by C. J. Archer
“You’re cruel.”
“Me?” He spluttered a disbelieving laugh. “I am trying to save Glancia, just as Freedland was saved. Monarchies are cruel systems, Josie, set up so the privileged prosper and the poor are kept poor. Kings and queens should be despised. Monarchies should be brought down and replaced by republics before they turn rotten. Believe me, history has shown that they all become rotten eventually.”
“You tried to murder Dane!” I shook my head at him. He sickened me. I could no longer look at him. “Let’s go, Bal. We have work to do.”
But Balthazar merely gazed at the high priest, a curious frown on his brow. “Sacrificing a small number of souls now to save many in the future. Is that it?”
Relief flooded the high priest’s face. “I knew you’d understand eventually. You and I are alike in that regard. We see the bigger picture. We use the lessons of the past in order to stop the future from destroying itself. We are sympathetic but not sentimental.”
“I am not like you.” Balthazar’s raised voice echoed around the empty salon. It was strong and stern, without a hint of his frailty.
The high priest stepped back beneath its force. “Bal? Come now, think it through. Use your powers of reason, and you’ll see that I’m right.”
“Josie’s right,” Balthazar shot back. “You are cruel. But I am not.”
He turned and marched out, barely using his walking stick at all. I followed and didn’t look back.
“It’s over, Bal,” the high priest called after us. “He can’t gain the throne now. Without the marriage and birth certificates, he has no proof.”
“If you thought that, you wouldn’t have been trying to kill him up until last night.” Balthazar stopped. “We have to be in the council chamber. Care to join us?”
The color drained from the high priest’s face. He raced ahead of us and was waiting in the council chamber with the dukes and Deerhorns when Balthazar and I arrived. His face had taken on a deathly pallor.
Theodore looked relieved to see us. “They’re annoyed,” he whispered.
They looked positively vitriolic, particularly the Deerhorns. As usual, their wrathful glares focused on me. I tried not to let them rattle me. It wasn’t easy with Lord Xavier in the same room; his threats from the previous day still rang in my ears.
“Why are you wasting our time?” Lady Deerhorn snapped at me.
“Patience, my lady,” Balthazar said.
“Do you have more information about Vytill?” the duke of Buxton asked. “Do you have spies in Phillip’s castle?”
The notion intrigued the duke of Gladstow enough that he stopped his restless pacing. Violette joined him at one end of the long polished table and smiled at him. He smiled back, but his gaze wandered around the room. It fell on the high priest, glaring daggers at the doorway.
Dane and Yelena entered, flanked by six guards including Erik, Max and Quentin. Dane didn’t bow and Yelena performed no curtsy. Lady Deerhorn’s eyes narrowed at the slight, but it was Lord Deerhorn who admonished them.
“You are in the presence of your betters,” he snapped. “Have a care, Hammer.”
“My name is not Hammer,” Dane said. He met the gazes of each duke and Deerhorn and let it linger on the high priest. Despite still looking a little pale and tired, he seemed more formidable than ever. There was no sign of his earlier reservations. He had embraced his destiny.
“Who cares what your bloody name is?” Lord Xavier muttered.
“You should,” Yelena shot back. “And you will.”
“How dare you speak to my son in that tone,” Lord Deerhorn growled. “Who are you? A maid?”
Yelena’s spine stiffened even more and her chin thrust out a little further. Despite being shorter than all of us, she had a way of seeming taller. She’d never looked more regal, or more pleased to be asked that question. She’d been waiting for this moment for forty years, and she was going to relish it.
“I was born Princess Yelena of Averlea,” she said with haughty conviction.
Murmurs filled the room, and one bark of laughter that came from Lord Xavier. His parents weren’t laughing, however. The name was familiar to them.
“After my marriage, I became Princess Yelena Lockhart of Glancia. My husband was Prince Hugo Lockhart of Glancia.” She rested a hand on Dane’s arm, her lips curved in a victorious smile as she surveyed the shocked faces of the gathering. “And this is our son, Dane, the king of Glancia.”
Chapter 10
“This is absurd!” the duke of Gladstow blurted out.
Lord Deerhorn barked a laugh. “They’re both mad.”
Lady Deerhorn snapped her fingers at Max. “Arrest them. It’s a crime to make such a claim.”
Lord Xavier’s eyes gleamed as he licked his lips. “You hitched your wagon to the wrong horse, Miss Cully.”
“I said arrest them!” Lady Deerhorn’s screech made her daughter flinch. “Sergeant, it’s your duty to remove these traitors.”
Max didn’t move. He didn’t even acknowledge that she’d spoken. He stood by Dane’s side and waited in silence.
“Captain, what are you doing?” the duke of Buxton asked carefully.
“He is claiming his birthright,” Yelena said in a loud voice.
Lord Deerhorn snorted. “She’s a crackpot. The entire Averlea royal family died in the revolution forty years ago. Everyone knows that.”
“Then why did the Freedland authorities imprison my son on false charges? Why did they try to suppress his true identity? Why did they have him sign this document forcing him to give up all rights to reclaiming the Averlea throne?” She held out her hand and Quentin placed a document onto her palm.
She unfolded it and laid it on the table. The nobles leaned forward as one.
The high priest did not. He didn’t even look at the document. “You have no proof of his claim to the Glancian throne.”
Quentin handed Yelena more folded papers. One by one, she set them down on the table too.
“These are my private letters from Prince Hugo in the lead up to our marriage and before Dane’s birth,” she said.
The nobles pored over them, quickly scanning the contents and passing the letters around. Lady Deerhorn’s face remained impassive, her thoughts difficult to read. Not so her husband and son. The face of the father grew redder with each passing moment, while the younger paled. Lady Violette looked quite ill.
“What about a marriage registration?” the high priest pressed. “A birth document?”
“Lost,” Balthazar said calmly. “As you well know, Your Eminence.”
The high priest merely shook his head sadly at Balthazar. No one else seemed to have heard his accusation.
The duke of Gladstow snatched up a letter in each hand, scrunching them. “These letters prove nothing!”
“Not by themselves,” Dane agreed. “But compare the writing to other letters known to be written by Prince Hugo. You probably have some such letters in your own private belongings, and there will be official documents in the old castle in Tilting.”
“I have some letters from him,” the duke of Buxton admitted. “I am prepared to compare them. Gladstow?”
The elder of the two dukes flung the letters across the table. They fluttered harmlessly onto the polished surface. “I do not accept this! I want real proof! Official documentation.”
Yelena tapped her finger on one of the letters. “The proof is in these. Read them. There are details in them that only someone close to the royal family could know.”
Lord Deerhorn scoffed.
“Someone here knows I’m telling the truth,” Dane said. “He tried to kill me to stop me coming forward.”
The high priest shrank back towards the door, his eyes round with uncertainty.
“This man has nothing to fear from me unless he attempts to assassinate me again. If I am to die, he will be the first my men will suspect. Is that clear?”
The high priest gulped.
The lords l
ooked at one another while Lord and Lady Deerhorn exchanged worried glances.
The high priest turned and fled from the room.
Yelena watched him go, a smile of satisfaction on her face. A victory she’d desired for so long was finally within her grasp.
“Your Grace,” Dane said to the duke of Buxton. “I value your advice. Perhaps we can meet today to discuss how to proceed.”
Buxton’s mouth opened and closed without a word passing his lips.
“I know this is a surprise,” Dane went on. “But you must see that this is best for Glancia. It means no war of succession. The people can go on as they were.”
“Very well,” Buxton said. “We shall meet. I’ll send for the senior ministers immediately.”
“I already have. Some will arrive as early as tomorrow.”
The duke of Buxton blew out a breath, but he no longer looked disbelieving. Indeed, he looked quite relieved. “This could be good for Glancia.”
“No, it will not!” the duke of Gladstow bellowed. “You only think that because you know you couldn’t win.”
Buxton rolled his eyes. “You didn’t have as much support as you were led to believe. Think about this, Gladstow. He’s young and strong, and he comes from royalty on both sides. With a little guidance, he could make a good king.”
“You are ridiculous,” Lord Deerhorn spat. “You’re happy to roll over and let this nobody fuck you because you’re too afraid to fight. Well, we’re not!”
Gladstow nodded agreement. “He’s lying. They both are. They’re nobodies.”
Yelena’s nostrils flared. “We are not.”
“Of course you are,” Lady Deerhorn said, her tone matching Yelena’s. “None of this makes sense. Why has he waited until now? Why has he remained as a mere guard when he could have been king all this time?” She fanned her fingers and pressed the tips to the table surface. Her steely glare settled on Dane. “You saw how Leon imposed himself onto the throne and decided to do the same, but with far less proof.”
“That man was an imposter,” Yelena snapped. “He took advantage of Dane’s memory loss.”
“Memory loss?” the duke of Buxton asked.
Lady Deerhorn scoffed. “Another lie.”
Dane raised his hands for calm. “I met Leon some time ago in Freedland. I thought I was going to die, that we both were, so told him about myself. I was in no position to do anything about the crown then. The Freedland authorities wanted me dead. Later, I lost my memory and Leon seized the opportunity to make a claim instead. He took my documents for himself. He somehow made copies, changed my name to his, and presented them to the right people as proof. He even employed me as captain of the guards. I was none the wiser to his duplicity.”
“How did you discover this if you lost your memory?” the duke of Buxton asked.
“After Leon’s death, I went traveling. I suspected I was half-Freedlandian so I headed south. On the way, my memory slowly began to return. By the time I reached Noxford, I remembered my mother. I found her and she confirmed my identity. She’d thought me dead all this time.”
If the dukes remembered Leon’s dying confession about magic causing the memory loss, they chose not to believe. Dane was right not to mention it. It could undermine his authority and give the Deerhorns and the duke of Gladstow fodder for their theory.
“Remarkable,” the duke of Buxton said on a breath. He, at least, seemed to believe.
“Speaking of Leon,” Dane went on. “I want to congratulate Lord Deerhorn for capturing his murderer.”
“What?” Lord Deerhorn spluttered.
“The guard named Brant. Lord Xavier claims you captured him and are holding him to await trial.”
Lord Xavier’s eyes widened. “I never said that.”
“You told me last night when we met,” I said, oh-so sweetly.
Lady Deerhorn turned one of her fiercest glares onto her son. He must have told her I’d promised to hand over the gem, but hadn’t mentioned he’d implied they had Brant.
“Leon was an imposter, but Brant should still answer for his murder,” Dane went on. “My men will retrieve Brant from you and see that he faces justice. Where is he?”
Lord Deerhorn clamped his mouth shut and turned to his wife.
Her face darkened. “This is outrageous. We’re not handing anyone over to you. You are nobody. Nothing! And you cannot tell me what to do.”
“Justice must be served,” Dane said calmly. “I have an armed guard ready to fetch him if you just tell us where he is. If you don’t, there will be consequences.”
“For holding a prisoner?” Lord Deerhorn sneered.
“Or for harboring him.” Dane shrugged. “I cannot be responsible for what the advisors will think of your actions.”
Lord Deerhorn’s face grew even redder. “How dare you!”
“He’s being held in an abandoned house north of Mull,” the duke of Gladstow said.
Lady Deerhorn’s nostrils flared and her lips pinched. She looked as though she wanted to order her son-in-law to be silent, or to scold him at the very least. But he still outranked her.
The duke ignored her.
Lord Deerhorn glanced between them. He seemed to be trying to decide who to align himself with; his formidable wife or his powerful son-in-law. With a release of a breath, his shoulders sagged. “The house is a day’s ride north, just off the main road near Maiden’s Rise.”
Dane nodded at Max, and Max left the council chamber.
Lady Deerhorn turned her cold glare onto her husband. “They have the gem,” she hissed.
“Magic is just a child’s tale,” his said without looking at her.
She thumped her fist onto the table then turned to march out.
“One more thing before you go,” Dane said.
Erik moved to block her exit, his hand on his sword hilt. Her glare had no effect on him. He simply glared right back.
“The Divers will not be harmed, nor will any of my friends,” Dane said. “You don’t want to anger me, Lady Deerhorn. I’ll have the full power of the law in my grasp within a matter of days. I already have the palace guards on my side. I can arrest you on suspicion of committing any crime. You are not above the law, and you are certainly not above my wrath.”
Erik moved aside, and Lady Deerhorn strode off, her heeled boots click-clacking loudly on the tiles. Her daughter and husband followed, then the duke of Gladstow. Lord Xavier’s gaze connected with mine before he left too. What I saw in his eyes in that moment chilled me. They were filled with hate.
Dane placed a hand at my lower back. “All right?” he murmured.
I nodded.
“You’ve made a fierce enemy there,” the duke of Buxton told Dane.
“That’s old news.” Dane indicated the duke should sit. “You must have questions.”
The duke of Buxton nodded thoughtfully as he eased onto a chair. “You’ve answered most, but I would like to hear your plans for Glancia’s future. You must have had a long time to think about things and how you’d want your reign to be remembered.”
Dane’s gaze settled on me. “Not as long as you might think.”
I wrote a long letter to Meg and sent it with one of the guards riding to Mull. It explained what had happened since we’d left her, and it advised her to remain alert for dangers. The Deerhorns might decide to carry out their threats regardless of Dane’s new authority. It was impossible to tell what they’d do next.
With several guards accompanying Max, others at the Divers’ house, and some protecting Dane, the garrison was almost empty. I didn’t remain long and returned to the cottage with Erik, Theodore, Yelena and another two guards as escort. Dane had insisted we not be left alone for a moment.
Kitty was so relieved to see us, she threw her arms around each of us, including Yelena. Dane’s mother reacted by patting her shoulder then extricating herself.
“Come, Martha,” Yelena said, picking up her skirts and heading up the stairs. “We must pack.”
“You’re leaving?” Kitty asked as Martha raced after her mistress.
“We’re moving into the palace.”
Kitty turned to me, wide-eyed. “I see I’ve missed some news.”
“You’d better sit down,” I told her.
“Prepare to be amazed,” Erik declared. “Dane is king!”
Kitty gasped.
“He’s not king yet,” I said.
Erik frowned. “Why not?”
“Well,” I said, taking a seat, “the nobles have to agree that Yelena’s letters are not falsified, for starters.”
“The duke of Buxton accepted him,” Theodore pointed out.
“Yes!” Erik declared. “The others will follow.”
Kitty snorted. “Not Gladstow.”
“Or the Deerhorns,” I added.
Theodore disappeared into the kitchen while Erik and I filled Kitty in on the events of the previous evening and this morning. It was a lot to take in, and not just for her. I was still trying to make sense of it all. It felt quite strange, as if it were happening to other people.
“So Dane will be king and all will be well,” Erik finished. “You can come out of hiding, Kitty.”
Theodore returned carrying a tray with cake and teacups. “Don’t be too hasty. The danger might not be over yet. I think you should wait until the dust settles and Dane has full authority.”
I agreed, and Kitty nodded as she accepted a cup from Theodore. “I will wait. I am quite content here, although a little bored.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Martha is sweet but she just wants to cook and clean all day. Those are noble pursuits for a maid, of course, but for the companion to a duchess and princess, they make her as dull as dish water.”
“And to the future queen of Glancia,” Erik said with a wink for me.
“Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head.
“Oh yes, Josie. Dane will marry you. He has promised and he does not break his promises.”
Theodore beamed over the rim of his cup. “I know it’s going to take some getting used to, but you will make a fine queen, Josie. Don’t be afraid. We’re all here to help turn you from village girl to queen.”