Chapter 68
I had never in my life stopped to ask myself, “How did I get here?” But now, looking at the hundreds of high-standing peasants who imagined themselves lords and ladies, watching them look at me with contempt as I passed them on my way toward the throne, I thought it for the first time.
How did I get here?
I turned the question over in my mind as I walked past them with my chin raised and a cold expression on my face, refusing to give them even a trace of my royalty, until finally I fell to my knees before all my brothers and sisters, my father, and even my mother,
who looked at me with an almost sorrowful expression.
Then, looking at their faces, I knew the answer.
Simple and eternal, always sung in songs and ballads.
I had found myself here because of love.
“My king, my queen,” I said, lowering my head before them.
“My brothers and sisters,” I addressed my siblings, who were lined up along the steps beneath the throne.
Only Sando and Faran now stood beside the throne, their arms crossed over their chests and their lips pressed tightly together.
One was afraid for my fate, while the other hated that I had been given this chance.
“Daughter, after the spectacle you caused earlier at the harbor, only because you are my daughter, I have allowed you to plead your case,” the king began, raising one hand into the air to silence all the whispers around me.
“But know this, daughter. Not only is your knight's situation dire, but you are also in a very poor state.”
He leaned back against the throne. His crown had fallen low over his brows, and his hands gripped the arms of the throne.
I pursed my lips for a moment and let my gaze move across everyone before returning to the king.
“And not only that, daughter,” he continued, clenching his hands so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
“I asked you whose blood was on your body, and you told me it was a dog's blood. I have now been informed that one of the guards was found dead.”
I opened my mouth, but he raised one finger and leaned forward.
“And do not lie to me, daughter. Enough of your lies. Answer me. Did you kill that guard or did you not?”
Silence settled over the room, so heavy that I felt it in my bones.
took a deep breath, rose from my knees, and looked directly into his eyes.
“I did not lie to you, and it is a dog's blood. Faran's dog's, Father.”
“How dare yo—”
Before he could say anything more, Father stopped himself and motioned with one finger for me to continue.
“I became a killer, yes, long before this dog. The dog that barked at me every morning through my door and taunted me with its whining. You can make me into whatever you want, a monster or a whore, but I am still a princess, and I will not allow anyone to humiliate me.”
I placed my hands behind my back, and the king's nostrils flared.
The murmuring around me began again, but I turned toward them myself and shouted.
“Quiet!” Silence fell upon at my words. “It is I who pleads my case, not you who tear it to pieces. You wanted the truth from me, not only the truth about my knight, but the truth about the life I've been living.” I turned back toward them, stripping away every lie within me, every manipulation.
If Lys did not survive this, the last thing he would hear from me would be the truth.
“I killed that night when they attacked us, after one of them threatened to force me to watch as they killed the person I loved. I know it is incomprehensible to you, and it was to me too, that I could call a knight my love and a part of my soul, but he is. And they knew that.
They threatened me with it. They threatened Meera too.”
He flinched back and pressed his lips together.
“You asked me where Meera was, and truly, I do not know. But I know she is happy now, happy with her soulmate, with her knight.”
I brushed my dirty hair away from my eyes and threw my head back. My heart pounded wildly, and my body began to feel heavier with every passing moment.
“That night, one of them told me that ‘he would not like to hear about it.’ After that, a sapphire fell from one of their pockets, a sapphire marked with the insignia of the royal house.” I looked toward Sanaedeo, who gulped.
He lowered his gaze toward the floor, lifted it toward me, and then reached into his pocket.
He placed the sapphire into the king's hands. Father turned it over between his fingers for a moment before furrowing his brows.
“3SS,” he said aloud before closing his hand around it.
“What is this supposed to mean? What kind of evidence is this?” he asked, confused and angry, and from the corner of my eye I saw Faran shift in his seat. His face was still firm, but the mask was beginning to crack.
I only needed to push him hard enough for it to break completely.
“If I am on trial for loving one man, then the one who paid assassins to kill him in my room should be on trial too,” I said.
“Whatever do you mean, child?” he asked, now both confused and concerned.
“It is well known that the stones from that house are the most expensive, and that they can only be purchased directly from the man who carves them,” I said, trying to make my voice sound as strong as possible even though I could feel myself growing weaker with every word.
At that moment, my brother, my Sando, gathered the courage and spoke for the first time.
“My king, that night half the guards disappeared, and through my investigation I established that all of them were close to only one person. One prince.”
This time Faran turned toward Sando, but his mouth seemed sealed shut.
“I tried to speak to you about this, but at that moment you sent me away. I wanted to tell you that the sapphire found beside the assassin was purchased by Prince Faran.”
Hundreds of gasps broke the silence, and every trace of color drained from Faran's face.
“Those are vile accusations, Father. I have never—”
“Silence.”
The king stopped him before Faran could finish.
“Continue,” he said to Sando.
“That night, someone let the assassins inside. My sister's blood was spilled, and yet silence descended over the court. Why?” He asked it without expecting an answer. “Why was everyone afraid to speak about it?”
Sando descended the steps and stood on the last one, turning toward Father.
“If my sister must be punished for her crime, if you see justice in that cruelty, I will not oppose you. But allowing a prince, her own brother, to hold a knife against her throat is simply unacceptable.”
He shook his head.
“My sister is a killer because she was forced into it, but my brother is a killer because he simply enjoys it. My sister is punished for loving, while a free man walks around loving to torture.”
Finally, Faran snapped.
“That isn't true! You're lying! You lying whore!” He moved toward me, forgetting that thousands of people were watching him. He rushed down the steps, straight past Sando, and grabbed me by the throat.
His eyes were beastlike, as though in an instant he had lost the little humanity he possessed. He didn't even have time to tighten his grip around my neck before the guards tore him away from me and forced him onto his knees with a blow to the stomach.
“That isn't true!” he shouted as they pulled his arms behind his back, and Father finally saw the true picture.
Only now did he see what kind of monster he had allowed to whisper into his ear.
The rest of my siblings and my mother watched in shock, but no one dared to move, let alone say anything.
Father's eyes were wide, his lips parted in disbelief. Even the other guards, who were always supposed to keep their eyes straight ahead, now watched as the royal prince was held down against the floor.
“Is what you are saying true?” he asked Sanaedeo before turning toward the other siblings.
“Is it true?” he shouted, rising from the throne. “That this was happening in my own home? Under my roof?”
He descended the steps all the way to Faran and ordered them to pull him to his feet.
Faran groaned in pain, but they forced his face toward the king.
“So it is true,” Father said, looking directly into his face. “I cannot kill my own blood, but Faran, you are no longer a prince. I banish you from the court and from the realm.”
Faran began to struggle and beg, but Father, no longer simply the king but now a broken father, accepted what he had done with a shattered voice.
“This is my fault. When I heard of your small offenses, I turned my head away. But now, this... for this, I am to blame. Take him away so my eyes never have to see him again.”
They dragged the screaming Faran from the room, and the king slowly climbed the steps again.
Sanaedeo returned to his place, but now a painful silence had settled over the room.
The air pressed more heavily against me, and my legs began to tremble. The skin where Faran had grabbed me still burned with pain, but one last time, I clenched my teeth through it all and turned toward the king.
He was now sitting slumped on the throne, his face pale, his eyes closed in pain and shock.
I looked toward Sando, who now had a certain light in his eyes, something that looked almost like peace. He nodded for me to continue.
I placed a hand against my chest, feeling the emptiness where my necklace had been. “Although the snake has been decapitated, my knight still faces the same fate,” I said.
The king looked at me through half-lowered eyelids.
“I have been many things, and I have done many things. Things that, when I think of them, fill me with so much shame that sometimes I cannot close my eyes at night. I mocked people, spat on them, and found pleasure in the suffering of others.
I was the princess everyone hoped would leave the court as soon as possible. But then something changed inside me. I met a boy in the harbor, and I taught him how to open shells.”
Finally, my voice began to tremble, my lips beginning to quiver. Tears gathered in my eyes, but I continued.