Chapter 75 Irena
IRENA
“Irena?” My brother’s eyes go wide when he sees me sitting on the bed beside our mother. “What are you doing here?” he demands. “Where have you been? What did you do to Mother?”
“I healed her,” I say proudly.
“You what?” my brother demands. He rushes to my mother’s bedside with the Head Healer right behind him.
The two men look down at our mother and I can see in their faces the moment they realize that she’s better. But instead of joy, I see a look of disbelief and anger growing in my brother’s eyes. He looks at the Head Healer and gestures at my mother.
“What’s this?” he demands. “What did she do?”
The Head Healer leans over my mother, a grave look on his face. He takes my mother’s wrist in one hand, frowning as he consults his timepiece. Then he places his hearing-horn to her chest and listens to her heart.
She stirs briefly and opens her eyes. Looking up at my brother she murmurs,
“I feel so much better, Kellis. Your sister healed me.”
Then she slips back to sleep again but it’s clear she truly is feeling better.
The Head Healer straightens up.
“Your Majesty,” he says formally to my brother. “I, ah, do believe your mother, the Queen, is making a recovery. Truly, it’s most remarkable.”
It’s wonderful news…only I don’t see any happiness in either of their faces. In fact, I see anger on my big brother’s face when he looks down at me.
“You little bitch!” he snaps. “What did you give her? She was almost gone!”
I’m so stunned I can’t even answer. I just stare up at him, my eyes wide and my mouth agape.
“I…I gave her the Healing Draught I heard you and the Head Healer talking about,” I say at last. “I went all the way to Thornmere forest and dealt with the Sorceress—the Lady of Thornmere—to get it.”
I don’t tell them that I made it myself—or how I made it. Some things need to be kept private. Because if anyone found out I sacrificed my virginity to brew the Healing Draught…I don’t even want to think what might happen next.
My brother is angry enough as it is.
“You little fool!” he snarls at me. “You’ve ruined everything!”
I shake my head, bewildered.
“What are you talking about? I’ve healed Mother! She’ll be well enough to sit on the throne again in a few days.”
“She’s never sitting on the throne again! We don’t need a woman to rule us!” my brother barks angrily.
“What?” I’m still so confused but when I turn to the Head Healer for help, his face is grave, but he makes no move to contradict my brother.
“Prince Kellis is quite right,” he says, with a sniff. “It’s wrong for a woman to rule. They are simply too weak and emotional to be trusted with power.”
“But our people have flourished these past two years under my mother’s rule!” I protest.
I still don’t understand what’s going on here. Are my brother and the Head Healer actually saying they wanted my mother dead? And if so, did they have something to do with the wasting illness she contracted—the same illness that carried my father away two years ago?
Suddenly I have a flash of memory—the very first vision that the Door of Uncertainty showed me. It was my brother serving as the Cup Bearer, first to our father and then to our mother.
I see it so vividly, it’s almost like I’m back in the vision—the dining hall…the mellow gleam of the golden chalice filled with wine…my brother wiping the rim of the Cup with a crimson cloth, both before and after he gave it to our parents to drink from…
Realization hits me like a falling flagstone.
“Oh, my Goddess!” I gasp and scramble off the bed. “You were the reason they got sick!”
My brother’s face turns even darker.
“Shut your mouth!” he demands, but I notice that he doesn’t contradict me.
“You did it!” I exclaim, staring at him. “You killed our father and tried to kill our mother! You let everyone believe it was a wasting sickness, but it was poison—you poisoned them!”
“Shut up!” he insists, but again he doesn’t try to protest his innocence. “It was time for me to rule,” he adds. “They were in the way!”
“In the way?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing!
I turn to the Head Healer.
“He poisoned them both—our mother and father! He put the poison on the towel he used to wipe the Cup of Sovereignty when he was the Cup Bearer!”
But to my shock, the Head Healer doesn’t look at all surprised. He simply frowns at me and shakes his head.
“Princess, I do believe you’re going mad,” he remarks. “It’s so unfortunate, but not really surprising, considering the way you went off with that beast your brother had chained in the dungeon.”
“I’m not mad—he just admitted it!” I exclaim, pointing at my brother.
Kellis smirks at me.
“And who do you suppose gave me the poison, little sister?” he asks.
I stare back and forth, between them. My head is reeling, and my knees feel weak—as though my bones have all been replaced by water.
“You…you both…how could you?” I get out at last.
My brother shrugs, as though patricide and attempted matricide are no big deal.
“I told you—they were in the way.”
“You slimy, horrible—” I begin.
But just then, Sir Horace knocks and enters the room with several guards right behind him. He bids them wait at the threshold and closes the door, for privacy, I guess.
“Excuse me, Your Majesties,” he says to me and Kellis. “I wanted to check on the Princess—she’s only just returned.”
“I came back to heal my mother, the Queen, only to find that my brother has been trying to kill her!” I snap at Sir Horace.
“What?” His gray-blue eyes go wide with surprise and confusion. “What’s that you say, Princess?”
“Pay my sister no attention,” my brother says quickly. “I fear she came back from her journey quite mad.”
“I’m not mad!” I say hotly. “I just found out you killed our father and you’ve been trying to kill our mother too! You gave them the wasting sickness—along with the help of the Head Healer!”
Sir Horace’s eyes grow even wider, and he looks at my brother and me, as though he’s not sure which of us to believe.
My brother shakes his head sadly.
“Ah, so sad. She thinks she journeyed across the Poison Desert and all the way through Thornmere Forest to meet with the Sorceress who lives there.”
He speaks as though he’s talking about a very imaginative child—one who must be babied and condescended to.
“I did travel to Thornmere—on Dragon back!” I say—perhaps unwisely. But I’m so angry now, I scarcely know what I’m saying. “I used this ring to make a bargain with Valen—the beast, I mean—to fly me over the desert and back again so I could bring our mother the Healing Draught.”
I hold up my hand and point to the silver ring I still wear on my forefinger.
“Ah, so that’s where that went. You little thief!”
My brother grabs my wrist and twists the silver ring off. He tries to slip it on his own finger…but it’s suddenly grown quite small—too small to fit any of his meaty fingers. So instead, he puts it into his pocket.
“A stolen bit of jewelry doesn’t prove your point, little sister,” he says to me.
I’m horrified at losing the ring, but I’m still determined to be heard.
“I brought my mother a Healing Draught,” I insist. “Just look at her if you don’t believe me.”
I point to my mother, who is still sleeping peacefully—her cheeks glowing a healthy pink and her hair shiny and thick again.
Sir Horace frowns.
“Her Majesty does appear to be getting better. Praise the Goddess!” he adds with sincerity.
“Ah yes, she is—because of a healing elixir I brewed for her only an hour ago,” the Head Healer says calmly.
“I am afraid the Princess is confused,” he adds.
“Poor girl—lost and wandering in the wilderness with that beast. I fear what he may have done to her,” he says and looks me up and down meaningfully.
“Or perhaps what she allowed him to do. We all know that women are naturally weak of character.”
I feel my cheeks get hot—I know what he’s implying. He’s not wrong, of course, but I’ll be damned if I let him call me a slut—however sly he wants to be about it—when he and my brother have been conspiring to take the throne.
“They’re both lying!” I say to Sir Horace. “Please, just listen to me. Look—the Healing Draught—I brought it here in this bottle, given to me by the Sorceress herself.”
I hold up the pale blue glass bottle, but the Head Healer promptly plucks it out of my hand.
“Ah, that’s where that went to. Now how did you ever get hold of my best medicine bottle, Princess? I fear you’ve become quite a little thief,” he says, smirking. “Poor thing,” he says to Sir Horace. “I do fear her adventures with the beast have addled her brains.”
“Yes, it’s quite shocking,” my brother remarks. “Could you please escort her out of here and to her rooms, Sir Horace?”
“Well…I suppose I must.” And to my horror, the Captain of the Guard steps up and takes me by the arm.
“No, wait—you’re making a mistake!” I exclaim.
“Indeed, I fear you are,” the Head Healer says, which confuses me.
But he quickly goes on. “Alas, Your Majesty, I feel she might do herself harm if she is left alone in her rooms,” he says, nodding at me.
“Perhaps it would be best to put her someplace dark and quiet to calm her mind. Someplace she might be restrained to keep her from hurting herself.”
“Someplace dark and quiet where she may be restrained. Hmm…I know!” My brother snaps his fingers, as though an excellent idea has just come to him. “The dungeon! Sir Horace, have the goodness to escort the Princess down to the dungeon and chain her safely so she cannot hurt herself.”
“What?” My voice comes out as a strangled whisper. “No, you can’t do this to me!” I protest, staring at the Captain of the Guard. “You can’t—”
But he’s already dragging me away from my sleeping mother’s bedside and out the door.
The horror of what’s happening is only overshadowed by fear for my mother. She’s better now, but still so vulnerable—lying there asleep with the two men who plotted to murder her standing by her bedside.
“Wait, listen to me—just listen!” I beg Sir Horace as he drags me down the hall, one hand clamped tight around my upper arm as the other guards dutifully follow. “Please listen—my mother is in danger. I don’t care what you do to me, but she must be kept safe!”
He pauses for a moment, his stern face a mask of indecision and confusion.
“As the Captain of her Guard, you’re sworn to protect her,” I remind him. “I healed her from the wasting illness, but nothing can protect her from an enemy’s blade. The least you can do is to post a guard by her bed until she’s returned to full health and can rule again!”
I’m taking a chance here—what if he’s in on the plot? But I don’t think he is—the tone in his voice when he praised the One Goddess for my mother’s recovery rang true in my ears.
At last he gives a short, jerky nod and turns back to the guards who are following him.
“You—Leonitis and Henry—go back to the Queen’s bedside. Stand watch on her and don’t let anyone send you away,” he adds. “And say nothing about any of this—one word from a single one of you and all your tongues will be cut out!”
The guards pale but the two he nodded at turn and march back to my mother’s bedroom.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Thank you,” I say to Sir Horace. “Thank you for believing me.”
“I never said I believed you,” he snaps and starts dragging me down the corridor again.
“What?” I’m stupefied. “But…but you put a guard on my mother when I asked you to!”
“Because it’s my sworn duty to keep her safe and until we get to the bottom of this, that’s exactly what I’ll do,” he says. “But for now, you’ve got to be put someplace where you can’t hurt yourself.”
“I’m not going to hurt myself!” I exclaim, but we are already back down the stairs and heading for the dungeon. “Please, let me go! I need to get back to my mother!” I beg.
“Her Majesty will be safe enough,” Sir Horace says firmly. “And so will you, once you’re locked up.”
I look around for anyone who might help me…but the Nobles we’ve been passing are simply staring at me as though I’ve grown a second head. No one lifts a finger to help or says a single word of protest as the Captain of the Guard drags me through the doorway and down to the dungeon below.