Chapter 5
Lysara's POV
The words felt like a blow to the stomach.
Killed.
Not lost.
Not taken by fate.
Killed.
My legs went weak and I leaned heavily on the edge of the table with my fingertips gripping the wood. The room spun around me, or it may have been just me.
"You're lying," I said under my breath, although I did not believe those words.
"You do not just say a thing like that and then expect me to take it at face value. Prove it. Prove everything you say, or I swear to God, I'll bring down this castle brick by brick."
Without saying a word, Vaelric laid a fat leather book on the table and opened it up to a page that he pointed out.
"Tarrowbane root," he said as he tapped the ink.
"Requisitioned from the healer's stores three days before you gave birth to your child. No signature of any physician. No information about the one who took it."
Even through my heartache, I felt the healer in me.
I took the book and looked at the page.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
Even more important than that was the fact that the medical notation was all wrong.
No healer in the world would use that kind of notation.
The person who wrote it was trying to disguise the real killer.
An old memory surfaced suddenly.
The disgusting tea.
Before labor had begun, a guard from the dungeons forced me to drink it.
I thought that the taste was caused by the prison air.
Now I remembered something else.
I tried not to.
At first I wanted to refuse.
The guard waited patiently until the last drop was swallowed.
It had been weeks since then.
Now, I could think of nothing else.
"Somebody gave it to me," I stated slowly, the meaning of each word making me sick.
"Somebody with access to the dungeons.
Somebody who controls what I eat.
Somebody wants me to have lost my baby."
As my fingers were resting on the spot where the child used to be,
"Who?" my voice broke at the question.
Vaelric's jaw clenched.
"I know somebody who I suspect."
"But suspicion is not proof."
"I will not point my finger to anybody until I have evidence that no council can dismiss."
"Then give me a name at least."
"No."
After a long silence, he added quietly,
"The dosage was not supposed to kill only the child."
I stared at him.
"The dose in the food you received should have done you in long before birth could occur."
I felt ice seep into every bone in my body.
"Then… how did I survive?"
His eyes locked on mine.
"That," he said slowly, "is really the question you should be asking."
Grief slammed into me.
Again.
But this time…
It was uglier.
Sharper.
More cruel.
Not only was my daughter dead.
But someone made sure that she was.
Someone watched me grow my child for months…
Just to make sure that she would never draw a breath.
The image of the guard pushing the tea into my hands looped over and over until it couldn't bear.
I scrubbed my face with my sleeve and forced myself up from my knees.
"What do you want from me?"
"Speak plain."
"I am tired of being led through my own nightmare."
Vaelric watched me for several silent moments.
Then he turned away.
"Forget everything."
"Leave this place."
"Go back to the life left to you."
He started walking toward the exit.
Some invisible cord snapped.
"Stop."
The word was out of my mouth before I even knew I'd spoken.
He halted.
I walked across the room and seized his arm.
"There is no going back."
"If all I can look forward to is revenge… then quit testing me."
For the first time…
A hint of a smile curved the lips of the Lycan King.
"You need the knowledge," he said.
"Of Silvercrest.
Of the council.
Its guards.
Its healers.
The people who once trusted you."
"I know that kingdom better than anyone."
"In exchange…
You shall receive protection.
Resources.
And soon enough…
The truth will be told to all Alphas, Elders, and kingdoms who witnessed your execution."
"Why?"
I asked.
"Why would a Lycan King spend soldiers, gold and lives in rescuing a disgraced Luna that the rest of the world saw fit to forget?"
"What value am I to you?"
As I asked, my gaze swept around the room.
Ancient banners swayed from the tall dark stone walls.
Silver flames glowed without heat.
Symbols decorated the pillars…
Symbols older than any language I could speak.
Older than any document of Silvercrest's history.
This fortresses…
Were built before the Alpha Kingdoms existed.
Something stirred in Vaelric's red eyes.
Pain.
Older than my own.
"Because I know how that feels," he spoke in a whisper,
"To bury someone else
And do nothing till it's too late."
For an instant, his voice seemed to waver.
"My Queen…"
The words slipped out before he could stop himself.
His demeanor instantly toughened.
The walls around him fell back into place.
I wanted to ask him about her.
I knew that he would never tell me.
Vaelric slowly held out his hand to me.
"Now choose, Lysara."
"Silvercrest will think within the hour that I killed their prisoner."
"You won't have any way back after today."
I gazed at his outstretched hand.
When I made the first move towards it—
The doors of the chamber slammed open.
One of Vaelric's officers barged in, drenched in blood.
"My King!"
"We have caught a spy of Silvercrest!"
Following him, some warriors hauled in a captive.
They tore off his hood.
My heart stopped beating.
It was none other than the dungeon guard that had made me drink the tea.
In an instant that he caught sight of me,
Fear flashed across his eyes.
"I did not poison her!"
Silence filled the chamber.
No one…
Had talked of poison.
But just as he was about to say anything more—
The whole castle shook violently.
Trumpets sounded from outside the mountains.
An explosion echoed through the night.
The noise of the fall of the outer wall reverberated inside the palace.
Guards ran past the chamber.
Slowly, Vaelric pulled out his sword.
For the first time since I met him…
The Lycan King seemed scared.
"This isn't Silvercrest," he said.
"They've found us."
