Chapter Seventeen
Analleia
None of us spoke of the last evening’s events when we awoke the next morning.
I had put it behind me after a night of sleep, and I hoped they had too.
We went over the plans for the day, deciding to join a tour of the palace to get a broader view of the palace grounds, thinking it might be interesting, but talking to a stone wall would have held more entertainment than this tour guide.
A historian might care about the extensive history of the royal house, but it was far from interesting to any other human in existence—especially the foreigners gathered here.
The royal gallery itself was impressive.
Paintings stretched upward to the sky-high ceiling where sunlight shone through the stained glass and released a vast aura of colors into the room.
“I don’t think I have ever heard someone who enjoyed listening to himself talk more than this man.” Distaste hung on Nadiyah’s whispered words.
We had joined the tour group an hour ago and had barely moved twenty feet as the guide went over each picture, discussing at length the history of the ruler painted within and everything they had accomplished both during and after their life.
“You should have met my great-aunt, Sera,” I whispered back.
Nadiyah stifled a groan. “I need to peek at the guest list for the third ball. I’ll be back.”
I reached for her hand to stop her, but Nadiyah was quick when she wanted to get away from something.
Desmond sauntered up beside me, boredom emanating from his face as well. “Please explain to me again how this is possibly of any use to us?”
I ground my teeth together. “I was hoping they would give us a more extensive view of the palace, but we’ll be lucky if we get out of the art gallery by next week.”
Desmond’s gaze slid to another tour group walking by and a strange expression came over his face.
“I have to go,” he said, slipping away to follow them.
I crossed my arms, trying to ignore the frowns of those around me at our whispering and Desmond’s and Nadiyah’s sudden departures. One of the women fanned herself as she muttered something about manners and undisciplined children.
I ignored her and closed my eyes, drowning out the guide’s annoying voice as I pictured the layout of the palace.
Technically the art gallery was on the first floor, but with its high ceiling it took up the height of three.
The grand ballroom waited on the doors to the right, and its dome spiraled up into seven balconies.
Everything adjacent to it branched off into smaller gambling rooms, dining rooms, the massive feast hall, and unnecessary frivolous areas in general.
Through the halls to the left lay the private wing of the palace where I knew the royal family’s personal living quarters were.
And the east tower.
My eyes snapped open, taking in the crowd around me before slipping away from the group.
Sentries guarded the entry to the royal living quarters, but I barely gave them a glance as I practically jogged from the inner area of the palace to the massive glass doors leading outside—to the queen’s garden.
Guards lined the outer edge as guests strolled through the magnificent gardens that were only open to the public during the events of the Paravellian Balls.
I wandered through the hedges, going over the path in my mind and making sure I stayed on track.
I had seen the spot once before at nighttime when I had scaled the wall to get the briefest glimpse of the royal apartments.
The timing of the guards’ rounds hadn’t given me long, but it was long enough to see what I had needed to.
I sensed death when I rounded the final corner, its remnants raising the hair along my skin. The thick bushes several stories beneath the king and queen’s window were colored the most vivid shade of green that I had ever beheld, but no flowers graced their branches.
I wondered how many of the leaves had once been covered in blood.
I filled in the picture in my mind, imagining things I had heard but never saw with my own eyes. I saw my sister, Tatanna, her body entangled in the bushes, a deep gash on her forehead from where she had hit it while falling from the upper window.
But that was not the story they told.
My gaze drifted to the opposite side of the garden where one of the palace corridors overlooked the garden.
The third floor provided the necessary height to cause the same damage as from the royal suite’s window.
It had taken me a long time to figure it out.
To figure out why my brother Josef was always suspicious of Tatanna’s death.
“Tell me what really happened that night,” I had pressed.
Two years ago I had sneaked into one of the gardener’s rooms to interrogate him, threatening him until he caved.
“I was on patrol in the garden that night,” he had begun.
“Working on the rose bushes to ensure they would be perfect for the queen the next morning. It was dark. No one could see me, and the guards were preoccupied with their card game. I heard a disturbance from the royal suite, looked up in time to see a body fall from the window, flailing and screaming. She landed in the bushes, right outside the window. Someone retreated from the tower window. I ran to tell the guards as quickly as I could, but when I returned to the garden, her body had been moved to the opposite side. I tried to explain what had happened, tried to make sense of it, but no one would listen. I spoke with two other servants who had seen the fall, and they all verified my story. I was later told to drop my claim or lose my job. I have a family to feed. I chose to keep my job.”
“You should have chosen honesty,” I had whispered as I ghosted from his house.
His words had haunted me ever since, troubling my dreams and disturbing my thoughts.
I had been too young to understand what was going on when my family had abruptly left the Paravellian Balls five years ago.
Desmond had already left due to an altercation with my parents about a girl he wished to marry.
The next thing I knew we had packed up and left, my parents distraught as we transported my sister’s body back to Donnovar.
An accident, they had said. Once we were home, I overheard a conversation with Josef and my parents.
That he had seen my sister pushed from the royal suite, been threatened they would frame him for the murder and destroy our kingdom if he didn’t stay silent, but he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
I clenched my jaw. King Zaricor’s promiscuous endeavors were no secret.
No doubt he had propositioned Tatanna, and she had refused.
She had been engaged to Donnovar’s royal archivist. Not out of obligation, but out of love.
She hadn’t even wanted to go to the Paravellian Balls and would not have accepted another man’s advances.
She spoke openly of her engagement and wore the ring for all to see.
She must have rejected King Zaricor, and he, used to getting what he wanted, had killed her for it.
Covered it up. My parents had been discussing retaliation, trying to figure out what to do, but our kingdom wasn’t even a fifth of the size of Paravellia.
We couldn’t defeat them if it came to blood, and without proof it was their word against ours.
In the end, King Zaricor silenced us by destroying our kingdom before we could bring his crimes against the high judges of Paravellia and demand justice.
Desmond and I had pieced together everything we could, but since we were the only survivors it had taken years.
One thing I could never figure out was how the Paravellian army had so easily infiltrated our city and castle.
They would have had to have help from the inside.
Someone would have had to betray us—but we had never figured out who.
“Did you fulfill your end of the bargain?”
I didn’t turn at Valeris’s voice but continued staring at the bushes below the window.
Convincing Lord Eyreling back into the alliance had been no small task, and I had had to deflect his flirtatious advances throughout the entire conversation.
“It’s done. Lord Eyreling should be contacting you within the day. ”
He gave a grunt of acceptance. “Follow me, then.”
It was not a request.
I tore my attention away from the gardens, taking him in.
Heat crept up my neck at the memory of how close he had leaned in last night, cornering me in against the railing and the pillar.
My training had made me brash in areas I never would have been otherwise, but the intensity burning in the prince’s eyes was unlike anything I had ever experienced with the other trainees in the tower.
I only tolerated forced proximity because I had been trained to—not because I was comfortable with it. The prince’s presence unnerved me.
I fell into step behind him as he led me back inside the palace. He slowed to match pace with me, never meeting my gaze.
“I already know your name is Analleia Kallistar,” he said. “Tell me what kingdom you are from, and what your intentions are at the Paravellian Balls.”
I lifted an eyebrow at his brusqueness, noticing all of the eyes of the courtiers we passed were trained on us. “I’m from Allowyn.”
“Strange, I’ve never heard of it.”
“Few have. No one cares or takes much notice about a small and isolated kingdom in the northern mountains.”
“Family?”
My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, the words feeling heavy as memories of my childhood bombarded me. Laughing with my siblings. The warmth of my father’s embrace. My mother’s kiss on my cheek. The overwhelming sense of being comfortable and safe, of feeling loved. Of belonging.
“Both of my parents are dead,” I said flatly. “My brother is all I have left.”
I had found mixing lies with truth helped to keep my story straight and more believable.
“Tragic past?”