Amaskan's Blood, Raven Oak [read me a book .TXT] 📗

she frowned, Leon waved a tired hand at her. “I take it your conversation with Lady Millicent was fruitful?”

“It was, Your Majesty, though maybe not as fruitful as I’d like.”

“And yet still, you hurry before me late at night.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” she answered.

“Tell me what you’d have me hear, Master Adelei.”

Adelei spoke with a level voice that didn’t tremble as she retold the information she’d learned that evening. “Lady Millicent is convinced, as am I, that harm would befall Princess Margaret if this marriage moves forward. Price Gamun may or may not be involved in the assassination attempts, but whether he is or isn’t, her life is in danger. This wedding cannot occur.” She kept her gaze on the floor while waiting for his response, and when there was none, she sought his face. Weariness stared back at her.

“Prince Gamun is not responsible for the attempts on her life.” The hair on Adelei’s arms stood on end, and she rose before backing away.

“Explain.”

King Leon said nothing at first, and Adelei repeated herself. Fire sparked in those brown eyes, eyes she shared, and she flinched when he grinned a dark grin. “And who are you to order the King, hmmm? Just know it was not him,” he said sharply. “That still doesn’t excuse the evils he’s been inflicting on my land. I share your concern in regard to the royal wedding.”

It was a risk. It was treason, and yet her job was to protect Princess Margaret. No one else. Everyone else was expendable, right up to the King himself.

Adelei withdrew her dirk in a swift motion. “You will tell me what information you have on the assassin.”

“You dare draw arms against me?”

“You hired me to do a job, to protect your daughter. Something I will do ’til my dying breath. And if it means I must protect her from a treasonous king, so be it. Now explain yourself. What have you done?”

King Leon rose up, fury inferno one moment, and then as suddenly, the man shrank in on himself. All the fight drained out of him as his sorrowful eyes begged forgiveness before he spoke a word.

Her skin, suddenly too tight across her bones, itched as the hair along it moved. “No,” she whispered. “How could you—”

“I needed you here. It was the only way I could ensure you would come home,” he cried. The anguish scrawled itself across every feature her fuzzy memory identified as father. “Master Bredych needed a cover. A reason to release you from the Order in such a way that you wouldn’t expect—”

“Expect betrayal? Treason?”

“No, I needed you home, dammit. So I arranged for someone to pretend—”

“To pretend to kill your own daughter? How could you hire the Tribor? Did you think they’d stop after one attempt? How stupid are you?” King Leon gasped, his mouth working while no words escaped. “Your Majesty?”

His shaking finger gestured at the table next to her where a cup of warmed liquid sat. She handed it to him and watched him guzzle it. He spilled a few drops on his lap in his rush.

The smell was familiar. The plate on the table held traces of green powder. “How long?”

“W-What?”

“How long have you had such fits?” The pallor of his skin. The weakness of his frame. I should have noticed this earlier. Damn. Double damn.

“Long enough. You know what it is?”

“You’ve been poisoned. Long enough to cause permanent damage to your insides.” Her anger drained away with a second look at the powder. He’s dying. He brought me home because he’s dying. And by the look of him, he doesn’t have long.

She didn’t know whether to hate him more or less. He was right though; Master Bredych would have had no other choice.

“How much longer do the healers say you have?”

King Leon placed the cup on the table beside him. His hands shook less this time. “Days? Months? Years? No one seems to know, but not long enough. There are things I would clear from my conscience before I pass from this plane, and I’m sorry to say this was necessary. But I didn’t hire the Tribor. I swear to you that was not my doing.”

“Any chance that whomever you hired did?”

“No, none.” When she raised a doubtful eyebrow, he shook his head. “It was Ida. She did it by royal order. The dagger was fake. Margaret was never in any real danger.”

“She does all the dirty work, doesn’t she?” Adelei shook her head. “Sorry, I’m just tired.” Adelei returned to her seat and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“Ida told you her part in your kidnapping?”

“She did.”

Silence stretched between them like fifteen years, funereal in feel. Adelei studied her mother’s tapestry again. When she pulled her eyes away, King Leon’s own were damp. “I’m glad your mother never knew you were in danger. It wasn’t her idea to send you away. In fact, we fought about the decision before I sent her elsewhere.”

“Was it Ida’s?”

“No. I didn’t meet Ida until the day she took you away. When she returned, I didn’t recognize her. Hells, I didn’t know who she was until last year.” Her father rubbed his hand across his face and covered his eyes. “What a mess this has all been. Poor Ida has tried to make it right—to make amends.”

“And what about you?” Her anger flared up, new wounds too fresh to ignore.

“You tell me. Will it ever be enough for you? To say I’m sorry you were kidnapped? I didn’t know, Adelei. I swear it.”

“I-I don’t know. I have too many questions, too much to think about right now. After, maybe. I can’t promise anything,” said Adelei. The hope in his eyes pierced her armor, and she shifted the conversation. “So you arranged for Ida to make a false attempt or two on Margaret in order to bring me here. But what were you going to do when I found no assassin?”

His fingers relaxed their grip on the arm of his chair. “Honestly, I was hopeful that