CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
With Rumple in his holster across my back, I raced across the courtyard to the other side of the palace to see the guards lined up at the front gates. Catapults were being armed, and archers were stationed across the wall, arrows at the ready.
King Leonel paced in front of the palace gates, hundreds of his guards behind him.
In the distance, I could see one person standing on the other side of the palace gate. One woman requested entrance. I only knew of one woman whose very presence could send the king into a frenzy like this and start a war.
Lorelai Eville.
My adopted mother, and the king’s ex-betrothed.
“Leonel,” Lorelai called calmly through the gates, “has it come to this?”
Mother stood tall, her raven hair fell freely past her shoulders to her hips, her dress was finer than any I had ever seen her own. It wasn’t her usual high-neck black dress or her brown work dress or apron. This was a dress befitting of a noble daughter of Kiln.
It was a deep red dress that hugged her hips, with billowy long sleeves, and enough cleavage to make a man drool, but hide her assets. Around her neck was a ruby gemstone as large as a fist. It was the only piece of jewelry she wore, and its presence nestled between her breasts seemed to upset the king.
“I want you gone, Lorelai,” the king seethed. “You have no place here.”
Lady Eville stepped forward, each step taken with purpose, her hands brushing her hips. It was slow, intoxicating. She was making a show, using her womanly weapons. Ones that I had yet to learn to wield. As I watched her, I suddenly understood their purpose. She was distracting the king. Using her wiles to pull on strings to gain the king’s focus, and it was working. She was ensnaring him, using nothing more than her body. She was the puppet master, and he was the puppet.
“Pity, for I had a place here once. It was at your side, do you remember, Leonel?”
She brushed her fingers across the necklace. “Do you remember giving me this as a token of your everlasting love? When you asked me to marry you?”
“You are the worst kind of woman,” King Leonel spat out. “Because I no longer loved you, you cursed me.”
She tossed her head back and laughed. “Oh Leonel, it wasn’t love. Maybe at one time, yes. When we first met, and you fell in love with a young, foolish girl who only cared about pleasing you, and you boldly asked my father for my hand in marriage. I thought nothing could come between us. But I was wrong.”
She took another step toward the gate, and the nearest guards raised their bows and pointed the arrows right at her heart. They would surely kill her.
I moved to rush to her, but Bravado pulled me back to the side of the storage building before the guards noticed me.
“Let me go. They’re going to kill her!” I said. “You don’t understand how much the king hates her.”
“No, Honor. We mustn’t interfere. You do not step between scorned lovers. This is a battle, one that has been brewing for over thirty years.”
Lady Eville placed her hands on the bars of the gate, wrapping her fingers around the metal. She looked at the king. “But I was wrong. For you were seduced by another.”
“Lies,” Leonel scoffed, waving his hands. “There was no one else.”
“There was, but it wasn’t a woman that seduced you away from me. It was something far more dangerous.”
King Leonel raised his hands to signal the archers, but he held his hand and even from this distance, I could see him trembling. He was listening to Lorelai and what she had to say.
“Yes, my father’s merchant ships were lost at sea, and we lost most of our money and influence, but ask yourself: Who was behind it all?”
“It was fate that the sea took your family’s fortune.”
“No, it was Sirena, the sea witch . . . on behalf of another. But surely our love was stronger than physical things. It was more than what wealth I brought to the table, or so I had naively thought.”
“It wasn’t until the council of kings when my father pleaded with you to honor your vows that I saw the darkness within your heart. I knew then that my place in your heart had been filled by another. A desire for power. I saw the first tip of the poisonous arrows that were aimed at my family. You were a pawn. A means by someone more powerful than you, whose sole purpose was to destroy my family.”
“I know not what you mean.” King Leonel stepped forth and was now only paces away from Lorelai.
“Do you not see it? Even now, my father’s death wasn’t an accident. He was poisoned, just as your heart was poisoned against me. Just as your daughters poison their suitors . . . for you. What a fine show you put on. The charade, the disbelief, all an act to wipe away your enemies.”
King Leonel flinched as if he was slapped, and he stepped back, shaking his head.
“You were only a prince at the time, and still under the influence of one greater than yourself.”
“Are you accusing my father of killing yours?” he said.
“No, not him. But think about it, my prince. Who swayed you to end our engagement? Who was the one who served my father the tea at the high council?”
“I don’t remember.” He waved his hands and turned his back on her.
“You do remember,” she hissed.
“I do not.” He walked away.
“You were not the first man to ask for my hand in marriage,” Lorelai called through the gates to him. “You were the second.”
This seemed to be news to the king, and he stilled.
“I had no love for the vile and wickedness I saw in his heart, but he never forgave me for turning him down. And when I had found happiness with you, he tried to destroy our future. He ruined my father’s fortune, took his life, influenced your father to break our engagement, and then he turned your heart against me. I was telling the truth when I said you were seduced by another. It wasn’t a woman. You were seduced by power.”
“No.”
“The power that Allemar promised your father, and in turn, you,” she said.
“I tire of your nagging. Begone before my men lose their hold. Even now I can see their arms trembling. One slip of their finger, and you’ll be out of my hair forever.”
“Leonel, your threats never scared me.” She laughed. “It wasn’t your fault that your father didn’t love you. That he loved another more than you. Bestowed on the bastard son all of his love, and saved none for his crown prince.”
Leonel went white as a sheet. “How could you possibly know this?”
“You mean, how could I know about your father’s first born bastard son;, who should have taken the throne if he was legitimate? How do I know of the man who secretly despised you, and at the same time, wanted to be you?”
“No, he wouldn’t.”
“He did,” Lorelai said. “It was your brother, Allemar, the long-forgotten bastard. But I saw his wickedness. I refused him, and when we became engaged, it ignited a hatred that could not be doused. Since then, he’d spent his life trying to destroy me and take not just one kingdom. He wanted to rule all seven.”
King Leonel’s face paled. “No, he didn’t want to marry you. He told me how wicked you were. How selfish.”