by Cege Smith
“Majesty!” Elise's yell broke into her thoughts. “Are you hurt?”
She thought her vision had blurred, but then realized it had nothing to do with her eyes, but the condition of the mirror in front of her. It was broken. She looked down at her hand. It was covered in blood, which started to drip onto the brilliant violet gown. She wished for a different time or a different birthright. But most of all, she wished for Connor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
He watched her move down the aisle from deep in the shadows of the upper balcony of the grand hall. He knew that she was embarking on the destiny she had been born into. He wondered if she had any idea of how absolutely stunning she looked. The thoughts of the audience were easy to pick out because almost everyone was thinking the same thing; they were proud of her. Even though the people deeply mourned the loss of their king, there was an inherent optimism that as long as a Robart sat on the throne, everything would be fine.
Connor had tried to ignore the tug that had pulled him from the confines of his solitary cave in the Solera Valley. He had taken refuge there after being commanded by the Clan to return to the coven. The tug brought him back to Brebackerin. He didn’t understand exactly how Angeline had been returned to her home, but through his quiet inquiries it appeared that something had happened to her after she left the cellar that somehow guaranteed her control over her demon. Given his own encounter, the whole situation reeked of the Clan’s influence.
Caspian and Searon seemed to have forgotten that Angeline even existed. The three of them had split from the cellar and each gone their own way in a kind of fog; Caspian back to his clearing to see what damage had been done by the spirits, Searon back to wreak havoc along the border, and Connor had turned his attention back to the coven. He followed Caspian back to the clearing intending to shortcut through the Amaron Forest when he saw a small round piece of gold metal near a huge tree at the edge of the clearing that had bindings around it.
When he inspected closer, he discovered a gold locket with the letter “A” etched into the top. That was when the fog cleared and he remembered everything that had happened. But a much larger force was at play, and he had needed time to think. Ultimately, his need to see her won out.
He knew that he couldn’t talk to her. He had tried getting closer to the palace grounds several times since arriving in the capital, but it felt like there was an invisible barrier surrounding her that stopped him. The Ascension Ceremony had been his last-ditch effort. If he couldn’t talk to her, at least he could see her one last time, just to make sure she was okay.
Angeline reached the front of the great hall and stood before the high priest. The ceremony began. Connor leaned back against the wall and drank her in. With his enhanced hearing, he was able to clearly hear her every response.
“Do you accept the responsibility of leading the people of Altera?”
“I do.”
‘Do you swear to protect the people of Altera from harm at all costs, including loss of your own life?”
“I will.”
“In the name of the high gods and all that is good in the world, I proclaim you Queen.”
The audience erupted into a roar as the crown was placed on her head. Because of that, he missed the warning in the back of his mind that he was no longer alone on the balcony.
“You aren’t supposed to be here.” The voice emerged from the darkness behind him.
Connor turned as Malin Baford stepped in front of him to block his view of Angeline. Connor had seen the Chief Advisor during one of the customary truce visits to the Master, but had never spoken with him. Connor was starting to see the emergence of a pattern—a scary one. Baford was playing multiple sides.
“You can’t stop me from being here,” Connor said quietly. He decided to test his theory. “You and your Clan may be able to keep me from getting close to her, but you can’t stop me from being here.”
“You have no idea what game you are stepping in the middle of, Vampire. If you truly do want your wish to be granted, the Clan insists you return to your coven and do not try to interfere. The Clan thought that we had an understanding.”
Connor wanted to argue, but he knew it wasn’t the time or the place. But his educated guess had been confirmed: Baford was working for the Clan. Connor pushed away from the wall and looked down at Angeline one more time. Then he shoved past Malin and left the balcony.
It was because of the meditation the nuns had taught her shortly after arriving at the convent that she was able to clear her mind and allow for serenity. As she approached the high priest, Angeline willed that trancelike state into being. She had never been so nervous in her entire life.
The meditation helped her tune out all the noise coming from the audience around her, both what was being whispered out loud as well as the voices of everyone’s minds. She had been able to actually hear the priest’s words and answer confidently. As the crown was placed on her head, she heard the words float down to her as clearly as if he was standing next to her.
“You can’t stop me from being here. You and your Clan may be able to keep me from getting close to her, but you can’t stop me from being here.”
And then Malin’s reply. “You have no idea what game you are stepping in the middle of, Vampire. If you truly do want your wish to be granted, the Clan insists you return to your coven and do not try to interfere.”
Angeline’s heart wanted to sing. He was here. Or at least, he was close by. As Angeline turned to the people, her people, she suddenly felt certain that someone was looking out for her and she would find a way out of her situation. She had not forgotten her promise to him in the cellar. She wasn’t one to go back on her word, and it appeared that he was fulfilling his as well. He was her loyal servant, and he was waiting for her to find him. And so find him she would. But she only had three days until she became Malin Baford’s bride, and her window of opportunity to make her own decisions may end forever.
Angeline pasted a smile on her face and brought her hand up to wave to her people. She was a Robart. She played to win.
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The Queen’s Betrayal (Bloodtruth #2)
By Cege Smith
Copyright 2012 Cege Smith
Kindle Edition
Visit Cege's website at http://www.cegesmith.com
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CHAPTER ONE
Queens don’t cry, and if they did they would never do it in public. It was something that had been drilled into Angeline Robart’s head since she was old enough to understand emotions. Reserved happiness, controlled anger, and limited frustration were allowed, but never sadness. For a queen, every emotion a human being was capable of expressing was restricted to a spectrum of reserved display. It was expected. Extreme emotions should only be allowed in appropriate settings and in the presence of the few people in her life that could be trusted. This meant that at any given time Angeline Robart was nothing but a pent-up vessel of nerves and anxiety; she didn’t trust anyone.
She had been queen for less than an hour and already had a headache from the tight grin that stretched across her face as she nodded to every citizen in the Ascension Hall who had managed to squeeze in to see her coronation. It felt like the entire kingdom was there, but of course it was only a few hundred. Still, the effort of keeping her face calm as a sea of tumultuous emotions ran through her mind was exhausting.
As soon as the last knee had been bended to her, Angeline excused
herself to pay her respects to her father’s tomb. Her retinue fell away the deeper she went into the palace. She hurried so that her fiancé, Malin Baford, wouldn’t have a chance to catch her before she made her way to the crypts. Others may have noted the unusual absence of the Chief Advisor at her side at this important time, but Angeline knew better. Malin was busy trying to keep Connor away from her.
Her life had changed forever just a few short weeks ago. Angeline was returning to her father’s side after learning that he had taken ill when she was kidnapped Connor Radwin. It didn’t take her long to discover that not only was Connor a vampire, but also that the Master of Connor’s coven, Alron, was angling to take her into his grasp. The biggest lie within the entire situation was that Angeline thought her ancestor, Alair Robart, had extinguished the vampires three hundred years ago.
While traveling through the Forgotten Lands with Connor, she was bitten by a poisonous spider. Connor brought her back to life, but she paid a terrible price. Now she was a wraith, half-human, half-vampire, and enemy of both. Afterwards, driven by guilt over what he had been forced to do to her, Connor had tried to do everything he could to help her. He had even sworn his allegiance to her. They made a vow to try to find a cure for both the wraith and the vampire curses together. Angeline’s face warmed as she remembered their kiss in the last moments before her wraith took over her mind and she abandoned him.
It was after finding Malin in the lost city of Craven that Angeline was able to negotiate her return to the capital city of Brebackerin, but she also learned that Malin and his family had a long allegiance to a secret magical sect, the Clan, which had actually been behind every major event in her kingdom’s history. She had cut a deal to return to her father’s side before he died; she would obey what the Clan told her to do, and they agreed to bind her uncontrollable wraith side in Craven. It was an agreement that chafed, but she had no choice. There was so much her father never told her, and now he was gone.
It was customary for a newly ascended ruler to visit those who came before; generations of Robarts were entombed beneath the palace in crypts that extended underneath Brebackerin itself. Someday, Angeline knew that she was supposed to be buried there, but the only way that could happen would be if her fate to live the rest of her life as a wraith was changed in some way.
As Angeline approached the entrance to the crypt, she realized that she was alone. She had been completely wrapped up in her thoughts from the moment she heard Connor’s voice in her mind during the final moments of the Ascension ceremony. But somehow Malin had also known Connor was there, and her betrothed had made it clear that Connor’s presence anywhere near Angeline was not welcome. She mulled on how she was going to find Connor without Malin’s interference. She desperately needed advice on what to do next, and Connor was the only one she felt she could trust.
It surprised her that no one had accompanied her all the way to crypt. She heard her father complain often enough that he was never alone. To be left unattended so early in her reign seemed like an ominous signal. As Angeline looked up and down the hallway she didn’t even see the hint of another human being. It was unsettling.
As was tradition when a king passed on, the torches were lit from the entrance at the top of the stairs all the way down into the tombs. The torches would burn continuously for a fortnight. Shadows danced on the walls, and Angeline began to descend the steps into the gaping darkness. The circular staircase took her into a place that had terrified her as a child. She remembered holding her father’s hand as he pulled her through the hallways that seemed to go on forever, pointing out each of their ancestors and regaling her with tales of their accomplishments.
Of course, all paled in comparison to Alair Robart, the king who had supposedly destroyed the vampires three hundred years ago. That was the version of the story that Angeline had been told, but now she knew the truth. Alair Robart had made an agreement with the vampire leader Alron that secured Alair’s throne and saved Altera from Alron’s wrath, but Alair had willing sacrificed his daughter to make it happen.
The clack of her shoes on the stone steps rattled off the walls and made her wince. There was no sneaking up on the dead. When she finally reached the bottom of the stairs, her nostrils filled with the musty smell of dust and decay. This was a place that was not visited often.
She faced a large stone arch. Carefully engraved into the wall stones surrounding the arch were the names of each of the kings entombed there. Angeline’s name would one day join theirs as the first queen. There were two smaller arches to the right and left that were reserved for spouses and children. Of course, Robart families had always been small. Two sons was the goal. All generations had succeeded in producing a son until Angeline’s father, Eric Robart. That had been a matter of great distress for the kingdom for many years, although Angeline never saw her father alarmed by it. He had simply turned his attention toward making sure that Angeline would be ready to rule when that day came; or at least that was what she had believed.
Angeline thought briefly of visiting her mother’s tomb, but her feet took her forward. It couldn’t be avoided any longer. She followed a long red carpet through the Arch of Kings and into a long, narrow room. The red carpet took her halfway down the length of the room and then stopped. Angeline took a deep breath and turned to face the bust of Eric Robart. It had been done shortly after he took the throne thirty years before so he looked much younger than she ever remembered. His reign had been one of peace. How quickly times could change.
To the right of the bust, there was a small kneeling station in front of his large stone coffin. His body had been laid inside just three days prior. Angeline knelt down and felt a lump in her throat. For the three weeks prior since she returned to Brebackerin, she hadn’t left his bedside. Her father had never regained consciousness, which meant that everything that had happened to her, everything that she had discovered in her captivity, were questions that went unanswered. Her father was gone, and she was left with great sadness and a growing anger.
“Why didn’t you confide in me, Father?” she whispered to the coffin. It was the question that had never left her mind since her return.
Angeline’s mother died when Angeline was five and despite how difficult it had been, the constant presence in her life from that point forward had been her father. She grew up in awe of the way that he commanded those around him and of his unflappable demeanor. Everything she knew about leading a kingdom she learned from him. Eric Robart may not have produced a son, but he had groomed a queen. She could not disappoint him.
“What do I do now?” It was another rhetorical question. Angeline didn’t expect an answer. But she felt a brush of cold air kiss her skin before dissipating and she shivered. The torches flickered around her. Three weeks before, Angeline would have considered this a random occurrence before forgetting it altogether. But things had changed, and Angeline had changed. Her life had been turned upside down. An enemy that was supposed to be long extinct was now once again a threat to the kingdom. The responsibility of dealing with that landed squarely on her shoulders.
Tears burned in the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. As long as she didn’t know if they were tears of anger or sadness, she wouldn’t let them mark her father’s final resting place. She needed to grieve, but first she needed to forgive. With everything that she had gone through and her future so uncertain, she wasn’t ready to forgive her father yet. It was difficult to do so feeling like he had left her alone in a pit of vipers.
She closed her eyes, took a deep, calming breath and forced herself to think on a happy memory of him. One immediately blossomed in her mind.
She was eleven. Instead of being focused on her studies, Angeline was more interested in learning how to fight. As she had already done for several days in a row, she snuck out of her room and went down to the soldiers’ training courtyard near the palace stables.
“Angeline! Angeline!”
Her father’s frustrated vo
ice floated down to her in the courtyard from above, but Angeline couldn’t let that distract her. Steel met steel as she and sixteen-year-old Malin squared off against each other.
“You’re holding back,” she grunted as she parried a right thrust.
“You’re a girl. Of course I’m holding back,” Malin said.
His voice was slightly strained, and Angeline felt a rush of glee. She braced her upper body and put all of her strength into it as she brought her sword around in a wide arc that almost pulled her off her feet. Malin blocked the sword easily, but the momentum behind it threw him off balance.
She saw Malin’s eyes widen as his foot slipped underneath him and with a yell he went down. Angeline jumped forward and shoved the blade right underneath his chin.
“Do you yield?” she yelled in her most intimidating voice.
Malin glared at her from the ground and didn’t speak, but he didn’t move either.
“Now don’t be a sore loser, Malin.” Eric’s voice was close.
“Yield,” Malin spit out.
Angeline brought the sword to her side and set the tip into the ground before dancing around it to face her father, who had entered the courtyard behind her. She knew that she was in trouble, but beating Malin just once made it all worth it. She had ducked language studies with Mistress Teffer after finally getting Malin to agree to spar with her. There was nowhere else she wanted to be.
Expecting to be scolded, she saw that her father had a wide smile on his face. She did a quick curtsey. “Father,” she said. She peeked up at him. She thought that Eric Robart was the most handsome man in the world. He was tall and had the same black as night hair that she had. They also shared the same violet eyes, which was the mark of a Robart.