“What about Damon?” he asked.
“Where can he go?” The king looked grim. “My guards will catch him and his men.” A guard I recognized stepped up beside the king, who turned to speak to him. “Markus, make sure he’s found. I want him brought in alive.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The captain saluted before sprinting after his men.
“You two are coming with me.” The order was clear in his tone this time.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Philip said. And then more quietly, “Come on, Lark. Not much further.”
I hadn’t realized I was swaying again, exhaustion and pain overwhelming me. Pulling myself straighter, I nodded.
The three of us hurried back through the ballroom, heading for the back room where we had left the other royals. We had nearly made it to the dais when one of the remaining nobles stepped forward. I had been ignoring the frantic hubbub of the room, but the young man addressed us directly.
“Philip? What are you doing here?”
I tried to remember where I had seen him before. After a frantic moment of mental searching, the answer surfaced. Thomas. The new Viscount Edgewaring.
How did he know Philip?
The king glanced back at us, raising a single eyebrow. “You’d better come along as well, Thomas. You have as much right as anybody to know what has been going on in this kingdom.”
The young viscount fell in behind us readily enough, despite the surprise on his face.
“What’s going on, Philip?” he asked. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“It’s a very long story,” Philip said. “And I don’t know it all myself. Best to wait and hear it all in order, I suspect.”
Thomas raised his eyebrows but didn’t question us further.
Inside the private room, Alyssa and the queen sat on one of the sofas. Rose nestled on her mother’s lap, her arms around her neck. Arvin stood beside them, the young prince patting his mane, though I suspected the boy was receiving comfort rather than giving it.
Percy also stood, his sword still in his hand, and his eyes on the door, Max beside him talking to him in low tones.
To my surprise, however, they weren’t the only people in the room. Sierra stood in one corner, flanked by two guards who each kept a grip on one of her arms. Apparently a doctor wasn’t the only person the king had ordered to be brought to this room.
She looked nothing like the last time I had seen her in the prison. All the fight had left her, and she slumped listlessly between her guards.
“Excellent,” the king said when he saw her. “Everyone is here, then.”
His wife crossed to him, and he embraced her briefly, whispering something I couldn’t hear.
“Markus is tracking down Damon and his men now,” the king said to everyone. “I expect they’ll be back soon enough. I just hope none of the servants are injured in the struggle. This wasn’t what I had in mind when I thought to provide my people with some festivities.”
“As I recall,” Queen Eleanor said with a hard look at Sierra, “hosting festivities wasn’t your idea in the first place.”
The king’s eyes narrowed. “True enough. I think, Princess Giselle, it is past time for you to tell us precisely what is going on here, and what is your connection to my nephew.”
Sierra looked up but didn’t speak. Instead her eyes traveled to me, the dull look in them shocking after her previous sparks. I shook off Philip’s arm and stepped forward. Now that it came to it, I felt a strange reluctance to burn the handkerchief. I glanced back at him. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him while I held it properly in my hand.
But the time for secrets had passed. We needed openness now, and only the destruction of the handkerchief would allow that. Philip’s trust in me had never wavered, and he had succeeded tonight more completely than I could have dreamed. It was time for me to trust in him.
“Actually,” I said, “Princess Giselle can’t tell you what’s going on until I do this.”
Everyone’s eyes followed me as I crossed to an elegant candelabra on the mantel. Pulling out the handkerchief, I held it to one of the candles. It resisted the flames for a moment before the fire jumped across, racing along the material. I dropped it into the empty fireplace, watching as the bright orange and red consumed the small item.
Slowly I walked back to Philip’s side. The door opened quietly, and a young man appeared, unobtrusive but confident, a large bag in his hand. He glanced around the room before pinning his focus on my arm.
“Ah, Aldric,” said Max. “It would appear the young lady needs your assistance.”
The doctor crossed over to me, placing his bag on the ground and rummaging inside before producing a roll of bandage. I looked across at the king.
“Aldric has our complete trust,” he said. “You need not hesitate in his presence. What exactly is your connection to the princess? It is clear things are not as they have appeared.”
“I am the princess,” I said simply.
“The princess?” Philip’s shocked voice was the first to respond, and I carefully kept my eyes averted from him.
“I am Princess Giselle of Eldon, and that—” I pointed at the girl between the guards, “is my maid, Sierra. I would like to begin by giving Eldon’s most profuse apologies. We had no knowledge of the plans against you and did not play a willing part in either the deception practiced on you or the crimes committed against you.”
“I don’t care who you are,” Alyssa said in an impassioned voice. “You protected my children. You will always be a friend of Arcadia.”
“I fear I made a great many mistakes,” I said in a heavy voice. “Mistakes that aided in us arriving at such a dire situation. My own foolish desires to prove myself made me all too susceptible to the lies Damon told.”
“You are not the only one he deceived,” Queen Eleanor said gently, sorrow in her voice.
“I still don’t understand.” The king glanced toward the fireplace. “What did that handkerchief have to do with this?”
“It’s a long story, but I will tell it as best I can.” I tried to ignore the man now bandaging my arm. “There are many parts that even I don’t fully understand.”
I told of the ship from Eldon which had been exploring the seas after the disappearance of the High King’s storms and the small island they discovered on their journey. When I spoke of the people who had chosen to leave its remote shores in favor of positions in Eldon, a number of murmurs broke out over this connection between Sierra and Damon. But the king waved everyone to silence and gestured for me to continue.
I told of Celine’s illness on the boat and the unexpected damage it had sustained, causing only a small group of us to set ashore for Arcadie. I related the attack on the road as I had first perceived it and then as I now realized it had actually happened. And then Sierra’s betrayal on the road to Arcadie. I explained her efforts to thrust me out of sight in the position of goose girl, and her subsequent attempt to have me killed. I explained how Philip and I were attempting to investigate the strange happenings in Arcadia and about our first meeting with Damon.
“It feels so foolish that it never occurred to me those men were out there to meet Damon,” I said.