Traitor (A Crown of Lilies Book 1)

by Melissa Ragland

  Selice saw me first and her brilliant golden eyes lit with hope. Her father’s words faltered when he caught sight of me, and any eyes that hadn’t already found me quickly did. High Priest Solomon seethed beside the throne, his dark gaze boring into me. He summoned a nearby guard, sending the man rushing off down the street with a few discreet words.

  I drew rein when we reached the row of King’s Guard before the dais, their shields and spears turning on me. Slowly, the King stood from his throne, his wan features painted with disbelief. Drawing strength from my fearless stallion, I raised my voice above the din.

  “Do you know me, Your Majesty?”

  Amenon stared at me with his sunken eyes a long moment before waving at his guards to let me through. I dismounted and gave Valor one last affectionate pat before leaving him to make my way through the small gap, a mass of glinting plate pressing in on either side. Eyes followed my every move from behind the slits of their helmets, some wary, others wide with wonder. I couldn’t help but picture myself spitted upon those razor-sharp spears as I made my obeisance and stood alone before the dais.

  “We buried you,” Amenon whispered.

  I nearly faltered. Images of my family swam in my memory, joyful voices jarringly overlaid with flashes of blackened skin and smoking cinders.

  “…Where?”

  A flicker of the kind man I once knew surfaced on his face. “In the palace gardens.”

  There was something like closure in knowing where they lay. It bolstered me, reinforcing my wavering resolve.

  “You buried my friend, sire.” I tossed the emerald banner at his feet, the pole clattering on the wooden planks. “And my mother. And my father. Loyal subjects of the blood of Adulil. Your friends, once.”

  “Take heart, child,” Solomon interjected, projecting his voice over the crowd. “The men responsible have been brought to justice.”

  I didn’t bother to hide my loathing when I turned on the priest. “More innocent lives cast onto the pyre of your spiteful god.”

  My blasphemy didn’t even ruffle him. “Your parents’ deaths, while tragic, were Al’Rahim’s divine justice for their blatant disloyalty to the Crown.” A few murmurs of agreement rose from the masses at my back.

  “They were loyal to Alesia.”

  “They sought to undermine your king and his rule.”

  “Says the snake who sent his jackals to our door.”

  His mouth closed with a satisfying click. Amenon perked in his seat.

  “What is she talking about?” he muttered to his glowering advisor. Hope stirred in my chest, fleeting and desperate. He wasn’t privy to the attack. If that was Solomon’s move alone, maybe I could break through to the King instead of tearing him down.

  “Soldiers, my lord,” I said before the priest could reply. “In King’s Guard armor painted over with the black hand of Al’Rahim. A dozen of them attacked our home and murdered my family before setting it alight to cover their tracks.”

  “Is this true?” Amenon’s rheumy gaze settled on Solomon in full, exuding a shade of his former command.

  “Of course not, my king,” the cleric dismissed, his wheedling voice carefully controlled. “The girl is obviously mad with grief and is struggling to make sense of her loss.”

  My palm suddenly itched for my knife. One good throw and that lying snake would be dead.

  No. It has to be this way. I grasped for calm.

  “They say the same of you, sire.” I raised my chin obstinately at him. “Only instead of surrendering my nation to a foreign power, I am standing here.”

  Amenon’s eyes narrowed, gaunt face flushing with anger. “You dare-”

  “No one will deny that you have suffered great loss,” I pressed on through his rage, jabbing a finger at the priest. “But this man would have you crawling on your knees before his god-king like a dog.”

  “…Careful, girl.”

  The King’s warning sent a shiver down my spine, but there was no more room for caution. I had to make a scene, to rouse the crowd to our cause and turn the tone of public opinion firmly against the cleric, even if that meant damning Amenon as well. I raised my voice for all to hear, gesturing to the desecrated temple across the square behind me.

  “You are the one blinded by grief, sire. The Divine Origin destroys our sacred places, erases our heritage from the very earth on which it was founded, and yet you do nothing. You hide in your castle while these bastards burn our people in the streets. Your people!”

  More murmurs swept the assembled masses, a stirring of memory and pride. The sound sparked a fresh flicker of hope in my chest. Litheria may have been cowed to silence by fear, but her citizens had not forgotten who and what they were. My voice trembled and I swept one hand over the crowd behind me.

  “You are the heir of Adulil,” I pressed. “Sworn to guide them. To guard them against all evils. They are waiting for you to stand and fight for them, my lord, the way you once did.”

  Amenon’s brass eyes remained fixed on mine, a shadow of the man that once was flickering in their amber depths. I dared not look away as I pointed at the priest beside him.

  “So fight. Send this creature and all his ilk back to the desert that spawned them.”

  Please, I begged in silence. Remember who you are.

  “You dare to command your king?” Solomon snarled at me, his back stiffening in feigned indignance as he leapt at the opening. I turned on him, hackles up.

  “Better to command than enslave,” I spat.

  “Your king,” the priest countered grandly, “does as he pleases, as is his God-given right. It is his will that Litheria be lifted out of the darkness. Your heathen barbarism brings nothing but suffering to these people.”

  I bristled. “You and your devils invade our lands, poison our people, and call it your god’s divine mercy.” Before he could retort, I turned back to Amenon, measuring my tone carefully. “You are lost in your grief, my lord, and he is using it to control you.” The censer seeped bluish smoke at the foot of the throne. I jabbed one finger at it, frustration creeping into my voice. “He’s using that to control you! Why can’t you see?”

  “Your king has seen, little traitor.” The High Priest’s voice dwarfed mine, loud and magnanimous. He raised his chin proudly, pontificating over the masses. “He has seen the face of Al’Rahim and been blessed with Divine Sight. The Lodestone has spoken His will. The One True God has chosen Alesia, but her people must first purify themselves to receive His blessing. To cleanse a nation is harrowing work, but Al’Rahim believes you can be redeemed.” He turned that imperious sneer on me. “As do I.”

  “Redeemed?” I barked a hollow laugh and advanced on him. The last fragments of my calm evaporated, hate pouring through my veins like molten metal. “We don’t want your redemption!”

  Guards stepped forward in warning and I halted, turning instead to the crowd behind me, waving one hand over them.

  “There is nothing wrong with any of these people!” I whirled on Amenon, unable to contain my anger. “Except that their king has betrayed them into the hands of the enemy.”

  He closed the distance between us with startling speed and backhanded me across the face. My head snapped to the side as Selice cried out in protest. My cheek stung, but it was a strike to silence, without much force behind it. Whether that was due to some lingering affection for me or his feeble state, I’ll never know. Fury and madness commingled in his brass eyes, but he was still in there somewhere. I had seen it. I could still reach him. I had to believe as much.

  Like a bucket of cold water, his strike doused the bonfire of my anger and honed my focus back to a razor’s edge. I fought the urge to touch my reddening cheek as I turned back to face my king with purposeful calm.

  “There is no gezgin sickness,” I said, low and steady. “These priests are poisoning your people, sire, one village at a time. Will you do nothing?”

  “Have you any proof of this?” he d
emanded.

  “Ana’s word was once good enough for you.”

  He hesitated, brows darting together at the sound of a name long buried, a name I was never supposed to know.

  “You are not her,” he said at length.

  “No,” I agreed, “but she would be standing here beside me telling you the same if it weren’t for this snake.”

  Amenon considered me silently, sweat glistening on his pale brow, uncertainty flickering across his face. There it is. My opening. I steeled myself for the ask.

  “Your faith is your own, sire. No one here will demand you renounce it.” I gestured again to the masses behind me. “But we are the Mother’s people. Adulil’s people. If you cannot stand for us, we ask that you abdicate and appoint Princess Selice as steward queen until your son – Rishel’s son – comes of age.”

  A murmur flooded only the nearest members of the crowd. Too quiet. My voice hadn’t carried. I told myself that it didn’t matter. Amenon had heard me. Somewhere behind his grief, his pride, and the grip of the jadeweed, he stirred. The sad eyes of a man I’d once admired looked out at me from inside his wasting prison, and I thought, for a glimmer of a moment, that I’d reached him. That all of this could end without any more blood being shed.

  Stupid girl.

  “Enough of your vicious lies,” the High Priest hissed. “This is nothing more than an attempt to usurp your throne, Your Majesty.”

  Armor rattled as a soldier heaved a young boy up onto the dais. He’d been treated harshly, no doubt subjected to the priests’ cleansing process. He limped and trembled, his face a swollen patchwork of bruises, burn marks on one hand. I recognized him from somewhere, but couldn’t quite place him. Solomon grabbed the boy’s shirt and dragged him to the fore, presenting him to the assembled eyes.

  Stalling, I realized too late. This whole time.

  “Unlike you, I have proof to support my claims,” he snarled at me. “You and your parents are traitors to the Crown.” Those beady eyes flicked to Amenon. “I wished to spare you any additional grief, Majesty, but this two-faced harlot has left me no choice.” He shook the boy harshly. “Do you know this woman?”

  The child’s terrified eyes met mine, and it hit me.

  Oh, gods.

  The pit opened in my gut as I realized where I’d seen him before.

  “Confess!” Solomon cuffed the boy on the ear.

  “Y-yes,” he stammered, trembling.

  “Louder.”

  “Yes!”

  “Tell your king how you know her.”

  Wide blue eyes remained locked with mine. “She came to the warehouse once.”

  “Why?”

  “I-I heard her say she needed a forger.” He hesitated until the priest shook him again. “A f-few days later, Tommy had me run a packet of letters with the King’s Seal.” Tears streamed down his bruised cheeks.

  Amenon’s face twisted in anger. “What did these letters contain?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know, sire, please, I swear!”

  Solomon shoved the boy back toward the soldier who had delivered him. “Read the missive yourself, my lord.” He reached into his robes and procured a worn letter with a golden seal.

  The King snatched it from his hand and began to read, but the priest couldn’t stand to wait, those hateful eyes surveying me in smug triumph.

  “She and her traitorous parents forged your seal and stole ten of your galleons from the shipyards in Dax.”

  Amenon left off the letter and fixed his furious gaze on me. “Is this true?” he demanded.

  I held my chin high, clinging tightly to my purpose as the ground began to crumble beneath my feet.

  “I came to you, once. In the spring. Do you remember?”

  Memory flickered across his face. “The hare.”

  “You refused to defend the White Sea. I had to do something.”

  “You and your House were mustering a rebel force to overthrow the Crown,” Solomon spat. A few shouts of ‘traitor!’ rang out from the crowd. It quickly spread through the masses.

  “That’s a lie!” I snapped at him, clenching my fists.

  “Our reports from the outer provinces say that your father rode in secret to rally his bannermen. Your family was amassing an army.”

  “To defend our borders!” I protested. The crowd grew louder, a cacophony of angry voices.

  “To march on this city!” Solomon countered, jabbing one finger at the ground.

  I turned my desperate gaze on Amenon as my dignified fury gave way to panic. “Please, sire, you must believe me.”

  He backed away, shaking his head, brow knitted in anger. It was a final betrayal, and he could not see past it. What little hope had remained quickly vanished. My allies would not rally behind a proclaimed traitor to the Crown. The priest’s magnanimous voice rang out, summoning guards.

  I turned toward the crowd as they rattled toward me, frantically scanning faces. Here and there, I spotted small clusters of our dutiful allies surrounded by their armsmen. Each watched in horror, unmoving, unwilling to risk their Houses or their families for the sake of a condemned traitor. My heart sank when I caught Aubrey’s eye in the crowd, his face twisted in helpless desperation as his father’s men held him in place. He struggled against their mailed grips, angry shouts swallowed by the roar of the furious crowd. Reyus’ pale gaze watched me nearby, carefully masked. He understood far better than my brave, foolish friend. Nothing could save me, now.

  Valor shuffled amid the swarm of bodies and a young man climbed into the saddle, his wide eyes catching mine.

  “Run!” I shouted over the deafening chaos. “Tell Tommy to get out!”

  I don’t know if he heard me, but he dug his heels into my brave stallion’s flanks and raced off down the street. People dove out of his path as soldiers made to chase after him.

  Then they were upon me, strong hands seizing my upper arms and checking me for hidden weapons – weapons I’d not dared to bring, fearing their presence might make the King see me as a threat. I wished, now, that I’d at least secreted a boot knife to hurl into the priest’s neck before the King’s Guard cut me down.

  Too late.

  I twisted in their grip to face Amenon, the crowd growing more chaotic by the second.

  “Please,” I begged over the roar of the mob. “You must listen!”

  His sunken brass eyes regarded me with a mix of hurt and anger before he turned away. I shouted after him, but my desperate pleas were drowned by the rising clamor as his armed guards surrounded him and Selice. They melted from view in the blink of an eye, retreating to their carriage amid a fortress of spears and shields. The icy grip of irons closed around my wrists and I knew myself truly lost.

  They paraded me through the streets on foot toward the city guard garrison, beneath which lay Litheria’s prison. A sizeable crowd followed, the fever of excitement feeding their frenzy. Shouts of ‘traitor’ and ‘hang her’ echoed through the throng. My captors raised their shields against a hail of rocks, though it was to protect themselves, certainly not me. People spat at me and flung curses as I stumbled along the cobblestone streets, jostled by my heavily-armored escort. Spears kept them at arm’s length, but it was a long and miserable walk through the people I had tried – and failed – to protect.

  The common folk will rally at any diversion, and I was no exception. I tried not to let it get to me, tried to keep my back straight and my face schooled to that mask of unwavering resolve, but it was difficult. As they hurled crude insults and the occasional rotten vegetable, I couldn’t help but wonder if it had all been in vain. What if these people didn’t want our help?

  Then I remembered the whips and the pyres and the ruins of our temple. I remembered that hateful, whispering stone and the smug look on Solomon’s face. I remembered the stable boy brandishing a shoe hammer, charging a grown man in full plate armor. His blood painting the night.

  “For Alesia!” a voice
shouted, nearly lost in the uproar. My head snapped up, eyes searching. Not a battle cry, not a call to arms, but something far more valuable to me in that moment: solidarity. Again, the voice cried out, and I caught sight of him between the hulking soldiers surrounding me. He could have been anyone, with those brown eyes and that nondescript face. A dock worker, maybe, or a tailor. A baker. It didn’t matter. He was Alesian.

  His face bobbed in and out of view as he shoved his way along with the crowd, that expectant gaze relentlessly seeking mine. A few others took up his call as he repeated it several more times, though the shouts of accusation far outweighed them. Still, he persisted until we reached the gates of the garrison and the crowd was forced to a halt. My nameless compatriot hauled himself atop a barricade, head jutting above the crowd, earnest eyes locked on mine.

  Waiting.

  Waiting for the one person who dared to stand up for them, when even their king would not.

  Waiting to see if I’d been beaten. Broken. If I’d given up.

  Make your choice, Quintin’s voice demanded inside my head. Is that what you are?

  The bitter winds of early winter whipped between the buildings to pull at me with their icy fingers. I cast my gaze to the sky, a clear, pale blue that reminded me of his eyes.

  No, I replied, willing that stubborn Tuvrian to hear me, wherever he was.

  I am the heir of Lazerin.

  I will not be gentle. I will not be quiet.

  And I sure as hell will not be broken.

  I dug in my heels and shoved hard against the soldier behind me, shackles clanging as I bashed my doubled fists into the exposed face of the guard on my left. Another soldier’s fingers closed on my right shoulder and I spun, breaking his grip and slamming my elbow into his nose. He stumbled back into his comrade with a curse, blood streaming down his face. Two more guards quickly seized me by the upper arms, lifting me clear off the ground as I kicked wildly and snarled like some feral beast. Another struck me hard across the mouth, but the taste of blood on my tongue only spurred me to fight all the harder. I spat red and swore like a sailor and thrashed against their iron grips until the butt of a spear slammed into my stomach, doubling me over.