by Kyra Gregory
Mr Sethers’s hands clenched into fists at his sides and Malia thought she saw his nostrils flaring in the candlelight, the shadows on his face growing darker. “I never approved the divorce,” he reiterated.
“You don’t have the right to refuse a directive from the Queen,” Deros said. “You just accept it.” Deros approached the man, causing him to tense and take a step back—Tagert knew better than to trust the cold-blooded killer the Queen’s husband was known to be, even as he did something as non-threatening as hand him a parchment with the Queen’s seal.
“That’s just a copy, of course,” the Queen said. As he scanned the contents of the page, the Queen’s eyes darkened. “Did you really think you could come here and take what you wish?” she asked.
Malia stiffened, recoiling somewhat at the sinister nature of the Queen’s gaze.
A smirk, dark and cruel, crept onto her lips, “You are worse than the pirates you claim to despise,” she said.
Deros shifted where he stood and Riffin glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
“You’ve insulted my family, the entirety of my family, by coming here today and that cannot be forgiven,” she said.
Mr Sethers’s turned his attention to Kara. Instantly, Malia felt the fire inside of her growing, fuelling her to come to her mother’s defence. But her mother could handle herself, or so she thought. Her nostrils flared beneath his gaze. She must’ve envisioned this meeting all her life, every day since the night she fled to the sea to escape his grip. While she must’ve wanted nothing more than to take revenge, the girl he had taken advantage of all those years ago had returned to her eyes. “How cunning you’ve become to elevate yourself to this extent,” he declared.
Queen Sybelle licked her lips, a cheekiness growing in her eyes, “You are bold—I find it unlikely you’re capable of keeping yourself from being a nuisance,” she said.
Mr Sethers’s brows furrowed in confusion as he tore his gaze from her mother and shifted it to the Queen. “What?”
The Queen sighed, leaning back further into her seat—she made confronting a problem look effortless. “You could’ve kept yourself away—kept your head low for the rest of your life,” she said. “Instead, you decided to take a gamble; you decided you would attempt to extort wealth from me and that you would attempt to impose your strength upon Kara just one more time.”
“That—”
“Did you think me so weak?” the Queen asked, cutting him off before he could stutter a response. “Or did you hope you could blackmail Kara and her daughter with claims of illegitimacy?”
His mouth opened to speak, only not a single word was uttered.
Riffin and Deros took a step forward and, in an instant, Riffin seized him from behind and Deros withdrew his sword. A breath hitched in the back of Malia’s throat as she gasped, clapping her hands over her mouth in her efforts to stifle it. Before he could so much as try to protest, Deros stabbed him between the ribs, his sword tilted upwards, just enough for the tip of his blade to pierce his heart.
He withdrew it briskly and stepped back in time to avoid the body as it fell to the ground, staining the stone floors with blood. Malia gasped as the body hit the floor with a thud, her eyes wide as she took in the sight of the lifeless form.
Returning to her, Riffin placed a hand on the small of her back, drawing her into his side and pressing a kiss to the top of her head in his gentle attempt to quell her unease. Shivering against the sudden cold that washed over her, Malia’s eyes darted around for her mother.
Queen Sybelle placed her hand over Kara’s, prompting her to tear her eyes from the sight and lay them on the Queen beside her. “Seventeen years ago, I promised to protect your family from him,” she said, “and I certainly wasn’t about to go back on that promise now.” She smiled warmly and, finding her friend still stunned, kissed the back of her fingers in her effort to soothe her.
Deros made his way up the steps and stood between the two thrones, extending a helping hand to each of the two women before escorting them both down.
Malia rushed to her mother and, without saying another word, wrapped her arms around her neck in a tight embrace. Her mother was rigid in her embrace before she wrapped her arms around her. They both breathed short sighs of relief, though Malia reckoned they were for remarkably different reasons.
Riffin walked beside his mother to the door, out of earshot. She cast her gaze downwards, a look of some kind of regret in her eyes. “You can go your whole life insisting on what you will do when faced with a particular challenge, but nothing will be more telling than the moment itself,” she declared.
“Did you know?” he asked. “Did you know where he was and what he was doing?”
“He had a loud mouth,” she replied in a whisper. “It was not difficult to find him. As much as I may have wished to deal with him sooner, save us all this mess, I preferred to let the man challenge me.”
Riffin smirked. He couldn’t deny it; there was more satisfaction in this than knowing that an assassin had been sent to end him. “What if he told people what he was going to do?” he asked. “They would know that he came to see you and never returned.”
His mother smirked, “Then I suppose they will remember not to challenge me the same way he did,” she said. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye in a manner that was a warning in and of itself—now wasn’t the time to challenge her, not when her actions facilitated their marriage.
Riffin bit his tongue as Malia and Kara got closer. Queen Sybelle paid a short glance over her shoulder before the doors could be opened. “If anybody asks, we were discussing the upcoming marriage,” she said.
As each of them nodded, Deros took Sybelle by the arm and left the throne room, smiling and laughing, betraying nothing of what had occurred behind the closed doors.
“How is your mother?” Riffin asked, watching as she disappeared down the corridor, following the Queen and her husband.
“She’s fine,” she replied in a whisper. “A little bit shaken but, otherwise, fine,” she said.
“She will feel better once she is with your father,” he whispered. If there was anything Riffin knew, it was that Jared and Kara meant the world to each other. There was nothing they hadn’t endured in their pursuit of love and happiness. The thought that a man would make an attempt to ruin it all angered him beyond reason. “And you?” he asked. “How are you?”
She smiled softly, leaning into him as she shook her head, “I am fine,” she said. “Relieved, above all, that your mother has dealt with the matter.”
“My mother gave me her word,” he said. “She gave us her word. This marriage will happen so long as it’s what we want.”
“And do you?” she asked. She couldn’t help casting a glance over her shoulder—towards the room where everything could’ve fallen apart. “After all that just happened?”
Riffin smirked, “That changes nothing,” he said. “My hand in it should be enough to show you that.”
She pursed her lips together, nodding, “I worried that—”
“You have nothing to be worried about,” Riffin said. He leaned in slowly, brushing the tip of his nose against hers, their breath mingling before their lips met. “The night is young. Let’s make the most of what is left.”
She smiled, nodding. She placed her hand in his, feeling his fingers squeeze around hers before he led her back into the ballroom.
The music was upbeat and festive, nothing that could allude to the dark happenings inside the palace that night. As quickly as it had occurred, it disappeared from thought as Riffin pulled Malia closer. Her fingers tightened around his, a spark of excitement igniting inside her chest. “Will you dance with me?” she asked.
Riffin blinked in surprise at the sound of the question. Although he didn’t despise dancing, he didn’t quite enjoy it either. One glance from her, however, warmed him. He kissed the back of her fingers and then drew her out onto the dance floor.
Their presence there, da
ncing in the centre of the room, caught everybody’s attention. There were whispers, remarks towards the couple, as the nobles spectated. In a matter of moments, they took their cue and joined them out on the dance floor, couples pairing off as the music became even more lively.
There was truth in all of his mother’s teachings, Riffin thought. How easily the nobles could be distracted from potential troubles, if only they were concealed well and enough distractions applied. All he hoped, watching his mother from the corner of his eye, that he, too, was not distracted by the Queen’s actions.
Chapter 10
THE HEELS OF RIFFIN’S boots clicked along the cobblestone pathway as he made his way through the Capital’s gardens. Running his fingers through his hair, a familiar flush of frustration growing in his cheeks, he sighed as he searched the grounds for his future wife. The sound of steel-tipped arrows piercing wooden targets brought him some comfort as he got closer. He came to a stop and allowed himself to take in the sight of her, poised elegantly, eyeing the target as she pulled back on the bowstring. She released the string from her fingers with the sound of a hard ‘thwang’ filling the air.
“The Queen has summoned us,” Riffin declared, erasing the smile from her face as she turned to him.
“What about?” she asked.
He wished he could put her mind at rest and tell her it was something small and trivial but, the truth of the matter was, he was rarely told what anything was about when he was summoned. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, “I don’t know,” he said.
Without another word, she handed her bow to the guard that escorted her there before making her way towards him. “Let’s go then,” she whispered.
Subtle as it may have been, her uncertainty and apprehension was clear in her voice. He could understand it—relate to it even. Ever since their engagement—ever since the killing of Tagert Sethers—the momentary fear of a setback had instilled a feeling in him that put him on edge. It shouldn’t have been new; his father had raised him to know that everything is fleeting, that there is no rest, that there is no break from politics and from strategising.
None of that was new. The concept wasn’t new. He had been warned. What he had not known, however, was how much his mother knew. How aware she was. If she had known all along that Tagert Sethers was alive and well, and had the power to declare Malia illegitimate, why had she not done something about it sooner? Why had she risked keeping a man like him alive?
The answers to those questions scared him more than the questions themselves. His father had told him, time and again, not to let anger get the better of him, to bide his time and think things through. What was it that his mother had thought through? Had she considered that her allies would become a problem? Did she fear the idea that he would be moved to marry Malia? Had she seen Tagert as her solution to her problems, had he pushed for this marriage?
It was this uncertainty, this unease, that he made his way to the throne room with. Years of tutoring and years of listening to his father’s stories all meant nothing when he realised, his mother was a mystery to him, and there was no discerning her intentions, despite his efforts.
Riffin squeezed Malia’s hand in his, bringing it up to his lips for a moment. As the doors opened, their hands separated and they made their way inside.
Bowing and curtseying, the two shifted their weight with unease in the presence of the Queen. Seated at her marble-topped table, she looked down at a parchment in her hands, overlooked by her husband as he stood behind her, leaning against the back of her chair.
“You summoned us?” Riffin asked.
Queen Sybelle nodded and hummed in agreement, still captivated by the words on the page she was reading. “I’ve made a decision,” she said.
Riffin swallowed the lump that had formed in the back of his throat. He knew the fear that she would put a stop to this marriage was unfounded—the execution of Tagert Sethers had done everything to solidify his faith that she would see this through.
“The viewing of the consummation won’t happen,” she said. Surprise struck them both and he had no doubt that it showed on their faces. Before either of them could so much as open their mouths to speak, she continued, “Malia is not of royal blood—no alliance rests on this marriage and, thus, viewing consummation for the purpose of certainty won’t be necessary.”
Riffin looked to Malia, finding her hands clenching into fists around the fabric of her skirt. “Did my mother ask you to do this?” she asked.
Queen Sybelle lifted her gaze to her sharply. “The tradition—cold and cruel—is unnecessary in the majority of cases,” she said. “I hope that, by forgoing the practice where possible, this tradition will die out over time.”
The two of them pursed their lips and bowed their heads, saying nothing else when faced with her bluntness.
Queen Sybelle returned her gaze to her work, concluding, “Unless you have anything else to say, that will be all.”
They bowed again and left. Malia said nothing as they made their way down the corridor. Like an arrow, unwavering from its path, she went to her room and Riffin followed diligently, knowing that she knew something that he didn’t.
“My mother pushed for this,” Malia declared, entering the room. She waved Aylee off, dismissing her with a quick flick of her wrist, a thing that took Riffin by surprise. She commanded the room, a mixture of some kind of anger and hurt in her eyes, much like his mother did.
“How can you be so sure?” he asked, maintaining a calmer tone.
Malia shrugged her shoulders and moved to stand beside the balcony doors, casting her gaze elsewhere. “I just know it,” she said, tautly. “This thing with Tagert… It’s frightened her,” she said. “She worries we might follow the same path she did and she’s trying to make it as different as possible.”
Riffin smirked, “This is a good thing she’s argued for,” he said.
Malia shrugged and snapped her gaze in his direction, “Is it really?” she asked. “Because, I think, all it has done is given the nobles incentive to claim that I’m not right for you—or for this.” This, being her life as the wife of a future King. If they undermined her now, that certainly wasn’t going to change the second she became Queen.
“You cannot care for what the nobles think,” he argued, resisting rolling his eyes at the notion. “They don’t make the decisions—not in this.”
Malia pursed her lips together, “They will claim that if I cannot even cope with simple traditions, I won’t be able to cope with the difficulties that come with being the wife of a King.”
Riffin sighed. Taking quick steps towards her, he placed his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. The blaze in her eyes slowly dimmed, leaving a semblance of frustration flickering in the bright blue depths. “If you care for what they think, and it would seem there’s no arguing with you to do otherwise,” he said, “then use it to your advantage.”
Her brows furrowed together. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Riffin’s smirk grew on his lips, a feeling of triumph growing in his chest, “Do as my mother had done when she was our age,” he said. “Let us allude to our weaknesses, to our uncertainties and fear in power, and then let us show them the truth. Let us show them that they were wrong, that there is more to us and that what we have portrayed to them is not who we are.”
Malia smiled softly, shaking her head, “We don’t have the same power your mother did,” she whispered. “We don’t have the power to do what she has done.”
“We will,” he said. “One day.” As she went to pull away, to shake her head and dismiss him, he took her face gently in his hands and brought her to meet his gaze, “One day, we will have them regret their lack of faith in us.”
Shifting her weight a little, Malia pursed her lips together and nodded. What fear, what anger, had once resided in her eyes, was replaced with some kind of confidence, a confidence in him, in his words, and in his plans.
His mother had gone her enti
re life, controlling the narrative to the stories that were told about her, manipulating them to her advantage. Why could he not do the same?
***
“Well,” Thane started, “that’s one less ludicrous tradition.”
Riffin smirked, pouring himself a drink, “One I cannot help but be thrilled about,” he said. “Here I thought I was going to have to convince Malia out of arguing to go through with it.”
Stood on the balcony, embracing the sensation of the light breeze against his skin, Thane puffed out his cheeks. “I can’t see how they do it,” he murmured. “All of them—sitting through that, watching.” He feigned a slight shiver, shaking his head.
Riffin scoffed, glaring at him out of the corner of his eye, “Well, I’m glad I didn’t come to you for support,” he declared.
Thane chuckled, hanging his head, “I’d have kept tight-lipped about my reservations,” he said. “You need to do what you need to do,” he added. “I’ve always supported that.”
Riffin turned his back on the view, running his fingers through his hair as he stared into his cup, marvelling at the ripples in its contents.
As his cheeks began to burn, the silence falling between them, he felt Thane’s eyes on him. “For a man who just got out of the most awkward of practices, you don’t look very relieved,” he said.
“I am relieved,” he said. Absent any real conviction in his tone, Thane raised his brows at him, his stare growing more intense. He felt himself beginning to burn, a hot flush working its way up his back and neck, unable to be soothed even by the cool breeze. He shifted his feet, lifting his cup to his lips for a sip of liquid courage. “I thought something...political being made of it would provide an excuse,” he said.
A short smirk tugged at Thane’s lips, “An excuse?” he asked.
