Chapter 25 #2
My heart ached for those two young boys who’d been put in a terrible position. Even after doing the right thing, they’d paid for it.
They still paid for it.
I stared at Kingston’s chest, my eyes burning as the truth reverberated in my head. How his father had manipulated him and those other children. Isolated him. Branded?—
He’d abused him. The man who was supposed to love him the way my father had loved me. My chest tightened as it overwhelmed me—what Drake D’Arthur had done to try to turn his son into the man he wanted him to be. Just to get his way. Just to hold onto power.
“Has anyone told your father he sucks?” I croaked, emotion lodging in my throat. “He’s, like, the literal fucking worst.”
A tear escaped my eye before I could stop it, and Kingston brushed it away. “I hope I get the chance to tell him that— exactly that—one day.”
“Good.” I choked on a laugh, imagining Kingston standing over his father and saying it. “I want to be there when you do.”
We shared a heavy look, forcing smiles, because deep down, neither of us joked. Even as we attempted to lighten the heaviness.
When I took a breath and nodded, assuring him I was okay, Kingston warned me that what I was going to see might shock me, but he asked me to hold onto the truth.
I had no idea what that meant, but I kept going.
“Quinn, I know this is a lot to take in, but it’s hard to explain why I’ve done anything without sharing all this.
The way the Camelot Society works—what its members prioritize—its power.
Above all things, they’ve joined, pledged their lives, and bound assets to tie themselves to our world, for the sake of power and greed.
They’ll do anything to protect that power, especially my father.
And when you face an opponent willing to do anything… ”
When he offered a half-hearted shrug, I understood.
“You can’t bring a butter knife to a gunfight.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “Exactly. So, to protect Landon—to protect you both—every move I make against my father has had to be hidden in so many other moves that keeping track feels impossible, at times. Once your file was stolen, I had to think through to the end of the game. Be several steps ahead. It was letting Merle believe I wanted you to be a D’Arthur Queen, but never confirming it.
Then, denying it—proving it wasn’t true by treating you just like any other Maiden, but only after he’d gone to my father with what I’d let him believe about my feelings for you. ”
“Why?”
“Because my father would’ve heard the rumors, anyway.
Eventually, he would’ve come to me to question it.
To deal with the scandal. Which is what he did the morning of your attack.
Having a plan for when he came meant I had to know what Merle would tell my father, so I could respond in a way that worked in our favor.
By telling him I lied to Landon about my feelings for you to get him to join the Knights, I planted a seed of doubt in my father’s head.
Even though he initially brushed it off, he questioned why Merle’s information had been wrong.
Whether it had been a mistake or intentional. ”
I shook my head, unable to keep the incredulity out of my voice. “Oh my god. It really is like chess.”
Kingston nodded. “Yes. It was getting him to suspect for just a second that Merle might be working against him, so that eventually, there’d be just enough suspicion, and enough liability risked by leaving him at Pendragon—near you while you recovered—that my father would pull him away.”
“He wouldn’t pull him just because of the liability?”
“No.” Kingston cleared his throat. “No, my father trusts Merle to take care of those situations, even when he has a hand in them. And he wants Merle at Pendragon, whenever possible, since Merle has a legitimate reason to be there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Pendragon is the only place my father can’t touch.
It’s mine. My mother made sure it would be that way.
That I’d have something solely for me. And Drake D’Arthur despises that fact with every fiber of his being.
But the loophole is that the Advisor to Camelot Court lives at Winchester Hall during the year and the first challenge of The Quest. And he lives at Pendragon during the remainder, which is why Merle was always around. ”
I nodded, taking everything in and trying to process it. “This is what you’ve lived with your whole life?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “The Camelot Society shields its daughters from everything. Stifles their growth to an extent, but its sons? We’re taught early and quickly what our lives will become.
Shown the men we’re supposed to be one day.
And I knew the things my father was teaching me—they weren’t the way the world was supposed to work.
The normal world, at least. But Camelot Court never felt like the normal world.
It was all we knew, and Landon and I—we got through it together.
But…I failed him, and when my father realized how deep our friendship had become, he brought me here. ”
“Kingston…”
“That day, I finally understood the lesson he’d been trying to teach me.
Of never letting the world see what held value in my life.
Because if I did, someone would come for it and use it against me.
And to never rely on another person so intensely, because the world would always find a way to take them from me. ”
Tears filled my eyes. Because I had a feeling I already knew what I’d see when we reached the end. Deep inside the cemetery, we reached a large tree, and Kingston turned me to face him.
With his hands on my upper arms, he stared into my eyes. “Quinn, what I’m about to show you isn’t real. It was a cruel trick played on a small child who loved his best friend the way he thought he was supposed to. And you don’t have to look, but if you do, I need you to remember it’s not real.”
At my nod, he stepped to the side. I drew in a shaky breath and lifted my head.
And even though I’d been expecting it, a gasp rang out in the silence around us when my eyes fell on the tombstone.
But I found two.
One marked with Landon’s name.
The other with no name at all. As if the person who rested there—who they were and what they’d meant to the world—had been forgotten.
Or purposefully erased.
All it contained, etched in the stone, was a symbol.
A crown.
“Fuck.” I shook my head, my voice coming out strangled. “Kingston, this is so… totally fucked .”
He removed his hands from my arms and nodded, the grief on his face carving deeper. It set in the longer I stared at the tombstones. And when he slipped his hands into his pockets, his arms trembled with everything he fought to contain.
For me, Landon’s name being carved on that stone was horrifying, but it wasn’t real. My mind knew that, and so did my heart. But I couldn’t imagine what it had been like for him.
Believing it was.
“Kingston…”
“Quinn, I learned very early that I had to do whatever I could to hide and protect anything I valued. And I’ve taken great care to live by that lesson, out of certainty—” His voice cracked. “ Knowing that if my father ever found out what I valued most in the world, I’d lose it for good.”
He walked up to the tombstone and placed his hand on it.
“That has always been him. Even though I’ve had to treat him like everyone else.”
As his head fell, my heart broke for them both.
“He may never know how much I care for him, but I do, and there’s nothing my father, his world, or their way of life could ever offer me that I’d choose over him. I’ll do anything in my power to keep him safe.” Blue-gray eyes met mine. “Now, that also applies to you.”
He held out his hand, and I joined him. Instantly.
“I refuse to make the same mistake again. I’ve said to him many times, and I will tell you, now, that I will do whatever it takes— anything —to get you to the end of this, if you choose to stay.
Or to keep you safe and protected, if you choose to go.
Both of you. I’ve made choices I wish had played out differently.
Balancing how to protect you both at the same time was a challenge I never expected to face.
Quite honestly, because I never thought I’d hold anyone so dear, again, after—And I have to live with knowing you were hurt because of my mistakes. But...”
He held out his arms, opening them for me, and I went into them without hesitation.
“You’re here, Quinn. You’re with me. Not unharmed, but you’re safe. And I’ll stop at nothing to keep you that way. So, I can’t regret what it took to get you here, or say I’ll never make a choice like that again, because…I know how necessary it was.”
I stared up at him, as his eyes lingered on the tombstone, voice resolute but broken.
“And I know the alternative could’ve been so much worse.”