AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I ran through the charges in my mind, and as she said, found little evidence for any besides the ones that hurt the most. The letter had been a confession to wrongdoings and lies without specifics. But I needed my anger to see this though. Needed to know there was no possibility of another future.
“She impersonated you. Took your life and was ready to marry me. It would have been for life, independent of her identity. She almost became Queen of Tal.”
But she had confessed.Only the night before Helia returned to the palace, my voice of reason argued. Part of me had believed there was no way she could have predicted I would mistake her for Helia, but with mind magic…
The real Helia narrowed her eyes, and I stopped myself from fidgeting, though it felt like her magnified eyes could see the hurt boy abandoned again, and the black anger I was unable to release. I was a day away from becoming king, and a king did not throw tantrums. The person I was angry at did not even exist. A true Spirit of Lowtown.
Publicly, I had to pretend like nothing had happened, like she had not gotten under my skin, inside my very Spirit. The world needed to see me marry and it could never beher. This would be the end of us—and if anyone suspected I felt something besides the cold anger I’d shown, even my final desperate move would be for nothing. People were moving in the shadows while the nobles watched like griffons ready to tear into my flesh.
“I’m not the princess you want,” Helia said, echoing my thoughts.
“You’re the only princess,” I retorted, anger finding its way to the surface.
She snorted again and I tried to regain my calm. That was not what any woman deserved to hear, especially not one who had been kidnapped upon entering her future husband’s city.
“I’m agreeing to your outrageous plan to deceive everyone.” Helia drummed the table in consideration. “We don’t marry, but let those puppets out there believe we did until it suits us.”
I emptied the wine glass again. How I would have rejoiced at those words a three-day ago. Anything had seemed possible then. Now, Tempest and hope of happiness would be dead and gone before midday tomorrow. Still, I would pretend to marry to solidify the rule I had planned to abandon.
I could not pinpoint when my priorities changed—while arguing with Tempest and Alexei, when standing against the fire, when trying to similarly stand up to my father? Or was it later over games in a run-down drink hall and on rioting streets? In tunnels under my city or on discarded clothes in a basement? One thing was sure, I was not leaving Tal to the undead and my grandmother’s dark predictions. If only I could stop seeing another woman’s face every time I looked upon my bride.
“So we marry. What in this whole mess convinced you?”
Helia considered me before answering. “I might not have told you everything. While I was unconscious some things drifted in like dreams. I remember Lumi opening up to me—I think she was lonely—and as I was unresponsive maybe she was really talking to herself”—Helia gave me a shrewd look, but didn’t pause—“she didn’t know everything that was going on, and I believe she was being strong-armed into some of it. She really did hate you, hated allof Tal’s upper class, but it was not her idea to send her sister into the palace. She thought you would instantly see through the ruse and kill her, or her sister’s impulsivity would get her killed.
“Lumi said she hadn’t been working for Tal to get out from under the royals’ thumb only to get squashed under someone else’s hand. She wanted Tal to rise up—to demand representation and protection. Lumi fought for equality.”
“She tried to kill me for equality? Did you know she was a death keeper?”
Helia shrugged. If she had talked earlier, would I still have walked into the trap?
“I only knew for sure that she could wake me. I assumed she was a healer with very soft lips—so you weren’t the only one who was tricked by the Komarova sisters.”
Helia finished her own wine and poured us more. What a match we were.
“And if you cannot leave Tal after wearing the crown?”
Her fingers hovered over the table as thoughts I could not read flittered behind too-familiar green eyes. Then she nodded to herself. “Then we figure it out or give it to someone else. As you said previously, by then we’re in charge.”
Despite the situation, my lip twitched. Seemed through this mess, I might have made a friend. No matter who she looked like, who she was not, there were much worse people to be tied to.
“Anything else you overheard?” I said. “Did the sister know where the missing food was or where the undead came from?”Had she been behind the walking dead?
“It was very important that you married someone they could control this year, that’s what she kept saying, though I don’t thinkshe knew why. So, we pretend to marry. Sometimes you must dangle a rat to get the cat. Even the letter from your princess said they would try to stop the wedding.”
Helia’s smile cut like a knife. It washersmile.
Fake, I reminded myself yet again,it had all been a game and I won.I had never felt more like I had lost, but if I believed anything else, I would not be able to play out this final move.
Keeping my face blank, I emptied the replenished glass and wondered what god I had offended.
Tomorrow would come, better or not. The Council had pushed for a quick trial, arguing the longer this went on the more the truth would slip out. The people would not follow a king controlled by a witch, nor a queen they could not believe was real.
Tomorrow held my father’s funeral and my coronation. In Tal, one king was given to the Goddess as another one rose. They had preserved my father’s body long enough.
Vanya and Ivan Gregorious III would be sent off at the same time. One the priestesses would ask the Goddess to embrace, the other to reject, and in my heart, I wished them exchanged.
What would Alexei, who had encouraged me to open to her, say about this? Would he laugh and curse? Would he stand silently by my side? Grin and find a way to fix it all?
