“Because I was humiliated!”the queen burst out in tears, acting like a spoiled child.“And I couldn’t let you find out.Couldn’t let anyone know.I had the body moved beneath the window he had watched from.I threatened to frame him for the murder and destroy his kingdom if he didn’t stay silent, but I received word that Donnovar planned to bring the case before the high judges of Paravellia.So I protected our kingdom the only way I knew how.I ensured it would never be threatened again.”
My mouth hung open, tears streaking my cheeks.I stumbled farther away from the queen, unable to process.Had my parents managed to keep their petition a secret, they might have been successful in bringing about justice peacefully.
Valeris’s throat bobbed as he stared at his mother in shock.He hadn’t known.No one had.The only people who knew besides the queen were now dead.
“So you see”—the queen turned her lethal gaze on me—“you blew up the ballroom for nothing.”
Everything came crashing down on me at once.The pain.The despair.The confession.The weight of truth.The utter falsehoods I had based this mission on.
Desmond’s glassy eyes mirrored my own.
“I didn’t blow up anything,” I rasped out.
All attention fell on me, their faces full of confusion.
“Then who did?”Valeris asked.
I tried to pull my thoughts together, tried to makes sense of the explosion, but I couldn’t.
“You people are so stupid,” the chancellor said, then marched over to the queen, drew a knife from inside his vest, and slit her throat.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Analleia
Iblinked.Frozen.The queen crumpled to the floor, King Zaricor staring in shock.The chancellor moved toward him next, but Valeris grabbed a sword from one of the fallen guards and stepped in front of his father, holding the chancellor at bay.
“I would like to thank you, Analleia,” the chancellor said, grinning as he backed away from them.“For being the perfect candidate to blame for the deaths of the royal family.An orphaned girl deranged with blood and vengeance, it makes for a far more believable story than I could have concocted.”
“Concocted?”I wasn’t following, too stunned from what had transpired in the last five minutes.
The queen was bleeding out on the floor.
The chancellor had killed her.
The explosion.
