The Heir Boxed Set

by Kyra Gregory

  Her shoulders dropped, a sigh of relief escaping her, “Thank you,” she said.

  Deros wanted no thanks, dragging himself out of his seat and walking away.

  The return to the Lionessan Capital wasn’t long enough to provide her with all the time she needed to prepare herself for what was to come. Arriving in the evening, making her way up the steps and through the corridors, Riffin met her there with an unmistakable anger in his eyes. She held her head up high, offering him a gentle smile in public before they entered their chambers together for what would be a private argument.

  “Where have you been?” he growled.

  Malia tugged at the shawl around her shoulders, laying it across the nearest couch. “Boardeck Castle,” she said.

  Riffin’s brows furrowed together, his features twisted in disgust and confusion, “I beg your pardon?”

  “I went to visit your father,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I thought I could convince him to return home.”

  He scoffed almost immediately, shaking his head, “Where my sister—his own daughter—had failed, you thought you could succeed?”

  Malia shot a glare in his direction and, to some extent, he stood down, recognising his insinuation. She shrugged, “I went on behalf of our children,” she said. “This matter with the Alliance Council has gotten out of hand. I thought we could use some additional help and I thought, for our heirs, he would return.”

  “And he wouldn’t,” he said, matter-of-factly, visibly unsurprised.

  Cocking her head to one side, she shifted, “Well, no,” she started, “but that’s not all I asked for.” Riffin raised a brow at her, waiting for her to elaborate. “I asked him if he would keep the children. He accepted, so long as you did.”

  “And why would I accept that?” he asked.

  She advanced towards him, eyes blazing now, “Because you know as well as I do that they will be next,” she said. “The Alliance Council has already made demands of your sister. Who’s to say our children won’t be next?”

  He shook his head, smirking, “With a marriage alliance?” he asked. “This will be resolved long before such a thing could ever happen!”

  “How can you be so sure?” she asked, looking him up and down. “From where I’m standing, we’re no closer to finding out who is involved, or how we can stop them!”

  He closed what remained of the gap between them, placing his hands on her shoulders and lowering himself to her height. “Perhaps they will make a demand,” he said. “That, fifteen years from now, our children would be married to whomever the Alliance Council chooses,” he said, “but I will have this resolved long before any other marriage can come into effect. Betrothals needn’t necessarily end in marriage. Whatever we may agree to now, this will be resolved long before our daughters can come of age.”

  She laughed, both out of incredulousness and desperation, “You sound so certain,” she said. “But I’m preparing for the uncertainty—I’m preparing for the worst.”

  Riffin ran his fingers through her hair, a tender smile growing on his lips, “So am I,” he whispered. “But no amount of preparation is worth ripping this family apart.” Her shoulders trembled and she bowed her head, unable to take the weight of their concerns any longer. All her efforts, well-intentioned as they might have been, were for nothing. “We’re stronger together,” he said. “This whole family is stronger together.”

  She grabbed both his hands, threading their fingers together and kissing the back of his knuckles. “Your father is a part of that family. You should go and speak to him,” she said. He sighed, raking his fingers through his hair and shaking his head. “Do what you can to bring him home,” she persisted. “Perhaps you and I don’t need him for the moment but our children will.”

  Riffin paused and the silence fell between them. He’d meant to leave his father to his own grief, to leave him to return when he was ready. But nothing had changed, the months had passed and he never returned. Everyone had done their part to bring him home—everyone except for him. It was time to change that. “I will,” he said. Slowly, he drew her into his chest, perching his cheek atop her head as his arms enveloped her in a tight embrace. “I was so worried,” he whispered. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  She clung to his back, allowing her fingers to sink into the fabric of his loose shirt. She had been worried too.

  The last journey she’d taken by herself, leaving the palace, she’d ended up in the hands of rebels, and that was when she was just a Princess—she feared what would’ve been done to her as Queen.

  But she was home now, and Queen Sybelle had been right. They were stronger together, united under one roof, and it became abundantly clear that this was the only way they were going to survive the challenges ahead.

  Chapter 19

  RIFFIN’S ARRIVAL TO BOARDECK Castle came without any fanfare. His carriage, though guarded, was unassuming as it travelled through the villages and, stopping at the Castle, he soon realised the inhabitants there were equally scarce and unimpressed as to the arrival of the King. Nobody was to know he was there, nor were they to know of his intentions. He never announced his arrival in advance, certainly not to his father, fearing he would arrive to find the man had moved elsewhere in his efforts to escape him. His father wasn’t quite a coward, but he was certainly vindictive, having no qualms about punishing Riffin for his efforts to close the space made between them.

  A guard, a face he’d seen before, greeted him at the door and allowed him inside. There, there wasn’t another soul to be seen for minutes. He was led to the dining hall, a room normally meant to serve the hundred or so soldiers that the Castle would hold at times of war, and a room that looked as though it hadn’t been at all updated to represent the noble guest it now held in its stead.

  The long table, spanning from one end of the room to the other, was mostly shrouded in darkness. The only light allowed to it, a golden glow from a few candles, sat in the middle of the table, illuminating his father’s features and plate as he dined on his supper of meat and vegetables. While less extravagant than what he would normally dine on in the palace, the meals he afforded himself were more than what most people could afford. Even so, dining was no longer an occasion, no longer a social event, it was purely a task, one to provide him with just enough sustenance to keep him alive.

  Breathing out his uneasiness, he made his way further into the room, noting the sound of the door clicking shut behind him as he was left to have a private audience with his father.

  The man paid him little attention, continuing to eat without any form of greeting. Finishing a mouthful, he sighed and, for a moment, it was just about the only recognition Riffin seemed to get. “Did your father treat you to leave the safety of the palace in times of war?” he asked, never looking up from his food.

  Riffin threw out his coat, taking a seat across from him. “My father taught me plenty,” he said, never skipping a beat. “Diplomacy only one of the many lessons I had the honour of receiving from him.”

  With his jaw tense, Deros glanced up at him from beneath his lashes, “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Riffin licked his lips, considering his words carefully. “I’ve come to repair what’s been broken,” he said, speaking in a whisper. “I’ve come to beg for forgiveness.”

  His father smirked, “And what is it you suppose requires forgiveness?” he asked.

  Riffin shrugged, “For disobeying orders. For going against my mother’s instructions. For falling in love. For being a coward. For not fighting harder. For whatever it is you think makes me responsible for your grief,” he said, speaking through gritted teeth. His father shot to his feet, silverware clattering together as he dropped his fork and knife, the guiltless insinuation in the word ‘think’ fuelling the heated response.

  Riffin sat back, unfazed by the uncontrollable anger and hurt blazing in his father’s eyes. “You need to come home,” he said. “Whatever it takes, you need to come home—for me, for
my wife, for my children, for our kingdoms.”

  “I won’t,” he said, a crack in his voice. “I cannot.”

  Riffin leaned forward once more, resting against the table, “I will do whatever it takes,” he said. “I will do whatever it takes to see you through this!”

  His father spun around, the grief he had hidden beneath his anger returning to the surface. His eyes, welling with tears to mist the blazing rage inside of him, turned to meet his wholeheartedly, no longer avoiding him. It revealed to him everything—the grief was so much deeper than Riffin was willing to accept.

  Having slammed his hand against the table, objects clattering together once more, his father seized the knife, handing it to him, “Cut out your heart then!” he demanded. “Cut out your heart and hand it to me! Perhaps then you’ll understand the extent of my loss! Perhaps then you’ll understand what it means to have your heart ripped from you—to walk this world without it! That is the diplomacy I taught you!”

  Riffin’s eyes burned with the sting of tears, the lump of emotion forming in the back of his throat rendering him incapable of saying a word. His father threw the knife down, sending it clattering against the plate.

  Riffin rose, stepping onto his seat without another thought, walking across the table before stepping down onto the other side in one swift motion. He snatched the knife from the table, pulling aside his coat to expose the thin shirt beneath without an ounce of hesitation.

  His father’s amber eyes stared at him, looking into his own intense gaze as Riffin placed the tip of the knife to his chest. He pierced his flesh without a word or a whimper, the crimson liquid blossoming across the linen.

  In a heartbeat, his father seized the hilt of the blade with both his hands. A breath caught in the back of his throat, his shoulders wracked with sobs as he pressed his forehead to the back of his hands as did their best to draw the knife away. With his shaking hands white with strain, his hot tears slipped between his fingers, easing both of their grips around the blade. The steel fell to the floor and Riffin wrapped his arms around his father’s trembling shoulders, burying his face in his neck. “All I ever wanted was to make you proud,” he told him, an undeniable crack in his own voice.

  Without another word, his father’s hands clung to him, burying his face in his neck as fingers slipped into his hair.

  He did. Although his grief would never allow him to admit it, he did.

  Chapter 20

  SPRAWLING HIMSELF OUT ACROSS one of his father’s dusty couches, he cast his gaze towards the fire. His father sat on a stool beside it, staring into the flames as though they were somehow the most interesting thing in the world. Tired, a shell of the man he once knew him to be, Riffin didn’t have to dwell on how much time his father must’ve spent this way. Swimming in his own thoughts, his eyes glistening with memories of the past, he couldn’t begin to imagine what it must’ve been like in his own head, or what it was his heart endured at the time. He needn’t wonder how difficult so much as existing must’ve been for him without the woman he loved. Tearing himself away from the home they shared together was, perhaps, a start, but nothing could seize the memories from him. Just looking at him, hunched beside the fire, Riffin half expected his mother to join them soon. She would walk up beside him, place her hands on the hunch of his back before moving to wrap her arms around him. Those thoughts couldn’t be ignored—not with the persistence of memory.

  “Whatever the Alliance Council’s next move,” his father said, cutting through his thoughts, “you cannot bow to them.”

  “They make it increasingly difficult,” Riffin said. He rubbed at his eyes, hours worth of travelling and heightened emotions leaving him reeling with exhaustion.

  “They would,” he said, “for that’s the only way they hold their advantage over you.”

  Riffin’s eyes narrowed, staring at the stone ceiling, “The swiftness with which they asked for Neyva to be married... It’s unnerving,” he said.

  “Though perfectly within reason,” he replied, sighing as he rose to his feet.

  Riffin glanced over, brows twitching in confusion, “Why so?” he asked. Although Riffin had gone over absolutely every possibility, it wouldn’t have surprised him to know that his father realised something that he didn’t.

  His father lowered himself in the seat across from him, distance once again placed between them. “Your mother put Neyva in the line of succession, should you have not survived, either in infancy or...”

  Or in his venture to save Malia.

  Riffin rolled onto his side, resting his head on the crook of his arm. “Who would know of this?” he asked.

  He pursed his lips together, propping his head up in his hand, “Who would be explicitly told?” he asked, thinking aloud. “No one but your mother and I would’ve known—perhaps she would’ve confided the possibility to Gyles, but nobody else would’ve been told such a thing.” He cocked his head to one side, clearing his throat, “Now, who could’ve deduced the possibility? Absolutely anyone and everyone.”

  “Even though she was illegitimate?” he asked.

  His father shrugged, “Your mother didn’t care for legitimacy, certainly not personally, neither politically—unless it could be used to her advantage,” he said. “If her kingdoms needed an heir, she would’ve seen to it that one was made ready.”

  “Do you think they’ll use Neyva to take the throne?” he asked, brows twitching together. The possibility had crossed his mind before, though he’d dismissed it, considering Neyva’s blood through their father—Ludorum blood ran through her veins, as did Evradian.

  Again, his father shrugged. “It’s difficult to say,” he said. “You may be safe for as long as you’re agreeable, but, should that change, they will see to it that they have an appropriate alternative.”

  Riffin pulled himself upright, perching his elbows on his knees. “I have three children—all legitimate,” he said. “If they want to take the throne somehow, they’ll have more than just me to contend with.” His father pursed his lips together and a nod of his head had Riffin raking his fingers through his hair before putting his fingers to his mouth. Everything inside of him wanted to ask and, though he knew the response, he did so anyway. “Will you not come home now?” he asked. “We could use you there.”

  His father was slow to reply, though his answer came to Riffin far quicker than that, remaining unchanging. “I cannot,” he said. “It’s not that I won’t,” he ascertained, his voice soft, carrying vulnerability, “it’s that I cannot.”

  Defeated as he was, he knew no offence was meant by it. While his father had removed himself from their home out of anger at first, it was the pain that kept him at a distance now. “I understand,” he said. Offering his father a short smile, he truly meant it.

  Chapter 21

  UPON RIFFIN’S RETURN TO the Lionessan Capital, he was all the more prepared to make a move against the Alliance Council. His father was right—his mother had accounted for plenty and a solution could be found for everything.

  Biding his time was his mother’s advice; using everything to his advantage was his father’s. He entered the nursery immediately upon his arrival—he couldn’t forget what all this was for, and who it was he was trying to protect. The redheaded young woman, though easily mistakable for his wife, leapt at the sound of the door opening.

  Kara turned to face him with wide eyes, bowing deeply as soon as she took in the sight of him.

  He smiled in his effort to put her at ease. “How are my daughters?” he asked, crouching onto the ground where they crawled.

  Kara smiled back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “Happy and healthy,” she replied.

  “And my son?” he asked, finding him absent from the fur rugs where the older girls played.

  Kara’s smile faltered, though it grew only a second later, “Strong,” she replied, “and getting stronger every day, thankfully.”

  Coddling both his daughters for a moment longer, pressing kisses
into their dark hair, he went in pursuit of him.

  Entering the throne room, he found Malia leaning comfortably into her seat, holding their son against her chest while she flipped through the books sprawled across the marble-topped table.

  Riffin greeted them both with a kiss, glancing down at all Malia had gone through. “Are you not tired?” he asked, brushing his lips against her cheek.

  She breathed out a soft sigh, slamming a ledger shut. “Only somewhat,” she replied.

  With a careful touch, he pulled the slumbering child, small enough to fit in both his hands, into his arms and laid him against his chest. He cooed a little, gurgling as he slept, curled up against his chest. “Have you learnt anything new?” he asked.

  She huffed and rifled through everything on the table until she came to a collection of pages beneath the piles. “My notes, for your perusal,” she said. “Although, I doubt they will be nearly as helpful as you’d hope.”

  Maybe not, but whatever he learnt was something that could one day be used to his advantage. He leaned in, kissing her cheek, then her lips when she turned her attention to him, “I appreciate it nonetheless,” he whispered.

  She mustered a smile, though it was easy to see she wasn’t at all happy with what little progress had been made. “Would your father not return?” she asked.

  Riffin pursed his lips together, shaking his head, “No,” he said, “though I feel we’ve made a great deal of progress.”

  Crossing her arms against her chest, she began to pace with her mouth twisted in thought. Aware there was something on her mind, something that left her grappling with the ability to speak it, he turned his attention to his son, waiting for her to speak without the expectancy. “I think we need consider sending the children elsewhere,” she said. “So long as we don’t make progress—“