Chapter Five

“It would have been better for you never to wake,” was the first thing I heard, head pounding as grogginess slipped through each inch of my body. My throat burnt and my hand ached, the sharpness of a thousand pins pricking through the skin despite not an inch of metal being near it.

“What did you do?” Rhydian’s face came into focus. A tired look in his eyes as he regarded me.

“I did nothing.”

“Sure, soldier,” he did not flinch as I wanted him to. He reacted in no small way, there was nothing to latch onto nothing to analyse nothing to know, “Had fun pretending to be king, did you?”

I pushed myself up, “Tell me how many did you kill, how many of my people did you-“

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Reigna,” the word was liquid, seeping into my mind a word I heard before. An ancient word.

“Too many to count,”

“If that’s what you want to believe,”

I stood ready to fight once more, “How many times,” he sighed. As he easily enclosed his fist around mine, “Will you try and fail?”

“Fail? I am not the one gallivanting around as king. Serving, a,” I searched for the word, “And insolent child.”

“The King is the same age as me,” and for a second, I felt hysteria take over, a sharp laugh ripping from my throat, as I keeled over my hand slipping from his as I realised the absurdity of it all.

Soon the laughter devolved into tears, and I crumbled, pulling into myself. Pressing fingers against the dried blood, it had changed the texture of the once smooth fabric, coarse and unwanted.

Blood of people I had known.

And people I had killed to protect my own.

“That,” I ground out, “Is what you decide to focus on. That you are the same age? That King is unhinged,”

“Perhaps, but I have been sworn to him.”

“What kind of king-“

“I don’t have answers to your questions. I am not here for that. What befalls you is none of my concern. I have more important issues to spend my time with, rather than trying to keep a child alive.”

“A child,” my throat croaked after the tears, “The girl-queen your king decided to attack and you followed. You think I am still a child after everything I have seen. After signing my life away. Do not for one second belittle me like that.”

I stood straighter, “Remember the scratches on the face the next time you underestimate me.”

“Remember the poison on your hand the next time the King calls for you.”

“He’s immune,” I seethed.

“You misread sentences so well, it must be a talent.”

“Remember the consequences,” my eyes met his, a challenge in my gaze, “That’s what you mean. Isn’t it?”

I stepped forward, a mere inch forward but it was enough to assert myself, “And what are those consequences Rhydian Koen?”

His lip curled into a snarl, as thought he was to spout the most hateful of words just to be punctuated by a sardonic grin at the end. But the snarl faded, a distracted look fell upon him, and for a moment he stared, not at me, not at anything in the room, just stared, a figment of something I could not see, though it engulfed him.

He snapped out of the trance quickly, his hands pressed behind his back, the same disinterested expression back in it’s place, even though I had seen him falter. For just a moment, but it had been enough to remind me that even he was fallible.

“You do not want to know Adelaide.”

“Better to know,” was my retort, “Then to live in the dark.”

“I have lived in the dark, and I know it is better than the fantasy you have lived.”

“Fantasy?” My voice was incredulous, higher than it needed to be, so incredibly breakable, and to him I knew I looked inexperienced. Naïve to the point of idiocy, “I have lived no fantasy.”

“Eighteen years,” he responded, his stare unyielding, I saw the sliver of grey shot through the chasm of his eyes, too blue to be called green, and too green to be given the name blue, “You lived in comfort. With every whim of yours answered. You have only known what it means to suffer for mere weeks, I have known suffering for a lifetime.”

“Suffering as s pseudo-king, getting to roam around like you are worth more than anyone else. Killing because you can, not because the Ardourians ever did anything to you. Do not pretend to know me, Rhydian, you do not know how I have suffered.”

He leaned forward, menace in his eyes, that almost made me stumble, but I felt the burning need to stay afloat in this drowning world, “And you will suffer more, at the hands of a King that knows nothing of the word no.”

I shuddered, the look of Idris Woevern as I had fallen, the lust in those eyes, the calling me as a prize and nothing more.

I stared open mouthed at Rhydian, I had thought for a moment that he took pleasure in the idea of me suffering even more. That he would gladly stand by and watch, as I was crushed by the King who was so conniving that he had convinced the world that another was him, but how had it come to be that way?

The thought struck me, “How many times have they tried to kill you thinking that you were him?”

His breath caught for a moment, an almost inaudible difference, but I had seen the slow rise and fall of his Adam’s apple, the locked jaw, the flicker of momentary confusion, “The better question is how many times they have failed to kill me.”

“Maybe I,” I ground out, lurching forward, but purposefully leaving a centimetre’s gap between us, “Will be the first.”

His grin was alive, moving across his face like a serpent, unlocking it’s jaw to feast upon the already paralyzed victim. It stayed there, digging into his cheek, sharp teeth bared in a challenge, I did not know if I should have accepted, “Is that a promise?”

The words clattered from that sharp mouth and my response was lodged in the back of my throat, unable to be spoken into existence as the door slammed against the wall and Rhydian stood straight to attention.

“My isn’t this fun, the Shadow King, and the Fallen Queen,” his voice was patronising to say the least but not in a way that you would forgive, the sort of patronising that was not ignorance but intentional.

“Fallen Queen, would suggest I am no longer a Queen,” I tried not to hiss the words. Rhydian’s own words ringing in my mind, consequences were real in a kingdom I did not know. I was alone completely and utterly.

“Yes, well Adelaide, you can remain a Queen, in fact you will remain a Queen, just not of Ardour,” He ignored Rhydian completely, standing between us, so he was closest to me. I tried not to recoil knowing in some sick way he would take satisfaction from that.

I did not want to decipher his words. Did not want to know what he meant, but knew he would happily divulge. Idris Woevern was a man who loved the echo of his own voice, he latched onto silence, breaking it with hubris unmatched to any other man.

He knew not of repercussions, but for every action there would be recompense. I would make sure of it.

“Ardour will always be my home, my country. I am it’s Queen no matter what you say,” a cold look draped itself over previously chipper eyes. The sudden change was subtle yet glaring to anyone who searched for it.

Anger laced his next words, “Everything I say matters. Especially in regard to you Adelaide Armen. Have you not realised that your life is no longer your own, it is mine.”

A petulant child was what he was.

And I almost said that to his face, had Rhydian not spoken, that cool voice, slicing through the tension, a wayward peacemaker, “She is young, my liege. She is naïve and foolish,” my face heated, “She does not know the ways of a real court.”

I almost lunged at him again, a habit that had almost become second nature, but his solemn glare halted my words, “She does not understand your power, your sway. She is sheltered,”

“Perhaps you’re right Koen, she is after all the perfect prize. The envy of all the Kingdoms you are Adelaide. All the Kings had vied for your hand in marriage. But your father would not allow it.”

The word father shattered something deep within me, “My father-“ my voice wavered, “Was a better King that you will ever be. He cared for his people. He didn’t hide away-“

I did not even see his hand lurch towards me. I felt the cool grip on my arm roughly pulling me forward, I stumbled and fell as his fingers pressed so deftly against my skin that I could feel the bruises fester.

“Let go of me.” I ground out, my voice dangerously low, but it did nothing to daunt the fire in his eyes. That pure malice that was stoked by the smallest of infringements.

“Sire,” Rhydian’s voice was lost in the hiss of his Kings.

“You do not know what you say Adelaide. I will forgive you once, but never again. You submit to your King. Or you will learn what happens to the disobedient.”

I bared my teeth at him, “I will never obey you. And you will never break me.”

“Is that a challenge, dear Adelaide?”

Familiar words, but with entirely different meanings. There was a hint of laughter in Rhydian’s voice when he had said it and I easily asserted that it was more than a challenge, it was a promise.

But with that sickening grin forced to be so close to me, I could not say the words that begged to be released.

“Now you decide to be quiet, perhaps you won’t be too difficult to break in,” My stomach turned over and I could no longer breathe, I did not care for consequences, I twisted from his grip, turning away from him and shoving my back as hard as I could in to his frame.

It was not enough to knock him over but it was enough to allow my wrist free.

I searched the room, quick to reach for anything other than a sword. I saw a candle holder, silver and sharp enough to be a weapon. I would go down fighting, I would die with at least a weapon in my hand.

His face twisted as he watched me knock the stub of wax from the silver, “Touch me again, and I’ll kill you.”

Insidious laughter filled the room, he was nimble, his grin predatory as he shook his wrist, a slight patch of red had bloomed, and I wished for it to bruise.

“Treason is a punishable offence, by death mind you, dear Adelaide,” I hated the saccharine sweetness of a tone meant only for destruction a dichotomy of feelings. Idris was the type of boy who girls would fawn over, the delicacy of a smile that hid the devil beneath.

His gaze shifted to Rhydian who stood, stoic as ever, his expression giving nothing away, “Are you not going to assist me soldier?”

“You need no assistance, Sire,” and for a second I could have sworn there was a slight dip in the faint line of his lips, a flash of humour so easily concealed, “She won’t get far in trying to kill you.”

I’d show him, “Just watch me.”

“This,” the king laughed, raising his hands, in mock surrender, “Is not how I imagined my wife to behave.”

Ice filled my veins, the metal spokes of the candle holder dug into my palms, as I saw red, “I am no,” my words faltered the room’s temperature seemed to increase. I felt the after effects of the poison, pure adrenaline had been forcing me to remain awake, but such a revelation combined with fatigue was fatal.

“She’s going to be sick,” Rhydian’s muffled voice wafted over to me.

“I’m not, I’m just-“

“Adelaide, my dear, place the candle down and I can help you,” there was something cruel about how soft his voice could be. The potential of kindness was so much more harrowing that the respite in his every move. Someone who could be so much more, or maybe that was what was most deceiving about pretty boys. They could do such dangerous things.

My head swam, and my hands were too clammy to hold onto the piece of metal, it slipped from my fingers clattering to the floor.

And he read that as submission, “Good. Now sit and listen,”

I was no animal to be ordered around.

“I would sit down, Adelaide, otherwise you’re going to fall to the ground. It’s better to choose to sit.”

“See,” Idris grinned, “Even Koen can speak sense. Father did choose so well who was to be my companion.”

There it was, a flash of pure hatred that the most complacent of kings would ignore, but I could see it so quickly in Rhydian’s eyes. Maybe it was a pure hope that made me see it but even so a jaw so set in stone, a feathered muscle was enough to tell me that Rhydian was less than willing.

“And if I sit, what will you do to me. You said you would only forgive me once,” Idris took that as an admission that I was ready to listen to him. It appeared nuance was not one of his learned skills.

“Forgiveness is plentiful in a King that is in a good mood,” his lopsided grin revealed a divot in his skin, too shallow to be called a dimple, but there, “And there a good tidings. I am to finally have my Queen.”