by C. J. Archer
Chapter 14
Dane wove his way through the crowd to me, took my hand, and led me outside. His mother followed.
“Don’t walk off on me,” she snapped.
“I’m not walking off; I’m going somewhere we can talk. It’s too loud here.” He led us behind the commons where still more servants could be found. We had to walk almost to the end of the southern wing of the palace overlooking the orangery before we could be alone.
“Slow down,” Yelena growled.
Dane finally stopped but didn’t turn around. He looked over the orangery and formal lawn, with its paths and statues, towards the small lake where we used to meet sometimes if we wanted to be alone. The water looked calm in the early evening twilight. Dane’s eyes, when he faced us, were anything but calm.
“If not because of her then why?” Yelena asked, picking up the conversation they must have started inside.
“My mother expected me to return to Freedland and reclaim my birthright now that my memory has returned,” Dane told me. “I explained that I won’t and that my decision has nothing to do with you, and that’s the truth.”
“Then if not Josie, why?” Yelena asked again.
Dane’s fingers tightened around my hand. “My reasons remain unchanged. I have no interest in the Freedland throne. They’re better off as a republic—”
“Nonsense. They’re better off with a strong, capable leader such as yourself.” She clasped his other hand between both of hers. “You belong on that throne, Dane. Averlea is your home.”
He snatched his hand away. “Not anymore. My decision is final.”
She flinched as if he’d snapped his fingers close to her face. “I don’t understand. You have your memory back now. Why are you still like this? Why do you not think as you used to?”
Dane scrubbed a hand over his jaw, hesitating.
“What was he like before?” I asked Yelena.
“Sensible,” she said snippily, annoyed at my interruption. “He understood his obligations and embraced them. He welcomed his duty and looked forward to the day he could claim the Averlea crown for himself.”
“I’ve changed,” he growled.
“Because of her.”
“Because of what happened to me since my arrest last year. The prison mine changed me, and then the loss of my memory and working here changed me more. I used to do what I was told. I was dutiful, to a fault.”
“Duty is not a fault.”
“It is when that duty is the worst outcome, not just for the people of Freedland but for me too.”
She scoffed. “How is becoming king bad for you?”
“There was not enough support. Our coup would have failed, and I would have been executed. Is that not a good enough reason?”
“There was enough support.”
He shook his head. “Ever since regaining my memory, I’ve been going over the numbers. It wouldn’t have worked. We didn’t have enough money or mercenaries. I can see that now, but I couldn’t see it then. I believed what I was told. I didn’t question it; I didn’t dig deeper.”
“You weren’t stupid, Dane.”
“But I was naïve. I believed I should reclaim the throne because it was the right thing to do, the natural order, that a son in my position must do his duty, whatever the consequence. I never thought about what was right.” He tapped his chest. “I also never thought about what I truly wanted.”
She made a scoffing sound again, but it settled into a brief, dry cough.
“Yelena, are you all right?” I asked, touching her elbow.
She shook me off. “Are you saying you never wanted the throne?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Dane said. “Back then, I lacked the courage to voice my opinion and go against what you and people like the Rotherhydes wanted.”
“You are the bravest person I know. You certainly never lacked courage.”
“In that I did.”
She stared at him, her features hard, not a hint of a tear in her eyes. But there was no denying her age now. She looked tired, drawn, like a woman well past her prime. I wondered if her own ambitions had finally exhausted her or if disappointment at Dane’s decision aged her prematurely.
He adjusted his grip on my hand. “I matured in the mine and here, as captain of the guards. I became the man you always claimed me to be.”
“You were that man already.”
“I wasn’t. I know that now. From this moment on, I make my own decisions, and they are based on what I want, not what you want for me. And my decision is final. I won’t be returning to Freedland. Glancia is my home.”
Her gaze slid to me, ice-cold. She picked up her skirts and went to march off, only to stop. “Then the Glancian throne will have to do. You ought to know I have just come from speaking to the two dukes. I urged them to write to King Phillip with an offer for his daughter’s hand. They agreed that she is the only acceptable bride for you. For Glancia. Both dukes agreed, Dane. There’s no getting out of it now.”
He stiffened. His fingers tightened so much that I had to touch them with my other hand. He relaxed a little as he watched his mother walk off towards the palace, but his features remained firm.
“Come with me,” he said, turning to the orangery.
I resisted, planting my feet onto the ground. “No, Dane. We should go back to the commons.”
He heaved in a deep breath as if stopping himself from throwing me over his shoulder and hauling me off. “Very well. I’ll say what I want to say here.”
He dipped his head to meet my gaze. His eyes still simmered with anger, but each throb of his pulse brought back a little more of his humanity.
“I was an arse,” he said.
I couldn’t help the bubble of laughter escaping, and that dispersed the last vestiges of his anger. He smirked.
“It’s true,” he said. “I was an arse to everyone in Noxford, before my arrest. Laylana only agreed to marry me because her brother promised her a very good allowance. To be honest, she was somewhat greedy and narcissistic.”
“So you weren’t very nice. Is there a point to this story?”
“I just wanted you to know that I was arrogant and self-centered. Leon was a good actor in that regard. He mimicked me well.”
“But that was the old Dane,” I said. “The Dane from before the prison mine.”
He nodded. “I meant it when I told Yelena I never wanted to be king, even then. Not really. I would have taken the throne if it was presented to me, but I certainly didn’t want to work for it.”
“You pretended to want it to appease her.”
He nodded again. “But I meant it when I say I’ve changed. I grew up. I’m not that person anymore, thank the goddess.” He smiled gently and stroked the underside of my jaw with his knuckles.
I moved away and headed off in the direction of the commons. He fell into step alongside me. “You called her Yelena just now,” I said.
“I only call her Mother to her face. Martha brought me up. She’s more like a mother to me. I should go and see her. I feel bad that I haven’t treated her as she deserves.”
“Like a mother.”
“Like my mother,” he murmured.
Someone waved at us from the commons. “Is that Quentin?” I asked. “What’s he holding?”
“Two cups, probably containing ale. He wants us to join him.”
“You go see Martha. I’ll tell him you’re on your way.”
Dane caught me around the waist and trapped me against his body. His gaze softened. “I’ll let you go, for now, but this conversation is not over. Not until you believe me when I say I am going to marry you.”
“You heard what Yelena said. It’s impossible. I know it, Dane, and I’ve accepted it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“But—”
He put up a finger to silence me. “I won’t hear anything more about it unless you want to tell me the date you’ve set for our wedding.” He let me go and walked off, h
is steps purposeful.
“You’re still an arse!” I called out.
He flashed me a grin over his shoulder. “But you love me anyway.”
“Definitely still arrogant and self-centered,” I muttered as I walked off to join Quentin.
Meg and I returned to the cottage sometime during the night, taking a contingent of guards as protection. Max was among them but Dane was not. I’d left him deep in conversation with Balthazar and Theodore. The guards had continued their celebrations at the cottage but ran out of ale some time before dawn.
I fell asleep in a chair downstairs with Quentin lying on the floor beside me and Erik sprawled in one of the other chairs, snoring softly. The stairs creaked and I cracked open an eye. I smiled.
“Good morning, Max,” I said, my voice gravelly.
He froze with his boots in one hand and his doublet in the other.
“Are you hungry? I’m about to cook some breakfast.”
“Um.”
“Will you ask Meg if she wants breakfast?”
He went back up the stairs. A moment later, Meg came down.
“You’ve terrified him,” she said with a smile. “He thinks you’re going to chastise him for taking my virtue.”
“I will chastise him, but only to tell him he shouldn’t have taken so long. I’ve known for some time that he’s in love with you.”
She hooked her arm through mine, stepped over Quentin, and steered me into the kitchen. “I suspected, but I don’t have much experience with men. I wasn’t sure how deep his feelings ran. Not until he came for me yesterday, directly after getting his memory back.” Her smile widened. “He said he wanted me to be the first person he told about himself. About his true self.”
I hugged her arm. “He’s worried what your family will think of his criminal past.”
“They won’t like it, but I don’t care. Being with him is my decision and they need to accept that. I refuse to be smothered anymore.”
I picked up a pan and went in search of eggs in the larder. “I’m glad to hear it. You’re quite formidable when you want to be. I don’t envy anyone standing in your way now.” I scooped up the basketful of eggs and returned to the kitchen.
Meg fanned the glowing coals in the fireplace with a cloth. “Is that your way of encouraging me to put my hand up for a council position again?”
“I was still referring to marrying Max, but very well. It can be about that too.”
She smirked. “Very coy, Josie. Is that how you plan to win Dane over?”
“I’m not trying to win him over, I’m trying to get rid of him.” I studied the basket of eggs and sighed. “He says he’s still going to marry me. I thought once he got his memory back he’d see how impossible it is, that he’d just know he had to make a strategic marriage. But he’s still refusing to entertain the thought of marrying Princess Illiriya, even though everyone else talks of it as a foregone conclusion. Including me.”
She took the pan from me and placed it over the low flames. “I still can’t believe he’s the heir to two kingdoms. I also still struggle to believe the extraordinary events that led him and the others here.”
“It is extraordinary,” I agreed. “And tragic too, for the lives that were shattered in that prison mine.” I thought of Laylana and many others who’d endured so much there. Some might wish they’d never got their memories back.
“What about the last wish?” Meg asked. “What do you think Balthazar will use it for?”
I gasped as a thought occurred to me. “I hope Dane doesn’t try to convince Balthazar to wish for me to marry him.”
“Why not?”
“Because it should be used on something important.”
“Marrying you is important.”
“I mean something for the wellbeing of everyone.”
“I wish you’d think about yourself, for once, Josie. Anyway, I’m sure Balthazar will use it wisely.”
“Even so, I’m going to the palace after breakfast.”
I was summoned to the palace before I’d finished my eggs, however. I headed off with the bleary-eyed guard, along with an equally bleary-eyed Quentin and Erik. If the Deerhorns knew where to find me, they’d be wise to ambush us now. The guards were not at their sharpest.
“Did Dane say why he wanted to see me?” I asked the guard who’d delivered the message as we rode back to the palace.
“He said he needs to announce something important, and he wanted you there.”
The image of Dane and Balthazar in conversation last night came to mind. They’d looked in earnest. Whatever they’d discussed had been serious.
My modest escort led me through the palace’s service corridors to the vast complex of formal and informal rooms that made up the king’s apartments. The antechamber to the council meeting room held little furniture. Attendants were not expected to sit. The only seating was the throne covered in crimson velvet. Leon’s personal insignia of two entwined Ls embroidered into the cushioned seat in gold thread now looked like the boast of an inadequate man.
None of the nobles noticed my entrance until Dane, standing beside the throne, acknowledged me with a nod. Even then it was only the Deerhorns who followed his gaze.
“What’s she doing here?” Lord Deerhorn demanded. “She has no right.”
Dane silenced the quiet chatter with a raised hand then lowered it. “Erik, please bring in a chair for Balthazar and anyone else who requires one.”
Murmurs rippled around the chamber as the noblemen and women considered this strange request.
“But this is not a room for sitting in,” one of the lords protested. “Only you should sit.” He indicated the throne.
Dane looked surprised by the seemingly offhanded comment. It was more than a simple statement of fact. It proved that this lord accepted Dane’s status as king. Going by the many nods around the room, others did too.
“Yes, try it out,” the duke of Buxton urged.
Dane shook his head.
“Go on. It’s yours.”
“Not yet,” Dane said.
“But it will be. We’ve decided, haven’t we, Gladstow?”
The duke of Gladstow nodded. The murmurs increased in volume, but not in protest—in agreement. No one spoke against Dane’s claim. Not a single person. I could no longer see the Deerhorns, however. They must be seething.
“I’ll stand,” Dane said, as Erik carried a chair to the front and situated it beside the throne.
Balthazar sank onto it with a grateful sigh. Then he stamped the end of his walking stick into the tiled floor. The room hushed once more.
“Before Dane Lockhart speaks, you should know that someone in this room tried to stop me bringing him here,” he said. “It was almost two years ago when I first discovered the marriage and birth documents his mother sent to the master of Merdu’s Guards. As the temple archivist, I stumbled upon them during a routine reorganization. Uncertain as to what it all meant, I spoke with my good friend and superior, the high priest of Glancia.”
All heads swiveled towards the high priest, standing utterly still by the window. He stared straight ahead, hands clasped at his back, not quite looking at anyone.
“But he denied seeing those documents,” the duke of Gladstow said.
“He lied.”
Whispers became gasps. Someone protested that he couldn’t accuse the high priest of dishonesty.
Balthazar merely shrugged. “He lied and then he had me accosted in Freedland, where the documents were confiscated. They’ve most likely been destroyed.” He adjusted his grip on the head of his walking stick and fixed his glare on the high priest.
The high priest’s gaze suddenly sharpened into focus. “This is an outrageous lie! And I considered you a friend.”
“My point is,” Balthazar went on. “I have seen the documents you all asked for as proof of Dane’s claim. That proof has been destroyed, and now there is only my word over the high priest’s.”
The high priest scoffed. “Wh
y should they believe you? I am the high priest of Glancia! I am the conscience of the kingdom!”
“I know you did what you thought was best for the kingdom,” Dane went on. “I have no wish to see you punished for your crimes.”
Balthazar wagged a finger at Dane. “You saw the documents too, when I presented them to you in Noxford.”
Dane nodded. “The high priest alerted the Freedland authorities to their existence,” he said. “It’s why I was arrested and thrown into prison when I had committed no crime.”
More gasps of shock sucked the air from the room.
“How awful for you,” one of the ladies declared.
“Our own king imprisoned!”
“He was only the heir at that point,” Balthazar said. “King Alain was still alive.”
“Nevertheless, strong words should be issued to the high minister of Freedland,” Lord Claypool said. “Perhaps trade sanctions until a formal apology is received.”
Dane watched on with a confused frown as the voices grew louder with the nobles speaking over one another. It was left to the duke of Gladstow to quiet the room.
“The documents are now irrelevant anyway,” he said to Dane. “No one doubts your claim. The letters from Prince Hugo to your mother, the former Princess Yelena of Averlea, have been accepted as evidence.”
Dane arched his brows at the duke of Gladstow. I understood his surprise. The duke’s unquestioning agreement was unfathomable. There could only be one reason for it—Kitty. She must have somehow convinced him.
“We all accept her evidence,” the duke of Buxton assured Dane.
Not a single noble disagreed. I tried to see the Deerhorns’ reactions, but they were out of my line of sight.
“Good,” Balthazar declared. “Then Dane’s authority is accepted.”
“It is,” the duke of Buxton said. “We can have the formal documentation drawn up today for signing. After that, the rest is mere pomp for the people.”
Dane settled his hand on the throne’s back, steadying himself, perhaps, from the shock of how easy it had all been. He’d expected a fight, not just from the duke of Gladstow and the Deerhorns but from others too. But not a single dissenting voice could be heard. I suspected the Deerhorns didn’t dare when the tide was clearly in Dane’s favor.