Chapter Fifty-One
Analleia
I dove out the nearest window and scaled the wall up to the king’s royal suite, coughing the smoke from my lungs. Guards below paid me no attention as they tried to bring order to the chaos the explosion had created.
They would be taking the king to a safe room, and I guessed that the entrance lay inside his chambers.
I pushed myself harder, needing to reach them before he did.
Up ahead, his balcony was dark. I crossed hand over hand up the stones, taking too many risks, but I reached the railing and clambered onto the balcony.
I pulled my bow off my back, nocking an arrow to the string before trying the door.
It was locked. I took a step back, my foot connecting with the jamb.
It didn’t move. I went for the windows next, shattering them into a thousand shards and crawling in through the wreckage, tiny bits of glass slicing through my pale skin.
Darkness greeted me. Quiet whispered in my ears. A shocking contrast with the scene I’d just left.
“Analleia.”
I pulled the bowstring taut, aiming at the voice, freezing as I recognized my brother’s dark form standing several paces away.
My heart stuttered.
I couldn’t examine him in the darkness, couldn’t see what they had done to him.
“Desmond.” I gasped, rushing forward to embrace him in a hug. “Thank heavens you’re alive, how did you—”
“Later.”
A key clanked into the lock at the entrance.
Desmond darted behind the curtains, and I hid behind the main door.
It flew open, guards tramping into the room with the king, queen and chancellor following behind.
One more set of footsteps followed, and I saw a flash of red hair before I shoved against the door, barring it shut and entrapping us in the darkness.
Drawn swords rang through the air but were quickly followed by several grunts as I heard Desmond take each one down.
Someone lit the oil lamps, flooding the room with light.
We caged the four of them in, Desmond and I circling, my bow raised, a sword drawn in his hands.
More guards would be pounding at the door at any moment.
Valeris’s eyes locked with mine, and I swallowed, keeping my face as cold as ice and tamping down the emotions rising within me. I couldn’t bear the way he looked at me. Soot covered his royal attire, decorated his dark red hair with gray, and left streaks on his hands and face.
But he didn’t look hurt. At least, not physically.
I tore my attention away. This wasn’t about him. I had a job to do. A mission to complete. I swallowed the lump in my throat. He would never forgive me for what I had done and was about to do. He was nothing more than collateral damage at this point.
“What is the meaning of this?” King Zaricor demanded, Queen Cadaren huddled against his side.
The chancellor’s gaze darted around the room.
“Everyone back away from the king,” I ordered, pointing my arrow at them.
“This isn’t the way to do this, Analleia.”
My eyes shot back to Valeris’s, and he lifted his hands as if talking to a frightened animal.
“Quiet,” I snapped, aiming my arrow at the king’s throat. “Our qualm is not with you.”
The king assessed me and Desmond as if to devise which of us was the greater threat.
“Do you know why I am here for you, King Zaricor?” My voice rang with the authority of a prosecutor demanding justice.
His lip curled with distaste. “Kallistars. You’re a witch, a ghost from that wretched civilization of Donnovar we destroyed years ago.”
“Five years ago,” I corrected.
He laughed. “And you did what, exactly? Waited five years to kill me for a justified action?”
The bow trembled in my hand.
I would not show fear.
“Nothing about murder is justified,” I said. “Five years ago at the Paravellian Balls you murdered my sister, Tatanna, for rejecting you, and then you destroyed my kingdom to cover up the crime.”
“Your sister?” His eyes narrowed as if not following, as if murdering my family was little more than paperwork he had signed off on. “The girl who fell from the window?” He lifted an eyebrow. “That was nothing more than a terrible accident.”
Anger rushed through me.
“That’s what you wanted everyone to believe,” I said.
“But there are two tales of that night. My sister, Tatanna, did not fall from the corridor windows. She fell, was pushed, from the royal apartments where we now stand. I’ve seen the way you manipulate young girls, coaxing them beneath your covers, blackmailing them.
Tatanna would have never entered this room of her own free will.
She would never betray her kingdom or her fiancée like that.
But you”—my voice shook with disgust—“you tried to force her and she refused—and you killed her for it.”
He stared at me, an unknown thought stirring within his dark depths. I watched his mind work. Watched him try to find a lie to ease him out of this situation. He sighed, and the casualness of it sent my skin crawling. The hair on the back of my neck rose.
“Ah, yes,” he said, as if recalling an old acquaintance.
“Tatanna Kallistar. I do remember her.” His eyes raked up and down my body, but I showed no emotion.
Did not waver. “She looked identical to you. Fair skin, pale blond hair, brilliant blue eyes.” His gaze bore into mine, trying to assert dominance.
“One of the most beautiful creatures on earth ... to some.” He cocked his head, and a sinister smile ghosted across his lips.
“But if you had really been watching me, paid close enough attention to my interests, you would know that no one with you or your sister’s complexion would ever come close to tempting me. ”
I tried to absorb his words, tried to swallow them.
Confusion washed over me. The arrowhead dipped toward the ground, pointing more to the floor than at him.
I wanted to look to Desmond, but I couldn’t.
Couldn’t take my eyes from the king. I blinked, about to call him on his bluff, but memories from each ball passed across my mind.
He held little affection for his wife, not in the way he flirted with every woman who came his way, but as I thought back—it hadn’t been every woman who had come his way.
I recalled each one I had seen him with. Every single one of them had borne a darker complexion. Beautiful beyond compare. They hadn’t looked the same, some deep as ebony, others golden or the warmest shades of brown, but never once had I seen him in the arms of a pale woman.
And his interest in Nadiyah.
He had picked her out of the crowd almost immediately, sought her out at the following balls.
I looked to Valeris, recalling his words about his father.
He has a very particular taste in his women.
“No.” I shook my head. His words didn’t make sense, even if the facts did. “You killed her. There’s no other reason she would have been in your rooms.”
The king shrugged. “Who knows why she was in there, but what you should really be asking yourself, is why your brother was up there.” His face hardened. “The real reason we set out to destroy your kingdom.”
My heart hammered in my chest.
Josef?
“You destroyed my kingdom because you’re a vile man who couldn’t stand to be told no,” I ground out.
He cocked his head, disbelief splaying across his features. “You don’t know. Do you?”
“Know what?” I snapped.
“People may not like me as their king, but I’m not as horrible as you make me out to be. I didn’t destroy your kingdom out of spite. I destroyed your kingdom because my wife asked me to, and I readily agreed.”
I threw a glance at Desmond, who looked just as perplexed, the conversation veering in directions I never could have predicted. “Your wife? Why would she—”
Hatred radiated off the king. “Because your brother, your eldest brother, coaxed my wife to a dark room and forced her against her will.”
I took in a shuddering breath, not believing the words I was hearing. No. I knew my brother. Such a thought would never enter Josef’s mind.
But did you know him?
Doubt crept in, but I pushed it away. I may have been small, but I knew my brother. Tears sprang to my eyes as I dropped the bow, ripping a dagger from its sheath and pressing it against the king’s throat, pushing him up against the far wall.
“You will beg forgiveness for these false accusations you have made against my family’s honor,” I spat, fingers shaking. I wanted to take his tongue for those foul lies.
He looked at me as if I were nothing more than a temperamental child. Condescension filled his voice. “What political gain did I stand to earn by wiping out such a useless country as Donnovar? The destruction wasn’t about power. It was about justice and vengeance.”
The same reason I was here.
I shook my head, pressing the dagger farther into his skin. Drawing blood. He was lying. Josef would never harm or hurt someone in such a violent way.
I turned my attention to Queen Cadaren, her eyes looking anywhere but at me.
“It isn’t true,” I said. “And you will tell me why you told such an abominable lie to your husband.”
I shoved the king away, marching over to the queen to point it at her throat instead. To seek out the violent deception within her. “Tell me why you lied or I swear I will bleed you to death one drop at a time.”
Fear flared in her eyes, her body trembling. She glanced at her husband, at the chancellor, as if needing someone to save her from the consequences of her actions.
“Tell me,” I said.
I recalled everything I knew about the queen but came up short. I had done limited research on her. She’d been little more than a monarch. A face in a family photo. She’d never held any importance to me.
She pursed her lips, defiance in the action. The king’s words echoed in my head, clashing with everything I had believed the past five years.
“Tell me!” I pressed the dagger farther into her skin but she resisted, a whimper escaping her lips as she cried. I didn’t have time for this.
The dagger cut a line of blood and she screamed something unintelligible.
“Speak clearly,” I barked.
She sputtered, “He didn’t force me!”
Silence descended.
The dagger trembled in my grasp.
“Cadaren?” King Zaricor’s voice was tentative.
She lifted her chin, trying to escape the pressure, and let out another whimper when the steel cut into her throat again.
“Cadaren?” His voice grew harder this time.
“Why would you make up such a lie about my brother?” I asked.
Fury overshadowed her face, her words coming out in a snarl.
“Because he refused me. I lured him to my chambers, but he wouldn’t stay with me.
He didn’t want me. No one had ever rejected me before.
No one had ever turned away a queen. So I made sure he regretted it.
I had his sister brought to my room, and when she came in, I took her to the balcony.
I made sure he was watching from the other side of the garden—and I pushed her over the edge. ”
My heart caught in my throat.
I stepped away from the queen, not believing what I was hearing, my mind reeling.
Five years.
Five years I had trained.
Five years I had believed a lie.
Five years I had sought vengeance against the wrong person.
My mother, father, sister, brother, every citizen of our kingdom, every child, had been destroyed because of one woman’s pride.
My body shook. With shock. With rage.
“Cadaren?” The king’s voice cut through my thoughts.
Everyone stared at her, unsure how to proceed.
“Why did you lie?” the king asked. “Why did you tell me he—”
“Because I was humiliated!” the queen burst out in tears, acting like a spoiled child.
“And I couldn’t let you find out. Couldn’t let anyone know.
I had the body moved beneath the window he had watched from.
I threatened to frame him for the murder and destroy his kingdom if he didn’t stay silent, but I received word that Donnovar planned to bring the case before the high judges of Paravellia.
So I protected our kingdom the only way I knew how.
I ensured it would never be threatened again. ”
My mouth hung open, tears streaking my cheeks. I stumbled farther away from the queen, unable to process. Had my parents managed to keep their petition a secret, they might have been successful in bringing about justice peacefully.
Valeris’s throat bobbed as he stared at his mother in shock. He hadn’t known. No one had. The only people who knew besides the queen were now dead.
“So you see”—the queen turned her lethal gaze on me—“you blew up the ballroom for nothing.”
Everything came crashing down on me at once. The pain. The despair. The confession. The weight of truth. The utter falsehoods I had based this mission on.
Desmond’s glassy eyes mirrored my own.
“I didn’t blow up anything,” I rasped out.
All attention fell on me, their faces full of confusion.
“Then who did?” Valeris asked.
I tried to pull my thoughts together, tried to makes sense of the explosion, but I couldn’t.
“You people are so stupid,” the chancellor said, then marched over to the queen, drew a knife from inside his vest, and slit her throat.