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After her death, though, my father no longer saw me as a daughter, but the next in line to his succession. He rarely spoke to me but when he did, it was always to educate me in the ways of politics and dealing with our court. He would easily get frustrated with me, saying my womanhood made me soft and that if I were to rule, I had to be made of much harder ice than the one I possessed. There was hardly ever a time where I said or did the right thing in his eyes.
Still, for years I tried to mold myself to become the daughter he wanted me to be. But nothing ever felt like enough. He was the only parent I had, and I loved him dearly, yet somehow to him, I never quite measured up to his expectations. Knowing my father had died disappointed in me was a cut that I have yet to heal from.
But all of that didn’t make him a tyrant in my eyes.
Just a man with high expectations.
A man who knew his daughter would be queen someday and needed her to be prepared.
To me, that had been his new way of showing me that he loved me.
And that had been enough.
So to hear Levi call him a monster sets my teeth on edge.
“You’re still loyal to him?” Levi scoffs. “He’s rotting away in the dirt, but you remain loyal.”
“He was my father.”
“He was a cunt.”
I try to break free from his hold but Levi isn’t having it.
“No!” he shouts while I keep trying to wrestle free. “You wanted to know what happened and by the gods, you’ll hear me tell it to you,” he yells, holding the nape of my neck forcibly, only to ease his grip a second later when his gaze lands on his fingermark around my throat.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers sullenly, taking the wind out of my sails. “Please, Kat. Just… listen.”
I try to calm myself down as best I can, considering that I’m also invested in what Levi has to tell me. It might hold the answer as to why he took his army north.
Once he’s sure I have cooled down, he continues with his story.
“As I was saying.” He lets out an exaggerated exhale. “After your mother died, Orville needed something or someone to lash out at. And when the idea was whispered in his ear that maybe the late queen didn’t die of natural causes, but from poison, that was all the excuse he needed to seek out his revenge on us.”
“Poison?” I parrot, incredulous. “My mother wasn’t poisoned. The healers said it was some kind of influenza that got into her lungs and made them stop working.”
“Aye, I’m well aware. But there are some herbs that are found in the earth that can make the healthiest of persons allergic to its substance. Allergic enough to contaminate a person’s airway and close it shut.”
I tilt my head to the side to stare into his eyes.
“There is no such herb or flower in the north,” I tell him.
In fact, there isn’t much that does grow in my kingdom, save for our northern blue roses. They are the only things that seem to bloom in such a harsh environment, making them one of our most treasured emblems.
“No,” Levi begins to say, “but there is one that is known to bloom outside of the north. A fact that your father knew all too well. He used that knowledge against us, and ordered us to turn against each other to find out the culprit behind his wife’s death. When neither kingdom was able to oblige him, he turned on us all.”
“How?” I ask hesitantly, sensing I’m not going to like his answer.
“If the north lost a queen, then so should the other kingdoms under his rule.”
My throat begins to clog at his words.
“You mean—”
“I mean he demanded that all three kingdoms hand over their queens to him, or suffer the penalty of death.”
My gaze flits away from Levi and onto the statue in front of us of King Krystiyan and Queen Daryna of Thezmaer.
I’m accosted by a myriad of memories of them laughing together, whispering in each other’s ears, while they got lost in each other’s eyes. The way they would hold each other’s hands anywhere they went.
