The Heir Boxed Set

by Kyra Gregory

Her words played themselves over and over again in his head as he returned to his chambers. With Malia there, looking over some papers at their table, she listened with dutiful patience, never interrupting a word he said. “Do you agree with her?” he asked, interpreting her silence as such.

  Malia placed the page she’d been reading down amongst the others, pursing her rosy lips together as she considered her response.

  Riffin raised his brows in her direction, intrigued by the insight his wife might’ve developed in his absence. “What is it?” he asked.

  She rose to her feet with her skirt gripped within clenched fists, sighing. “Come with me,” she said.

  His brows furrowing together, he followed her out of her chambers and down the long corridors. She didn’t say a word as she walked, taking the occasional glance out the windows as she went, climbing staircases that led to some of the smallest of towers within the palace.

  She stopped in front of the window, arms crossed over her chest. “They arrived here not long after you left for Evrad,” she declared.

  He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her in the small space, following her line of sight. Through the large trees, distant and small, he could make out four figures in the gardens. One was a man, stood tall and refined—a guard of some sort. The other taller figure appeared to be that of a woman, swift on her feet as she followed the two smaller figures across the lawn, clutching at her skirts as she did her best to keep up with them.

  “King Niles’s wife and his two children,” she said, voicing his initial thought. “They were kept elsewhere, away from Niles, for their safety, but when the chaos erupted in Ludorum, they feared for their lives nonetheless.”

  “My mother brought them here?”

  “Letha wrote to your father and informed him of their predicament,” she replied. “He petitioned your mother to take them in. Had it not been for Letha, your father would never have known of the chance your mother was alive—I suppose he felt indebted to her.”

  Riffin tore himself away from the window, sucking in a deep breath. “I suppose he would,” he murmured.

  “That could’ve been us,” she said, stopping him from taking his next step down the stairs. He hung his head, doing his utmost to put distance between himself and that thought, only for her to persist. “That could’ve been us—running for our lives, our innocent children vulnerable to the acts of war.”

  He turned back around, shaking his head, “I never would’ve let that happen,” he said.

  “And how would you have stopped it?” she asked. Her eyes appeared darker now, anger amidst her sadness. “Your mother killed her brother to keep him from falling into enemy hands again. Would you have had the courage to do the same?” There was fear in every wrinkle on her face as she smiled wearily, “I wouldn’t,” she said.

  He broke out into a grin, a chuckle rumbling in the back of his throat. “Is that what you thought?” he asked. “Did you think we were as vulnerable as my mother once was?”

  She shrugged a shoulder, tearing her eyes away from him, “You seemed as uncomfortable with the throne as she must’ve been at the time—enemies at every turn,” she said.

  He shook his head, quick as he approached her, cupping her face in his hands. “Where’s this come from?” he asked. She dropped her gaze, inching deeper into the warmth of his touch. “You and I did everything we could. We worked together and together we did everything. We were so close—”

  “Close to what?” she asked, defiance in her tone. “Peace? For how long?”

  He laughed, both out of bewilderment and frustration, “What else is there to do other than try our best?” he asked.

  Malia took a pause. Instead of looking his way, she turned her attention to the view. “Show a little mercy,” she said. “Perhaps, one day, people will think to show mercy to us, should we need it.”

  Following her line of sight, he could see what she did. Not just at face value but deeper than that. King Niles’s wife pottered behind the children with the same simultaneous resilience and exhaustion that Malia showed. The children were a great deal older than their own, but they were no different in their innocence—in their vulnerability—and the way in which the guards and their mother did their best to shield them from the darkness of the world.

  Licking his lips, a smile tugged at their corners. “We’ll have no need for their mercy,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I promise.”

  His return to the throne room remained a top priority. He wasn’t about to stay in the dark over anything that happened within the kingdoms he was to inherit. He’d evaded responsibilities before, if only mildly, and he couldn’t help but look back on those moments with regret.

  Nonetheless, even his mother looked upon him with curiosity as he joined her. “Shouldn’t you be getting some rest?” she asked, barely glancing his way, her attention taken by the weighty ledger within her hands.

  “I’m not tired,” he replied.

  She hummed in recognition of his words, saying little else as he made himself comfortable at the marble-topped table where most of her research resided. “It would seem the same cannot be said for Thane,” she remarked.

  Riffin shot a glare her way from beneath his lashes, “Say what you want of me, mother, but Thane has never strayed from his duties—not for a second.”

  She lifted her gaze from the book, raising her brows, “And what makes you think I would say that of you?” she asked. “Do you think I’m displeased with you?”

  He gritted his teeth together, his jaw tense as he sucked a deep breath into his lungs. It was about as much as he could do to temper his anger, the heat that would rise in his chest and burn a path up the back of his neck.

  She slammed the book shut, dropping it onto the table with an unceremonious thud. “When will you stop beating yourself up over this?”

  “When I no longer feel I have reason to warrant it,” he retorted.

  She lowered herself into the seat across from him, her hand on the table, half-extended to him. “Why do you feel you warrant it?”

  His brows twitched in confusion. “Don’t you think I do?” he asked, looking her up and down. “You returned and have had nothing but issue with the way I handled matters! And your thoughts seem to have extended to Malia in much the same way.”

  Her mouth fell open with disregard, shaking her head with a growing disagreement. “I have never judged the way you handled matters—I wouldn’t,” she said.

  “Then I wish you would,” he retorted, shooting to his feet. “Because you’ve disagreed when all I ever did was try my best and—”

  His mother rose with him, taking his chin in her hand as she forced him to look at her. He could hardly do it. Looking at her, right at her, reminded him too much of what he had done. His actions that led to her capture. The actions that made her a target for the axe. The actions that tore her away from their kingdoms. The actions that forced him to say goodbye—and leave her to die. “There’s no judgement,” she said, jostling him, forcing him to look at her. “There’s no right or wrong decisions in our lives. There are the choices we make and the resulting consequences we must face.”

  He hesitated, grappling with his thoughts, struggling against the freedom to speak as he wished, knowing they might continue to argue over their differences. “I cannot accept the thought of saving them after all they did,” he whispered.

  She licked her lips, nodding slowly. “I understand,” she said. “I do—really do.”

  He withdrew from her hold, puffing out his cheeks and sighing as he scratched his brow. “And I know why,” he said. “I do see it.” He shook his head, “But I still cannot accept it,” he added. “When they tried to tear this family apart, when they forced Neyva into marriage, when they—”

  “I know,” she said, cutting him off. “I do.”

  His shoulders dropped, returning to his seat, and he raked his fingers through his hair. “I hope we don’t regret this,” he said. “I hope we don’t regret w
asting our resources trying to save someone who will only stab us in the back as soon as they’ve regained their footing.”

  His mother appeared to stifle a smile. “I won’t let that happen,” she said.

  “I said the same thing,” he retorted, leaning into her line of sight. “But words and good intentions aren’t enough for the people we love.”

  “It has to be,” she said, laughing softly. “We try our best—that’s all we can do—and the people in our lives, those that have and who will continue to stand beside us, understand that.” She withdrew with her final word, thinking it had been enough.

  It hadn’t. It might not’ve been. “Do you think my father felt the same?” he asked. She came to a stop, her back still turned to him but very much listening to what he had to say. The words were enough to send shivers down her spine—years on the throne had taught her how to hide it from everyone, but not from him. “How do you think he felt when he heard you were to be executed? How do you think he felt when I told him I wouldn’t endanger him to get you back?” He rose to his feet again, rooted to the spot until he garnered the boldness to close the space between them. “I believed you. All my life, you said exactly what you did now. I believed you when you said that good intentions meant something.”

  Willing to hear him out, she turned around, albeit with great reluctance. “And then?” she asked.

  He laughed, if only to keep his anger from reaching boiling point, or to keep the grief from pouring from his soul. “And then father left!” he said. “To hell with doing the right thing, he left!”

  She spun to face him in her entirety, rushing towards him, “And who stayed?” she asked, staring deep into his eyes. Burning deep into his soul, her gaze forced him to search for the answer, refusing to be ignored for the sake of grief and anger. “Who stayed?” A smile grew on her face, that look of triumph she always had, even when she was at a loss. “Your wife stayed at your side! Her family were indispensable! Your sister allowed herself to be married to an enemy just to see your survival on the throne! Your best friend—”

  “I know!”

  Her shoulders fell and she withdrew by a single step. “Your father may have fled—allowed grief to get the better of him—but he too did his duty to his King! It was well-within his power to make a mess of things—marching into Ludorum with whatever army of mercenaries he could scrounge together—but he didn’t! Instead, he did what was right! He honoured his King by stepping aside, grieving in private, instead of acting out the only other way he knew how.”

  His mouth fell open and his next breath caught in the back of his throat. “I can’t blame him for what he did,” he said.

  She shook her head, “No,” she said. “You can’t. You’ve chosen to blame yourself instead.” Quick on her feet, she approached him again when she heard no denial. “You did nothing wrong,” she reiterated, squeezing his arms with all her might.

  He licked his lips, shifting his weight to withdraw from her touch. Her kindness, her sympathy—it was all more than he thought he deserved. “Then why do I feel like a failure?” he asked.

  Chapter 2

  THE BRIEF KNOCK ON the nursery door seemed to be nothing more than a courtesy. The Queen entered and closed the door behind her, separating the nursery from the rest of the world. Away from that world, the Queen wore her greatest smile, focused on the children, the playfulness and the innocence with which they played. She struggled to turn her attention to Malia, her smile changing to one more sympathetic, dutiful and kind, nothing like the mockery that others looked upon her with her entire life. “We’ve not had a chance to speak,“ she said.

  Malia held her breath. That was true and, in part, she might have avoided it herself. “You’ve been busy ever since your return,” she said.

  Glancing at her out of the corner of her eye, the Queen appeared more apologetic. “I should never have been so busy so as not to speak to you sooner,” she said.

  Malia’s eyes narrowed, “Is something the matter?” she asked. Placing Egan in his bed, she folded her arms over her chest.

  “What makes you think something’s the matter?” the Queen asked, smiling.

  Hanging her head, Malia forced a smile of her own. “Being Queen, if only for a little while, gave me insight into what it means to be who you are,” she said. “I know you to be far too busy to be here for a little talk, even if you do consider me family.”

  The Queen’s smile became a grin. She’d had the luxury of being in a unique position for most of her life. Now, someone could see matters from her perspective, and could see the trickery and mastery of what it meant to be Queen. “My return seems to have done more harm than good,” she said.

  “This is about Riffin,” she realised. She heaved a sigh, knowing it wasn’t going to be a pleasant discussion. The Queen was right. Her return, while a relief to some, applied a greater pressure than necessary on her son.

  Lips twisted in thought, the Queen began to pace, considering her words carefully. She was trite and direct, often callous and unfeeling, when it came to the nobles that dared cross her—a trait that had won her their submission and respect—but, when it came to family, she took a largely different approach. “He considers our disagreement on the way forward as reason he is unqualified to be King.”

  “Would you agree?”

  She spun around, mouth agape, “Absolutely not,” she said. “And I’ve told him the very same.”

  “I think experience wins out over words,” she said, closing one side of the curtains to submerge the room in relative darkness, “and our experience was hardly the greatest.”

  “You stuck together as a family,” she countered. “You did what was right.”

  Opening the door she allowed the carer on the other side to take her place in watching the children, exiting the room, asking the Queen to follow with a gentle cock of her head. As if the nursery hadn’t always been off limits to such discussions, the fact that she sensed an argument coming encouraged her to take the discourse away from the slumbering infants.

  “He would say just about every action we took put us in a worse situation,” she said in a quiet voice, walking shoulder-to-shoulder to her.

  “How so?” she asked defiantly. “Because it seems to me the only trouble you came up against was a consequence of being who you are, rather than of your own actions.”

  “I doubt Riffin sees it that way when his decision to save me meant losing his mother and father,” she said. “Or when plotting against rebel nobles meant his sister was dragged into an unwanted marriage and beaten.”

  “He did those things to protect his family,” she said. “We have all gone to unspeakable lengths to protect those we love from greater suffering.”

  No longer bottle-necked in the long corridors, the two separated in the throne room. Malia glared at her from the corner of her eye, understanding what she meant but with no love for the insinuation.

  The Queen had killed her little brother because it meant protecting him from greater suffering. How far would Malia have allowed herself to go to protect her family? How far would she have gone to protect her children?

  “Then why stand in his way?” Malia asked, throwing her hands up at her sides. “Why not let him finish this the way he started it?”

  “Because there’s another way!” she said. “The Alliance Council have stood down for now and quashing them means proving to them that we are not out to cause the very instability they fear!” She clenched her fists at her sides, growing visibly angry at having to explain herself yet again. Unrivalled in power for years, with no more than a dutiful husband and a handful of advisors to question her thoughts, she wasn’t used to having to explain herself to such an extent.

  Malia nodded, crossing her arms over her chest, sinking her nails into the delicate lace of her sleeves. “It’s the Alliance Council we have greater issue with,” she whispered. Yes, she had issue with Ludorum, but she wasn’t stupid enough not to see the Queen’s point.

&nb
sp; “Letting Niles and Pietros die at the hands of the rebels doesn’t make Riffin’s crown more secure. It simply allows the people—the rebels—to realise what they’re capable of. If Ludorum’s nobles succeed at deposing a King, our people will realise that they’re capable of doing the very same.”

  “And what is to stop Ludorum from doing the contrary to us when they’re safe?” Riffin asked, suddenly, cutting in. His quiet entrance had startled them both. Stood there, eyes sunken and tired, his hands in his pants pockets, he looked to each of them for a response. “What makes you think they will show us the same courtesy?” he asked.

  “They would owe us their lives,” the Queen replied.

  “They already owed us their lives,” he replied, shrugging with indifference. “They owed us their lives the day you slaughtered their tyrannical family and, not only spared their lives, but gave one of them the crown.”

  “They had every much as a hand in that victory as I did,” the Queen said.

  Riffin smirked, bowing his head as he skimmed his teeth with his tongue. “That’s certainly not how I remember it from my lessons,” he said. Burying his hands deep into his pockets, he shrugged once more with a growing indifference. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I see why it needs to happen—the people cannot be seen capable of overthrowing Kings who make mistakes. If they do, we’ll be next.” Steeling his gaze and taking a deep breath, he added, “But I won’t—make a mistake, that is.”

  “You never did,” the Queen said, looking to each of them. “Neither of you did.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said, unwilling to argue further. “Maybe we did everything right. Doesn’t mean I feel good about it.”

  The Queen withdrew, sighing, “I don’t think its possible to feel good about the position we’re in. The least you can do is not torture yourself over it.”

  He scoffed, smirking. “Well, I’m not quite there yet,” he replied.

  The Queen’s gaze saddened visibly. Years of believing she had done everything in her power to raise a confident son, the man that would take her throne, haunted her when unique circumstances allowed her to lay eyes on what the crown could do even to one who was prepared for it.