“Seri is with him to make sure he gets through the first one—which is the hardest, by the way,” he said as if to reassure them Jemin would be fine. “And she is my beta, so he’ll be in good hands.”
Maray couldn’t tell what sounded worse to her, that Seri was the one to help Jemin through what was probably the worst time in his life, and not Maray herself, or that he would be a beast at will. She glanced sideways at Pia, who had come closer to her and was offering consolation with the look in her emerald eyes. Hadn’t she said earlier that week this was the ‘price of freedom’?
“Believe me when I say he will be fine,” Neelis said, and Maray was inclined to trust him. He had told her about something difficult, different from how others had done in her past, and so she nodded.
“Thank you, Neelis, for saving him from drowning.” She appreciated his part in Jemin’s being alive instead of focusing on what it had done to Jemin.
“I’ll do anything I can to make his transition into his new life as comfortable as possible,” Neelis promised and inclined his head, obviously relieved about Maray’s reaction. “And so will Seri and the rest of us.” He gave Pia a look that made it clear that the ‘rest of us’ included her as well.
“Thank you, Neelis,” Laura said from her position at the wall, at the opposite end of the room from where her husband’s bed was. She glanced at Maray, and when Maray gave her a tiny nod as a sign she was okay, Laura continued, using a couple of minutes to fill in Neelis about what had happened at the choosing ceremony and later with Rhia. And while Neelis displayed shock and worry, then comprehension when they got to the part about Rhia making a bargain with Gan Krai, Maray drowned out what she had already heard for tens of times over the past hours and worked on dealing with the news about Jemin—
A shifter. What did that mean? Would he be able to return to court? Neelis, Seri, and the others did serve in the guard, and their extra strength made them more valuable, as they could handle more difficult situations individually. They were a force of nature. In fact, Pia was her handmaiden, and she didn’t seem to have issues being around people. Maybe the entire shifter existence wouldn’t have much of an impact on Jemin at all—
Maray knew that those were hopes at best, but for now, it was all she could do—cling to optimisms like a child and deal with the matters at hand like a royal. She returned to the conversation in the room and caught Neelis admitting that he thought Rhia’s story indeed appeared quite plausible.
“You actually believe her,” Maray wondered aloud, sounding less shocked than she thought she would. But after the news about Jemin, after all of the news of this past night, what should truly shock her?
Neelis nodded. “As little appreciation as I have for the Queen, you don’t actually think she’d still be here if she was plotting against you.”
Beside him, Pia and Gerwin were nodding while Laura stood as far away from Gerwin’s bed as possible. Each of them was wearing their own version of an aporetic look, eyebrows arching in various directions and lips twitching as they held back what they were really wanting to say. It was clear that the discussion would continue for Laura and Gerwin long after the rest of them had left, and accusations about the sincerity of Gerwin’s feelings for Laura as well as the motives of his marriage to her would be questioned.
Maray shoved aside that part of the story and focused on Rhia herself, her intrigues, her lies, her threats, the way she had harmed this entire family—
“She is the Queen, not only of Allinan,” Maray reminded them, “but of lies and manipulation, it seems.”
“She is also my mother and your grandmother,” Laura pointed out, and Gerwin agreed, still a bit pale around his face but overall dealing exceptionally well with the aftereffects of being poisoned.
Corey and Wil were the only ones who didn’t have much to say even when Rhia’s revelation affected Corey as much as it did Maray or Laura. It meant not only that Feris wasn’t all bad, but also that he had acted to protect Corey as much as he had done it to protect all of Allinan. But Corey’s opinions on the situation remained concealed behind her perfect, dark skin and her ebony hair while Wil’s enragement about the recent development was obvious on his freckled face.
It was early morning, hours after their visit down at Rhia’s cell, and all Maray wanted was to wrap her mind around what was actually going on. But as often as either of them had put it into words, repeating Rhia’s story, there were things that simply didn’t add up.
“Why now?” Maray asked into the room. “Why didn’t she tell you when the initial drama happened? You were of age then—”
“The same reason I didn’t tell you who you really are.” Laura cut off Maray’s words of doubt. “You’ll understand once you have children of your own.”
“But it’s never too late…” Maray searched her father’s eyes as he gave her a look that let her guess how much he regretted what had happened.
“It’s never too late, but it gets more difficult the deeper in you get.” He spoke words of wisdom. “And every lie pulls you even deeper into the morass.” Laura snorted on the other side of the room. “You don’t want to stand in front of those you love covered in layers of mud and dirt.”
Maray noticed how Scott shied away from the direction the discussion was taking, and when he focused on the one question that was more important than any other, she was ready to jump right into the conversation. “What can we do to ensure Rhia won’t escape?”
“Should we even keep her down there in the dungeons?” Maray asked, opening another topic. “She is there by her own choice, so if she is truly trying to help, why not engage her here in the palace? Keep an eye on her by keeping her close…”
“You’ve read too much Machiavelli,” Gerwin noted, and Maray couldn’t help but grin.
“‘The new Prince must thrive to hold close his allies, but it is of more importance to hold close his enemies’,” she quoted and everyone but the two of them failed to understand what they were referring to. But for Maray, it meant a great deal that the connection she’d had to her father wasn’t disappearing because of the drama.
“Maybe it would even be beneficial to figuring the real truth,” Gerwin suggested.
“You mean there is another truth?” Neelis asked, appearing overwhelmed with the layers of reality. He hadn’t been there when Rhia had told her side of the story, and with each time they repeated things, another suspicion added to the entire construct.
“As far as I am concerned,” Scott responded, “Rhia is feeling remorse for what she has done. She seems aware of the pain she has caused her family, and what she now wants is to rectify her mistakes.”
“While she still can.” Corey spoke for the first time since she had been summoned to the royal chambers.
All eyes turned to her.
“I mean, if what you have been telling me is true, there can be only one reason she is still in her own dungeons.”
Maray waited for Corey to spit it out, growing impatient from the sheer amount of information and the lack of sleep.
“She is afraid.”
It sounded simple, but what Corey really was saying was a whole lot more than that Rhia was scared. She was saying that Gan Krai was after Rhia because she had been avoiding holding up her end of the bargain, and this was now affecting Maray and everyone dear to her. And judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, Maray wasn’t the only one to feel this way.
“Gan Krai will come for her. He will come for Rhia, but not only her. He will come for you, Maray—the dumpling attack on you, Ambassador Johnson, might already have been his doing—and he will come after you, Princess Laura.” Corey’s eyes were darker than usual, shadowed with her own pain as she spoke. “And we still need to figure out where Feris disappeared to. If he truly wants to protect us and Allinan, then he might still be doing Gan Krai’s bidding, just to keep him away from us.”
Wil took her hand and cradled it in his in a gesture that said as clearly as words that he was nev
er going to leave her side, that if everyone in this world was going to betray her, he was still going to be there and help her through it.
“We need to find Feris’ copy of ‘Laws and Rituals’ to find out what he learned from Gan Krai. There must be much more to it than what Rhia has told us so far.” Corey and Wil shared a look.
“It would surprise me if Rhia hadn’t let out some details that would make her disposable. If she is alive purely at the mercy of Gan Krai—and because of your lovely blood, Laura—” said Gerwin in a strained tone. “She’ll probably do anything to stay important enough so we don’t just get rid of her.”
“Hiding information?” Scott asked. “Maybe my questioning methods aren’t as good as they used to be,” he mused.
But Laura cut him off. “If Mother doesn’t want to speak, she doesn’t speak. It has always been like that.” She stepped away from the wall she was leaning toward and moved closer to her husband. “There is only one thing we can do to protect ourselves from getting caught in the pitfalls of her intrigues—even if she truly is on our side right now, this might change the second the odds turn in her favor.” She sat down at the edge of Gerwin’s bed and hesitantly took his hand, painting an expression of surprise on his face. “We need to be entirely honest with each other. No secrets, no matter how painful.”
Gerwin nodded, and as he opened his mouth to speak, the rest of the room, including Maray, held their breath. Maray could tell by the change in her mother’s face and her father’s serious eyes just how much strength it cost both of them to overcome their pride and actually admit that this wasn’t about the marriage they had, but about the safety of Allinan. Gerwin’s part of the story was important to verify what Rhia had implied, and if that end of the story held up, the rest was likely to be true-ish, at least. But more importantly, if all of them had the same information, Rhia would never be able to pit them against each other by sharing secrets about their history—secrets that weren’t hers to tell.
“Okay,” Gerwin said, and his face, pale already from the strain, turned even whiter. “The truth then.”
All eyes were on him, studying him with intensity, with questions, unspoken and unwelcome but necessary.
“Is it the truth?” Laura asked, swallowing her pride so everyone of importance would have the same information. “What Rhia said about you marrying me on her request?”
Gerwin’s face was unreadable. For a moment, Maray wondered if he was going to cry—the expression in his eyes indicated tears were an option, but Gerwin, seasoned diplomat and as skilled at concealing the truth it seemed as Rhia herself, cleared his throat and told his story.
“When I was a young soldier—” his eyes flickered at Maray as if they were trying to test whether she would ever forgive him, “—a soldier in the other world, not in Allinan—it came to my attention that there was a special training program involving weapons, not even the Navy SEALs got to use.”
This first sentence was enough to verify that Rhia hadn’t fed them a complete lie. Gerwin had known—or at least suspected—
“I was best in my year, best among my peers, and ambitious. It didn’t take long before the standard training wasn’t enough anymore, and I started asking around for that special forces training that I’d heard whispers about. Of course, at first, people denied it. But I must have caught the attention of whoever made the decisions, for one night, I was kidnapped from my own bed and brought to a place I had never even suspected existed—Allinan. They took me here and confronted me with a Yutu, with the statement ‘Win and you’re one of us. Lose and there won’t be much left for us to take back home’.”
Laura gasped, and Scott and she shared a look.
“You know about this procedure?” Maray wanted to know—not to put salt in an open wound, but to stick to the truth—all of it.
Laura and Scott nodded guiltily. “But it’s not me who did it,” Scott defended himself before any ideas sprang to Maray’s mind. “Unterly is the one who picks the recruits. At least he used to.”
“You knew Unterly before…” Laura shook her head and fell silent again.
Maray remembered that Unterly was one of the oldest councilors Rhia had put her trust in and one of the few who had seen the Queen during her years in hiding. She also remembered that he had started to spread rumors about Maray’s existence to the Allinan people and therefore had forced her to step into her role at court way earlier than she found herself ready—even with an understanding handmaiden such as Pia, who was helping her with everything protocol-related, dress code, and even knew what was expected of a Princess of Allinan—at least what the nobles expected, and that was that she’d pick a worthy suitor so the Cornay line would be ensured.
“I knew Unterly, and Langley, and Rhia before I ever met you, Laura,” Gerwin admitted. “I was trained to be a spy who could hop between both worlds and report back to the top military and diplomatic forces in the world native to me and Maray, and to report to the crown of Allinan.”
Maray’s jaw dropped. “You are a spy, Dad?” she asked, attempting to control the accusations in her tone. “A military spy?”
“Guilty,” he said and sunk his head to his chest, leaning back against the headboard. “At least, I used to be. I was trained to monitor and report unusual activity, magic, or rumors. But I never actually did. My career took an entirely different turn.”
Laura didn’t respond, her face a perfect dignified royal mask, and Maray could only imagine what was going on inside her mother’s mind. Was she upset? Hurt? Both? And if so, did it matter when this was about bringing the truth to light and not about working a cleft between the people who should be functioning together as a family?
“When I finished my training, my first appointment was to keep an eye on Ambassador Langley’s apprentice. It was long before that, that I learned this apprentice was the Crown Princess of Allinan—you, Laura.” He turned to his wife, his eyes a gentle brown, and reached for her hand. “I wasn’t there by accident when we met, and yes, later on, your mother approached me with the assignment to ensure your safety by keeping you away from Allinan, hidden from everything and everyone connected to Allinan. In exchange, I would be released from my duty. I would meet with my point-man in D.C. so I could inform about how the Princess was coping with her exile, but I would never have to go to work in the field where I knew things way more dangerous than a common Yutu existed.”
He raised his brows at Scott and Neelis and got a look of appreciation.
“Whatever the reason I entered your life, Laura,” Gerwin spoke, his voice airy as he strained himself, sitting up so his eyes were level with Laura’s. “It took less than a second to know you were special, and less than a week to fall for you. It didn’t take your mother’s command to want to marry you. It took your heart and your strength and your lovely soul.” He leaned closer, his forehead resting against Laura’s, who had closed her eyes, just listening and drowning out everything else. “Had Rhia never asked me to court you, I would have done it anyway. I would have done it without her blessing, I would have made her wrath toward me real, and I would have lived with the exiled Crown Princess of Allinan anyway.”
A sigh of emotion disturbed Gerwin’s words. It was Neelis, whose eyes were moist. It took Maray a second to verify she hadn’t just imagined it, but the pack leader of the Yutu-shifters was actually a sucker for cheesy romance. Pia’s elbow nudged her arm, and they both suppressed a chuckle. Gerwin’s words had been good, appeasing Laura, and Maray, for that matter—she didn’t know if she would have been able to suppress the volcanic eruption her volatile emotions were threatening to display in an all-consuming spectacle if Gerwin had proven to have been part of the family on pure hierarchic order.
But there was still something boiling inside Maray. If Gerwin had known all this time, why had he pretended Rhia was evil? She glanced around, and when she met Corey’s and Wil’s eyes, she could tell that she wasn’t the only one.
“Dad?” Her voice came out hoa
rse. “Why? I mean, why did you play along when you knew Rhia wasn’t bad—all bad?” she corrected.
Gerwin tore away from Laura, and in her mother’s eyes, Maray found that she was a bigger person than Maray had thought. She was going to forgive him.
“That’s because I didn’t know that she had caused the First Breach of Dimensions,” he explained. “And when your mother disappeared after she returned to Allinan to help Rhia…” He checked Laura’s face for signs of a grudge and didn’t find much. “When I noticed that Rhia was actually craving something more than Laura’s safety—her blood—I knew that it would be only a matter of time until she would come after you.”
Maray remembered the story of how Langley had offered Gerwin the ambassador’s job so he could still see Laura when she returned to Allinan to help Laura. There was more to the story.
“I thought you hid my existence from Rhia. How did she know about me and agree you’d return me to Allinan only by Langley’s hands?” She repeated Gerwin’s words to him and earned a nod.
“I did. I hid your existence. Even if I used to report about your mother’s life, I stopped reporting the truth when I found out about the First Breach of Dimensions, and what I learned was enough to not want to have either of you—” he glanced at Laura first, then back at Maray, “—anywhere near her. Her intentions might have been good in the beginning. But she chose to do the right things for the wrong reasons. I don’t trust she won’t turn her back on us the second the opportunity presents itself. That’s why she seeks immortality and the power that is beyond anything else this world—or the other—has ever seen. She wants to be the one who prevails.”
Her father’s words kept circling in Maray’s mind. For her, this was about more than just the potential danger that arose from Rhia’s unexpected mobility in and out of her cell, but also about the family she had thought she’d had, the trust that had been destroyed and rebuilt over the past months, and now was being thrust down a cliff once again as more lies had been unearthed—and all of them to protect Laura and Maray.
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