The hand that held his cup trembled, and the liquid sloshed over the rim. Her grandfather’s carved face swam beneath the ale now pooled on the wooden table.
“Father—” Margaret began, and then she paused.
“What is it, poppet?”
“I’ve heard something, and I would know if it were truth or just the wagging of tongues.”
A page entered the dining room and paused at King Leon’s side. Her father nodded at Margaret without looking up from the note the page held. “Go on, ask your question.”
“Well, it’s about—”
“Damn the Dozen.”
Margaret flinched.
“She returned alone?” he asked the page.
“I-I don’t know, Your Majesty. I mean, I think so. That’s what the captain said.”
King Leon’s chair scraped against the stone floor and tumbled over as he stood. “I’m sorry, poppet. We’ll have to talk later. This needs my immediate attention.” Her father still held the knife in his hand, his apple forgotten, and he tossed it on the table. The blade skittered through the ale, painting a macabre scene across her grandfather’s face.
“But—”
He passed through the archway before she could finish her sentence and left Margaret alone with a single servant. Margaret sent the girl away with the wave of a hand.
“Damn,” she muttered and felt her cheeks grow hot with the utterance of such a word. She didn’t feel any better having said it either. Instead Margaret seized the knife from the table and stabbed the leftover apple slices.
There are rumors, Father. I know better than to listen to gossip, but the things they say… Instead of her prince’s perfect face, the features in her mind twisted until his mouth snarled and his eyes flashed his anger. She could imagine it: those hands around her neck, those eyes watching as life fled her body, and his voice speaking her father’s words.
"The treaty must be upheld. Too much is riding on it."
Margaret pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her them as the candlelight on the table wavered. She hardly noticed it flicker and sputter before going out, leaving her alone in the dark with the rumors.
King Leon stood for a moment outside the door to his audience chamber. His sepier had returned from her mission alone. She understood the consequences of returning empty handed, yet here she was awaiting him alone.
I can’t see her right now. If I do, I just might kill her. Former captain of his royal guard, Captain Warhammer held the unique position in his kingdom of being the one person he could trust with special tasks, delicate tasks he trusted no one else to complete. Leon sighed and resumed his walk down the hallway. Away from the captain. Away from her failure.
Damn her.
Of course, the moment his brain pictured her, his heart lurched in his chest while his brain cursed her existence. And another part of him wanted to turn right around and burst through the door, to grab her by her scarred shoulders and kiss lips he’d kissed for over a decade. He cursed again, and a page flinched before ducking through a nearby door. King Leon shifted his thoughts to his daughter, but she was no more pleasant to think on than Ida Warhammer.
He did her a disservice. He sighed and held his breath to prevent the cough that fought to erupt from his chest. It was hardly her fault for thinking of her mother at a time like this. Memories that haunted him plagued her as well, and he paced the castle’s hallways, a lost visitor to its walls rather than its ruler.
The horse had wandered with Margaret trapped beneath her mother’s corpse for a long enough time to send Margaret into shock.
One member of the guard, his arm burned and bloody, had stumbled back to the castle. King Leon’s heart had shriveled up in his chest. He had believed the worst. He wanted nothing more than to ride his own horse until the poor beast collapsed in search of his wife and daughter, but as bad luck would have it, Shadian troops attacked at midday. The attack left him at the beginning of the Little War of Three, a war that lasted a full three years and ended only when the Boahim Senate stepped in.
If the Shadians hadn’t attacked, I would have done it. I would have ridden out to find them and probably gotten myself killed in the process. Thank the Thirteen for little favors.
He tried not to think on it too often, but nights like tonight, as his lungs ached and his daughter worried, the memory grabbed hold. Only more ale relinquished its hold on him. It didn’t help that he feared this wedding. King Leon leaned against the chilly stone wall. Could he give his only daughter to a Shadian?
A lifetime of hatred gripped his heart. The generational feud between the two kingdoms didn’t die with the peace treaty, no matter what the Senate thought. Will this marriage even bring us true peace?
He slammed his fist into the stone, and weathered knuckles came away bloody. King Leon ignored the red, his mind reaching back to his father’s time. Never trust a Shadian. Their blood runs black.
“How I miss the old man…”
“Sire?” A servant approached, eyes widening when he spotted the drying blood across his knuckles; King Leon waved him off.
“Leave me.”
As much as the Boahim Senate had wanted the end of the war, the peace treaty wasn’t one he would have signed had he been the man and king he was now. The arranged marriage… the things he’d heard about Prince Bajit.
Rumors reached Leon’s ears, rumors of a psychopathic monster that haunted the Shadian country, preying on young girls and leaving destruction in its wake. A few of the darkest rumors hinted that someone in the royal family
