Page 89 of Veil of Winter

The three guards looked at Elyce. She nodded to them. “You may go.” But she took a step closer to Father Johannes, who made no move to leave.

“Alone,” her father said, glaring at Father Johannes.

Elyce’s insides trembled. She was afraid of angering her father, but she was even more afraid of being alone with him. She glanced at Father Johannes, but he did not look as if he was intimidated by her father’s glare.

“Princess Elyce is in charge. Your people wish to follow her now.” Father Johannes spoke the words calmly and deliberately.

“How dare you?” Her father’s voice was raspy. He narrowed his eyes at the priest, then turned his gaze on Elyce. “And how dare you? You are my daughter, and you have no right to defy me—yet again—in your perverted rebellion. God shall punish you!”

Her stomach roiled at his condemnation.

“If this is the kind of conversation you wish to have with the future queen,” Father Johannes said, “then you should leave.”

“Father,” Elyce said, “you must accept the people’s wishes and understand that they feel betrayed by you. King Claude—”

“Ungrateful, unholy girl!” he cried. “How dare you lecture me!”

What could she say? His words felt like a blow to her chest, like a mountain of boulders falling on her shoulders. She wanted his love and approval, but she would never receive that. The pain was a dagger inside her, twisting and everlasting.

“Princess Elyce, you do not need to listen to this,” Father Johannes said softly, turning to look at her.

In that moment, her father reached out and snatched up the key that was on Father Johannes’s writing desk. Then he thrust the key in the door and locked it.

“What did you do?” Father Johannes said.

Her father thrust the key in his pocket and lunged at her,grabbed her by the neck, and dragged her away from Father Johannes.

“If you try to open the door,” her father said, squeezing her neck, “then I will strangle and kill her and you as well.”

He was already strangling her. Elyce tried to say as much. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She tried to scream, but it was only a small screeching sound.

He was crushing her throat. She was going to die.

She tried to hit him but couldn’t reach his head, so instead she used her fingernails to claw at his hands around her throat.

“Stop it,” he hissed in her ear.

She continued to scratch his hands, drawing blood, but as she did, he only squeezed harder. Her vision started to go black and her hands went limp.

“If you kill her,” Father Johannes said, “the guards will kill you.”

“Oh, I do not think they will,” her father said.

Now that she had stopped scratching him, he stopped squeezing so hard and her vision began to return.

“They will. Princess Elyce is their chosen queen.”

“Stop saying that.”

She could tell by her father’s voice that he was speaking through clenched teeth.

“They will not kill me, because who else will be their leader? I have no other heir. The kingdom will be thrown into disarray if she and I are both dead, without a leader and ripe for the picking by any aggressive leader nearby. The Duke of Württemberg, for example.”

He was right. And her father was going to kill her to ensure he remained on the throne.

“You will not kill her,” Father Johannes said, “because God will send you to hell for murdering your own child.”

“I will worry about that later. Besides, you yourself have said that God can forgive any sin—we have only to ask.”