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I hear her loud and clear, but the claim she’s making is too far-fetched for me to understand. My people, maliciously attacking a neighboring kingdom to pillage and kill? It’s absurd. Difficult as he can be, my father would never authorize something like that. If he did, I would at least know about it.
Regardless of what either of us believes to be true, it’s dangerous to be tossing around such severe claims. She could be arrested for anything from conspiracy to espionage depending on my father’s mood, and I doubt my good intentions will get through to him a second time today. Checking the hallway behind her for movement, I grab her by the arm and snatch her inside the room, snapping the door closed behind her.
“Those are serious accusations, Irissa,” I say, keeping my voice sharp. “You can’t just say things like that. What if someone else heard you? What if it got back to my father?”
She jerks her arm out of my grasp. “Then at least something might be done about it. An entire kingdom is going to be wiped off the map because ofyourpeople. That’s the only reason I agreed to this arrangement—to help my kingdom—but we’re still being treated as the enemy. Did you mean nothing you said about our truce?”
“Mypeople haven’t done anything,” I snarl. Truce or not, I refuse to let her speak about them this way. “I don’t know what fantasy you’re living in, but we aren’t responsible for those attacks. I’m sorry if you feel we’ve wronged you–”
“Then why do they wear your coat of arms?” she cuts me off. “They leave it carved into the charred remains of houses they destroy. Whether you authorized it or not, your people are to blame.”
“No one would do that, especially without direct orders,” I growl, my voice rising as angry heat burns through my body and threatens to take over. I take several steps away from her. “We’re not a confrontational bunch, despite how history likes to paint us.”
“Then explain why my home is destroyed and all signs point to Ulleh.” She stares me down, eager for answers, but I have none for her. I’m still grappling with the amount of information she’s dumped on me, trying to understand how and why anyone would attack Hyatt. If what she says is true, there must be a rogue group of minotaurs using our name to justify their intolerable actions. That, or there are rebels residing inside our walls that we need to sniff out and eliminate immediately.
“Enough, Irissa,” I warn.
She ignores me. “Why did I abandon everything I love to come here? Was it so you could swoop in and claim the land when Hyatt is too weak to fight back? Marrying me was the perfect solution because you’d already have a claim to it by law.”
“I was never told my father’s reasoning for the betrothal.” I want to grab her and shake her until she understands my innocence, but I can’t risk hurting her. Instead, I take another step away and cross my arms over my chest. “If those were his plans, he would have shared them. As the heir, I’m informed of all international affairs and acts of war.”
“Maybe he’s not behind it,” she argues, waving her hands wildly as she goes on. “You can’t tell me there’s not a single soul in Ulleh you distrust. Someone who’s yet to prove their loyalty. Why couldn’t Zen be responsible? He’s ranked high enough that people would listen to him, and he clearly hates you all.”
The mention of my brother’s name makes my blood boil, but not for the reason I expect. Zenobios might be sneaky and nearly unbearable to be around, but he’s family. My blood. Something Irissa, despite our legal union, can never be. She’s gone from accusing my people of heinous crimes to pointing the finger at those closest to me, and I refuse to hear any more of it.
“Irissa, enough!” My voice tears from my throat in a roar, echoing off every surface in the room. She flinches at the sound and finally falls silent. “It’s your turn to listen.”
I take several deep breaths, calming my temper to the best of my ability before I say something I’ll sincerely regret. She’s lucky I’m nothing like my father, and I wager she knows that. He would have had her thrown from the room the second she raised her voice, but I try to listen and understand. If I were in her shoes, scared and hurting for my home, I would be upset too. Still, that doesn’t give her grounds to accuse my family of treachery.
“It’s true, I cannot speak for every individual in Ulleh,” I start slowly, keeping my voice at a reasonable level. “But I can speak for us as a collective. Hyatt is an ally, and I would never condone an attack on them.”
She remains stoic, several feet in front of me, her eyes boring holes into mine while I speak. Whether it’s out of hatred or respect, I can’t tell, but that’s not important. What’s important is that she listens and keeps herself from being arrested or worse.
“I will look into these attacks,” I assure her. “This isn’t something that’s fixable with a quick decree, and I don’t want you getting yourself into trouble that I can’t save you from in the meantime. Keep your mouth shut and don’t point fingers until I figure this out. I just need a little time.”
She blinks, and a single tear slides its way down her cheek, soon followed by another. Her response is a faint whisper that I might have missed if she wasn’t consuming my entire attention. “They don’t have much time.”
My instinct has me wanting to close the distance between us in a few brisk strides to pull her into my arms, but I fight it. I can’t be sucked into forgiveness by a few tears. How weak would that make me? We both need to walk away and nurse our raw feelings before anything else.
But I won’t deny it hurts seeing her like this.
“Just trust me,” I say, breaking the silence.
Her bottom lip quivers and she stares at me for a heartbreaking moment before grabbing the skirt of her dress and curtsying in the middle of my room. “Of course, Your Highness.”
Before I can open my mouth, she turns and marches toward the door. The urge to run after her is so strong, it’s nearly painful as it fills up my torso and tugs at my limbs. When the door swings closed behind her, the force that’s been keeping me rooted to the spot snaps and I fly across the room toward the sitting area. A well-placed kick sends one of the chairs flying into the wall.
I bellow at the top of my lungs, loud enough to make my horns vibrate and my ears ring. The weight of today’s events, coupled with the turmoil of the last several weeks, forces me to my knees. I’m numb to the pain that erupts when they hit the stone, and stare blankly at the floor as the feeling of defeat sinks over me.
It’s too much. My constant tightrope act to secure the crown, the poisoning, my forced marriage, the guards from Hyatt, the potential betrayal, and now Irissa’s frigid departure. It’s all too much.
How did things go so wrong?
For a brief moment after our wedding, everything seemed to fall into place. The crown was almost within reach, and the most pressing thing troubling my mind was when we would consummate the marriage. It seems silly, now that I’m toe to toe with battles I never thought I’d face.
It feels like ages have passed since things were easy. Now, everything is piling up around me, the heaviness of it threatening to suffocate me. I almost wish it would. At least that way, I’d get a reprieve from my constant worrying.
Up until now, I’ve only had to worry about my kingdom and my people, but now, the issue of Hyatt has also been thrust onto my plate. How can I help them when I can’t even help Ulleh? If they’re as bad off as Irissa claims, there’s not much time to spare. Without knowing who I’m dealing with, there’s nothing I can do.
