princess Valentina’s footman.”
The whosit?
It was such a strange answer, it took me a long second to wrap my head around what she’d said. Why him? “I must assume he did so under her orders, but why?”
“We’re also very confused,” Lucien growled. “Wasn’t she on a ship heading home?”
“We actually got a report saying she hadn’t made it back yet.” I felt the inevitable headache arrive. Anytime Victor or Valentina entered the conversation, a headache always appeared. “I swear to you, she boarded the ship, but she must have turned it around at some point.”
James rubbed his forehead. “Although that doesn’t answer why. Why target you? You’ve never done anything to her directly that I know of? Aside from that pettiness you and Edwin cooked up.”
“Aside from that, I haven’t. At least, nothing to warrant this.
” Helena spread her hands in a shrug. “I don’t know either.
Unless she meant to get me as leverage against you?
I’m the easiest one to snatch. Royce is surrounded by people and neck-deep in a hospital lab most of the time. You’re even more protected.”
“It could be.” James frowned even harder, and I could tell he was thinking this through carefully.
“I’m still puzzled, though. Why now? After she’s left?
Or was this something she set up ahead of time and it’s only now playing out?
No, that makes even less sense. I’m not even sure if the why matters right now.
If she’s really the one behind the attempt, and I see no reason to not leap to this conclusion, then we’re on the brink of war with Ascor from her actions alone.
I do not want a war, but we must stop her somehow. ”
Ye little gods, a war? No, thank you. That would be a horrible way to start off our reign. We were just now climbing back up to a place of true peace and stability!
“You said both of them were knocked out?” James barely waited for their nods before turning his head and calling, “Dame Verd, can you escort one of them in here? I want to question him.”
She popped her head in to answer. “We’ve kept them nearby, Your Majesty. I’ll fetch one immediately.”
“My thanks.”
A war… Was that why Valentina had truly come, to start a war? Surely not. We’d not provoked Ascor in any manner. A war didn’t make any sense.
Wait a damn minute.
What if the reason was something else? What if the abduction attempt was retaliation?
For kicking Valentina out, for denying her James.
We knew how petty she could be, how low she would sink.
She knew Helena and James were close. She couldn’t easily reach me, but Helena wasn’t even in the palace most of the time.
She was taking over James’s company, so she was outside the palace and therefore easier to access.
If she was capable of this kind of pettiness, then we’d need to react appropriately.
But the overall picture didn’t look good, and my instincts said something was off here.
First Victor disappeared, Helena was almost abducted, and no one had any idea where Valentina even was—something bigger was going on.
But what?
Dame Verd reentered, the would-be abductor in tow. He was strangely docile, not fighting her at all as she pulled him into the room. His hands were cuffed in front of him, but he moved like a man going on a stroll. What was this?
James stood as the man was ushered in, his eyes growing steadily wider. I’d never seen him so stunned, and it conversely worried me. What about this man had prompted such a reaction?
In a strangled tone, James uttered, “Fuuuuuck.”
I couldn’t take the suspense anymore and stood next to him, resisting the urge to shake answers from him. “What?”
“He’s possessed.”
I snapped my head around to stare at the man, feeling even more off-kilter with this information. “Like, demonic possession?”
“Not quite, not like you mean. His mind has been enslaved to a demon, but through demonic energy. He’s not a host for a demon. It’s hard to tell unless you know what signs to look for.”
Of course James would know. He’d fought the Demon King; he’d know better than anyone else living in this country.
“How can you tell?” Helena jumped to stand at her brother’s side, staring at her attacker with blatant distrust. “I know you’ve described this to me before but I can’t really tell.”
“See how his eyes can’t focus—”
The man blinked at Helena and then abruptly lunged for her, trying to seize her with his bound hands. Dame Verd immediately squashed this attempt, hauling him back, but he kept fighting her, throwing all his body weight forward.
Dame Verd huffed in effort but nodded gamely. “I’ve still got him. He’s fighting me but not so much I can’t hold him.”
James kept a weather eye on the man but continued to explain. “See the white film over the top of his eyes? Also, the unnatural shade of his lips is because they’ll go fully black over time.”
Now that he’d pointed out the signs, they were obvious.
“Something,” James said quietly, his tone unnerved, “is very wrong here. I can’t find any reason for his possession other than Valentina must be somehow connected to demons. This man’s been possessed for several weeks, judging by the way he looks.”
I couldn’t refute that, but… “She herself wasn’t possessed. Acting strangely, yes, but she didn’t have these signs of possession.”
“Hm, yes, it’s odd. Perhaps she has become a demonic cultist? Although how a princess would even be introduced to an extinct cult is another question.”
I had no immediate answers.
“Can we ask him?” Lucien inquired while pointing at the man.
James shook his head, mouth flat with worry. “He won’t be able to answer questions. His will is not his own. He can’t make the judgement to answer or not without his master at his elbow.”
“She can’t have brought demons in here—or can she?” Helena’s eyes flicked from face to face.
“There’s nothing about the wards of the palace that would prevent it,” I said.
James had learned the hard way in the previous life.
“The wards of the palace are relatively new, renewed every five years or so, and they don’t include those protections anymore.
Why should they, when it’s been a hundred years since the Demon King was resealed?
She could have snuck someone inside or been given the power to brainwash people herself. Who knows.”
That was the hell of it—I really didn’t know what she’d done.
But her doing this now indicated she had definitely done it in our previous life.
No one had recognized the signs then, was all.
Honestly, her being in league with demon cultists made a lot of sense, considering what damage she had wreaked.
James had made the comment that she’d done everything possible to thwart the war, almost like she was on the Demon King’s side.
Seemed she actually was.
“Edwin.” James turned to me. “We need to do several things at once.”
“Check on the rest of the royal family, make sure they weren’t targeted as well,” I filled in immediately, well able to predict what he would say next.
“We also need to inform Lenville of what just happened. It’s entirely possible the royal family of Ascor is also under possession, if their princess is dabbling in dark arts, and we need to verify it immediately. ”
“You’re so smart. I’ll check on the family if you’ll contact Lenville.”
“Done.”
And hopefully we got good news back.
Somehow, I wasn’t holding my breath.