Chapter 1 #2
He smiles at Petre like a man with only one thing on his mind. She returns it like the black widow she is. “Please tell King Morningstar what you told me,” she purrs at him.
He gulps as he turns to face me. Awash with nerves, he wrings his hands in front of him as he tries to meet my gaze. His eyes immediately drop to the wooden floor at our feet.
“For a law to be created, it must have the signatures of seven nobles of the Court –”
“Lowercase C,” I cut in. That minor grammatical error – the penmanship off by the tiniest smidge– was the loophole I needed to bypass bringing my newest law to the attention of the Court.
Every fairy of noble blood is a member of the court.
Including bastards. Including commoners I turn into nobility in exchange for their signature.
“Y-yes,” he stammers. “But it also needs the signature of a queen –”
“A king,” I correct. “We updated the terminology of all our documents twenty-one years ago.” Before then, our laws used the gendered noun of “queen” to define Raza’s ruler as there’d never been a ruling king before me.
The Court used that to try to block me from taking the throne.
I used it to claim that I didn’t have to follow any of our old rules at all.
We compromised by adding “or king” to all the documents.
“Ah… um…” The High Scholar flinches. His eyes dart back to Petre, and she smiles at him encouragingly. “No, Your Majesty. It requires a queen’s signature and a king’s.”
Everything inside me stills.
“What law is that?” I ask softly.
The man pulls at his collar, the dark-purple fabric doing little to hide the flush crawling up his neck. “A High Law of Oyveni’s.”
My eyes narrow. I hate hearing that fucking name.
If Oyveni wasn’t already long dead, I’d kill her myself.
If I had the power to travel through time, I’d assassinate her whole damn family, including her pet toad, I hate her that much.
Oyveni’s laws have been a pain in my ass since before I took the throne.
It’s because of her that I was forced to kill my younger sister rather than banish her.
I was forced to kill my older sister too, but she, at least, had deserved it.
My fingers itching to grab my decorative sword hilt, I push those memories aside. “Which says what, precisely?” I demand.
“That… that the Timeless Laws…” The High Scholar takes a deep breath, his hands fidgeting in his traditional robes.
“Are timeless, meaning they can’t be altered; they can only be added to as long as they do not remove the original – so we can add ‘and king’ but not ‘or king’.
” He twists the fabric round his pudgy fingers before finally looking up – but his deep-blue eyes never do find mine.
My jaw tight, I mentally curse Oyveni for the thousandth time in my life. Turning my attention to the bitch in front of me, I ask, “And does the Court have anyone in particular in mind that they wish for me to marry?”
She smiles, slow and predatory. “Evangeline.”
Of course it is. I was engaged to her daughter a lifetime ago, but we called it off because of Aurelia.
Back then, I was nothing but a prince who could never sit on the throne, so Petre did not care about our broken engagement.
But now that I’m king, it won’t even take a slip of a blade through my ribs to take my crown. All it will take is a marriage.
The laws might have been rewritten to include kings, but a queen will forever trump them. It’s why I’ll never marry. As soon as I do, I will lose all the power I have struggled for. The power I have killed for.
“If I take Evangeline,” I say slowly, my anger tightly controlled, “our marriage will barely last long enough for the ink to dry.” She might be a beauty, sure, but she’d be so much prettier if she had been born mute. “And then we’d be having a funeral.”
Petre leans in and purrs, “I’m praying for one.”
My jaw tightens, but I don’t refute her dig. There are two people I know for certain I will lose in a fight against. One is Jace, my bodyguard. The other is Evangeline, the head of my Fairy Intelligence.
But what her mother doesn’t know is Evangeline left me. After trying to kill me.
She had me on my back, a knife to my throat.
But she couldn’t bring herself to complete that final stroke.
Despite the anger raging between us, there is a history there too.
One too deep for anyone to touch. But if it’s between me and her again – I will not hesitate like she will.
I killed Aurelia to get my crown, and I will not let that be for nothing.
Dismissing Petre now that I know her angle, I turn back to the High Scholar. He jumps as he realises my eyes are on him.
“Can it be the queen of another kingdom?” I demand, thinking of the brownies that live not far from our capital.
Their kingdom is a happiness-sex cult that we, along with everyone and everything else in this forest, avoid as much as possible.
But desperate times and all… Our two kingdoms aren’t on actual speaking terms, but we are at peace with each other.
“No.” He swallows hard as sweat beads on his brow. “It – it has to be the signatures of Raza’s queen and king.”
I bite back a curse as Petre smirks.
“Bring me this law of hers,” I snap. “I wish to read it myself.”
“I a-assure you, Your Majesty, there’s no – no loophole to exploit.”
“Like your father assured me with Oyveni’s High Law of Accession?” I ask softly.
The High Scholar flinches.
“If I’d listened to your father, I never would have been king.” I lean forward, my eyes hard. “So tell me, scholar, are you like your father?”
He shudders, no doubt recalling his dad’s torturous death by my hand. One of the first things I did as king was charge him with treason. “No,” he whispers.
“Good. Then get me the original tome.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Bowing until his head is parallel to the ground, he scurries out backwards.
My jaw tight, I ignore Petre’s triumphant gaze and exit the Wedding Room, with Jace on my heels.
She might think she’s manipulated me into a corner and is about to put her daughter on the throne, but everyone thinks they’re going to win if they’re holding the second highest hand.
It’s only when they see the Royal Flush in their opponent’s that they realise they never had a chance at all.
So I’ll play this game she’s forced me into. I have killed many friends and allies and loved ones to keep my throne. If I have to find a gullible idiot to be my bride, so be it. I’ll get her signature and then I’ll kill her too.
Nothing personal. Just politics.