Chapter 11 Lyonsreach #2
“No such formalities are necessary, Sir Riven.” His voice wasn’t booming or deep like I’d imagined. It was calm and quiet. Dark circles shadowed his tired eyes. Wouldn’t he of all people have time for sleep?
His mouth opened slightly, then closed, words failing him.
Riven cleared his throat. “I have brought—”
“Elora,” King Clarke interrupted.
The breeze coming in didn’t help the sweat gathering in my palms. The King of Drakington and the Castivian territory knew my name and had said it himself.
I was speechless.
The king walked over to Princess Clayvarie’s bed, brushing his hand over her forehead, sorrow filling his sunken eyes.
Guilt ripped through me for a crime I had not committed.
King Clarke coughed, blood dripping from his nose. He hastily pulled out a black handkerchief, dabbing it away.
He should have resented me. Should have wanted me dead for being there, in her room, after what a Blackheart had done to her. But when the king looked up at me, it was not with hate. It was with shame.
“Come with me, Elora,” King Clarke said, motioning his head towards the open balcony.
Heart thundering, I turned to Riven as if he could save me. He offered an encouraging nod. He’d promised I would be okay, and I had no choice but to believe it.
I followed the king outside.
He gestured for me to sit, and so I did, the frosty wind whipping my hair. He sat with his shoulders curled forward and his lips in a flat line. “Are you cold?”
I was always cold, but it was winter, and there was nothing to be done about it. I tried my best to answer properly. “It is cold outside, Your Grace.” Speaking with such formality was embarrassing. Trista would have cackled to witness it.
Clarke wore simple clothes for a king, a plain white dress shirt and tan pants.
I looked like an alley rat in my layered black rags that became looser every winter.
I had only bathed because the Nightcastor from the Pearl had required it.
Before that, it was only soap and wet rags while standing in the backroom of the tavern.
The king raised his hand, golden light pouring from it. With his Nature, he heated the terrace, making the surrounding air perfectly comfortable.
King Clarke was a Lyonheart, like Lord Dronis, but with royal blood. For the heat alone, I wished so badly to be Lyonhearted.
He offered me a gentle smile. His kindness felt off, as if something terrible was going to happen as soon as I accepted it to be genuine. He removed his crown and plopped it onto a short, gilded table.
“What is your life like in the Waywards?”
I shifted awkwardly. He had me brought all this way to ask about the cage?
I took a deep breath, attempting to formulate an appropriate response that did not include ‘fucking’ and ‘terrible’.
He lay back on his lounge chair, propping his feet atop a beige pillow. “Speak freely, please,” he added.
Well, if the king wished it to be frank, he could have it his way. “It’s a shithole.”
His face twitched with pain, and then disappointment. “And before that?”
I held my hands together in my lap. “Before what?”
His Nature swirled around me, like a bright shimmer painting the air. “What was your life like before the Waywards?”
When I was twelve, my mother ran off with a man, leaving me to fend for myself.
She’d told me many times that my father and brothers left us because she and I were Blackhearts, but I was fairly certain she'd been the one to leave.
Then, when I was seventeen, a Natureless boy I liked took my maidenhead but refused to marry me because of my Nature.
Beyond that, I had worked almost every single day of my life.
“Also terrible.”
“Tell me about it. The beginning to now.”
The past twenty-three winters of misery were not worthy of being discussed with the King of Drakington and the Castivian territory.
I straightened. “Your Grace, is there something I have done? Or something you need? I’m sure my life story is of no genuine interest to you.”
“My name is Clarke, not Grace, and if you have not already heard, I am sick and dying. So please, tell me about before the Waywards, and after.”
It took everything in me not to gape. No one would ever believe this had happened.
I sighed and began telling him every pathetic detail. After all, he’d asked for it, and no one else ever would.
Before long, I was lounging in my chair as well, facing the star-scattered sky and telling the king more than he probably wanted to know.
I talked about my mother first, then about how I’d wanted to be an actress at one point, and travel.
I mentioned every bully I had encountered in childhood and afterward.
I told him my favorite animal was a bladebreather, even though I had never seen one myself.
If I ever got the chance to fly on one, I would be okay dying right after.
I talked about Luna, and how she had broken my heart worse than any man could when she ran away.
I told him about how I loved fashion but hated sewing, and how I hated drinking but loved being drunk.
“That’s a bad habit, you know,” he said.
I nodded, turning to face him. “Oh, I know.”
He told me about his life as well.
He told me how he loved mathematics now, but when he was younger, he hated it.
He told me how his childhood had been spent learning swordsmanship and that he and his bastard brother bonded over it.
He wished his brother never had to leave Drakington, but he was proud of him for taking the traditionally passed down spot of Keeper of the Bastard Kingdom.
Clarke hated courting and had not wanted to take a wife for the longest time.
When he found Lady Delaina of Jadehill, he was relieved.
He discussed marriage and how making an heir had been a difficult and, at times, devastating process for his wife.
He spoke of Princess Clayvarie’s birth as if it were the best day of his life.
He didn’t bring up the day she was poisoned and didn’t talk about creating the Waywards or the looming war with the Sapphires.
The entire interaction was surreal. It was as if I was catching up with an old friend, not talking to a stranger, much less the king.
“You would like my brother, Xavian,” King Clarke added.
My arms rested behind my head. The night sky above was so relaxing that I did not want to ever look away. I had never known much about the Lord of the Bastard Kingdom, just that he ruled Clarke’s second kingdom with much more leniency than Drakington.
“Why’s that?” My voice was a soft chime, like I was in a dream.
“Because he’s a lot like you.”
I wasn't sure if I would like someone like me.
“Your Grace,” Riven interrupted, stepping out onto the balcony.
I sat up, but King Clarke did not.
“I know,” the king said softly. He pulled his handkerchief out, wiping away the blood that trickled from his nose once more.
He was a Lyonheart with a historically strong bloodline. If he were truly unable to heal himself, his condition must have been awful.
“Elora, I have one more story to tell you.”
As the king spoke, Riven refused to look at me. Instead, he faced the city, tension sinking into his brows.
My heart sank.
“About?” I asked quietly.
“My brother.”
Xavian Steele, the Lord of Castivian.
Drakington had claimed the second kingdom generations ago, always passing the title down to royal bastards.
The tradition started when a king’s bastard discovered the Castivian territory, claiming it for his father.
The king named his bastard Lord and Keeper of Castivian, allowing the lands to be ruled in their own way, as long as they paid their taxes and kept their loyalty to the mother kingdom.
From what I’d heard, the land itself was massive, just across the Sea of Blades.
I was relieved to know it was just another story about his brother.
“I’d love to hear it,” I said, relaxing back in my chair.
Riven walked away.
“I was the only legitimate heir born during my father’s reign.
They say he didn’t spend enough time in the bedroom with my mother because he was utterly in love with his mistress.
I was ten when she became with child, and my mother despised her for it.
My father didn’t care what she or the council had to say.
He doted on his mistress in the castle during her entire pregnancy.
I liked her a lot. She was kind and made my father, who was a stern man, laugh. ”
“That was Xavian Steele’s mother?” I cut in.
He gave me a hard look, but continued. “Yes. I remember the night her labors began. I was elated to have a sibling, bastard or not. I snuck into the crowded room, watching from the corner as my father stayed with her the entire time. It wasn’t proper for a king, but he loved her.
He vowed to raise the bastard as his own, in the castle for all to see until he was old enough to claim his place in Castivian. ”
“And that’s what he did? You and Lord Xavian grew up together here?”
Dustings of snow sprinkled from the sky, though never reached my face as his Lyonheart magic swirled around like a shield.
King Clarke certainly did not like when I interrupted his story, as he paused again before continuing.
“Xavian did grow up here, yes. Anyhow, I watched from the corner as he was born, pink and wailing. Natureless and pure. ‘A strong boy,’ they’d promised he would be.”
“Well, that was a cute story,” I said, finally at ease.
“And then there was a second child born.”
My heart skipped a beat. I sat up. The king was telling me something no one knew.
He did not allow me to interrupt again. “This one didn’t cry, and was so much smaller than the first, they wondered if the babe would even live.”
“Did it?”
He swallowed. “You did.”