Chapter 43 #2
Caius was the only one who mattered. He would be king one day, and she would stand at his side, knowing the title had been returned to their family honorably.
And if the gods chose to keep things as they were, then Caius would still be Steward.
He would know she’d done the right thing by the king he’d admired as a boy.
Behind her on the marble steps, Caius’s hair caught in the wind, and his eyes grew wide. Such an innocent expression now, when only moments ago, he’d offered a brave response to the crowd’s unease.
“I’ll tell them who I am,” Caius had said. “They’ll believe me. They’ll see he’s a good and honest king.”
So certain.
Too young to know that belief alone had never been enough.
“Milonia,” Dimitrios hissed, his voice almost buried by the rest. “Answer me.”
It took every ounce of her strength to stay the course. To ignore him. And when he took that step toward her, she let it push her away.
Still refusing to meet his eyes, she drew in a breath, preparing to speak over the crowd. They were quiet out of curiosity now—they wouldn’t be for long. Not without the right words to rein them in.
“I met with your queen many moons ago, here in secret,” she began, and the voices hushed further. “Queen Emanouella loved you, and she would have done anything to protect you. She was murdered for it.”
The people looked at one another, and when those in the back asked what had been said, the word spread. It didn’t have to make sense. They knew Emanouella had been murdered, but to this day, no one knew why or by whom.
“Before she died, your queen was gathering allies in secret and warning others who their true enemies were.”
Dimitrios stepped up to her too fast—
She turned, braced for his hand. Braced to be dragged by the elbow from these gates.
But he only stared. “Milonia…” His throat bobbed on a deep swallow. “What are you doing?”
“Proving your innocence,” she said, then faced the Perean people again.
The whispers were building, too loud, and she had to raise her hands to quiet them. “Queen Emanouella knew awful truths about her daughter. Alexandra murdered the Crown Prince. She slaughtered her own nephews.”
The people roared. The sound was full of disbelief and rage.
Milonia held up her hands, begging for silence to continue. “Emanouella wanted better for you,” she shouted over the din, “and that’s why I, on behalf of my father, forged an alliance with your queen to take the throne from them.”
Beside her, Dimitrios dropped back a step.
Outside the gates, shouts layered over each other. “No,” and “She wouldn’t do that,” and “Who do you think you are,” reached her between gasps and bitter laughter.
Nikolas appeared on her left and fisted her upper arm hard enough to bruise. “Time for you to go.”
She tore free. “I’ll go.” She raised her chin. “After they hear the truth.”
Nikolas shot Dimitrios a look of disbelief, but his king wasn’t looking back.
Dimitrios held her stare, and his voice broke on his next question. “Who are you really?”
“My name is—” Her tongue froze on the poisonous words climbing her throat. She faced the gates and forced the truth to rise to the surface. “My name is Milonia Dardona, born Milonia Gregoriana. My father is Quintus Milonius Gregorius, the unseated king of Otuvia. And my son is his heir.”
While the people roared in response, Milonia faced Dimitrios. “I am your enemy.”
The ground turned to quicksand beneath Dimitrios’s boots, and Milonia’s words were the anchor dragging him under.
As if from some monumental distance, Milonia continued speaking to his people, shouting over the raucous, “I intend to keep my promise to your dead queen. I came here determined to find this man’s fatal flaws and free you from this family.”
At this, the cacophony quieted some. She was on their side. She was like them. Betrayed by the blood in his own veins.
“Shall I tell you what I’ve found?” she asked.
The people nodded and thrust fists toward the sun. Excitement charged the air.
“Dimitrios Vidalatos is not who the princess Alexandra says he is. He is good and decent. And those in power have been working against him from the moment he set foot on our shores.”
What was her game here? What was the point? She’d lied from the beginning. She’d been his friend and his lover, and he—
He’d loved her.
He’d betrayed the memory of his wife for her, and she’d deceived him with every word, every smile, every breath. She’d turned his longing for a family into a blind spot. She’d made him look like a fool.
The same power that once disarmed him now held his people in thrall.
In brief, she revealed the contents of the hidden letters.
About Leonidas’s plans to hand Perean over to Titos, his orders to attack their allies, and all they’d done to discredit Dimitrios’s name.
How they’d orchestrated every bandit attack on Perean soil, taken bribes, and treated the coffers like a personal bank.
She said nothing of her own betrayal. Of how she’d fooled his mother. Of the letters. The slow seduction of hope, of home.
How she’d awakened what he’d long thought buried.
Nikolas appeared at Dimitrios’s elbow. “Let me stop her. She can’t—”
“Milonia.” Dimitrios’s voice dragged through his grief. “That’s enough.”
“But they need—”
Dimitrios met her eyes, and she fell silent.
Only days ago, he’d woken beside this woman, those eyes bright with humor and love—or so he thought. He’d considered making her his wife.
His queen.
He never imagined how quickly that could change. How deeply he could despise her.
“You need to leave these lands,” he said for her ears alone. “I never want to see you again.”
Tears erupted from her eyes and spilled over her cheeks, but she nodded. “I understand.”
Caius sprinted down the steps and across the courtyard, those damned pups on his heels, the betrayal stabbing deeper. He wasn’t just losing the woman he loved, but a son as well.
Again.
“Your Majesty,” the boy said, short of breath, hair a wild mess, “don’t be angry. Grandfather said—”
“Caius,” Milonia said sharply, her voice cracking. “Quiet.”
She, no doubt, worried her son would make things worse, but it was too late for that. Dimitrios had truly lost everything of worth here today.
None of that, however, was Caius’s fault.
Dimitrios dropped to one knee. Theron, Thalios, and Lykos bounced on their rear paws, licking wherever they could reach. Dimitrios barely registered any of it. His hands moved on instinct, petting them without seeing.
“Future king of Otuvia, huh?”
Caius’s mouth lifted to one side. “That’s what Grandfather says.”
“Then I’d hold him to it.”
A hiccupping sound came from Milonia, but Dimitrios refused to look up. This wasn’t for her, nor was it for her father. They were a separate matter entirely, and Caius shouldn’t have to pay the price for that.
He squeezed Caius’s shoulder. “I’m going to make things right. I swear it.”
Caius flew into Dimitrios’s arms, hugging his neck. “You’re not mad at me for keeping it secret?”
Dimitrios closed his eyes. “Never.”
He held tight. Memorized the weight of him. The shape of his laugh. Because it might be the last time.
When he finally let go, he rose and faced Milonia for the first time, her face wet from crying. He stomped on every instinct inside him to care.
“Stay until the danger has passed,” he said. “I won’t risk Caius’s life on the roads because of your deception.”
Dimitrios turned before she could answer and faced the people outside, who had become strangely calm.
His chest lifted on a single, decisive breath. “Nikolas.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Maybe he was a fool. But he refused to let go of this one thing he could save, even if it had taken Milonia’s revelation to get him there. “Open the gates.”
“The doors won’t budge,” Otekah rasped, voice muffled by her blue face covering.
Below, Silver Wolf warriors staggered from the exits, dragging each other upright. Some coughed until their whole bodies seized, others clawed at the air as if they could scoop the poison away. The cloud rolled after them—thick, green, hungry.
Kai, from the foot of one of the many stone warriors that overlooked the arena, shook her head. “If we don’t, we die.”
Otekah only shook her head, her expression unreadable beneath her blue face covering.
For the first time in her life, Kai’s mind went blank. No blade, no command, no will of steel could cut through this.
Keeping everyone on the observation level would help, but it wouldn’t save those in need of immediate treatment, nor would it last in the long term. Eventually, the poison gas would fill the room entirely.
Even Poloma, who’d studied every poison she could get her hands on, shook her head in mute defeat. Whatever hissed from those vents was stranger than anything they knew—and there’d be no antidote here, not in the heart of their training hall.
A torch guttered halfway up the wall. Its flame bent sideways, then flared, racing along a tendril of gas like fire along oil. It burned in a curling wave, searing bright, before collapsing into smoke.
Kai stepped up to the level’s edge, hands on her hips, as one by one, the gas tendrils reached toward the fire and burned.