Silent Kingdom (2 page)

I moved my gaze to the fire; I didn’t want to meet their looks now. But I could feel the weight of their eyes on me. A flame sparked, and one of the logs snapped and hissed its surrender.

Sweat condensed along the back of my neck beneath my knot of hair and my gown clung to me, heavy and constricting. The certainty behind my words made my head spin and my body tremble. I couldn’t tell if it was horror or fear that brought my tears. The room swam before me until I blinked them away, letting them trickle freely down my burning cheeks.

Cautiously, I lifted my face and matched my father’s stare.

“What?” My father’s voice was low, barely more than a growl, but his gaze held mine with a threat. He dared me to repeat my words, to determine my fate. The wavering candlelight traced every wrinkle and scar on his face, every part of it that I knew so well. There was no fatherly tenderness in his stern expression or cold, fathomless eyes. In my peripheral vision, I noticed my mother’s pale, perplexed look.
She doesn’t believe me, does she?

In my mind, I could still see the waves outside, rolling over each other, spilling out, disintegrating into foam and sea spray on the shore. Irrepressible, my words wouldn’t stop either, even though my mouth was dry, even though my throat was so tight my voice cracked. A tear dropped onto my plate. “I know you killed the king.”

I bit my lip. Too late. The words could not be retrieved. Why couldn’t I control my voice? Why couldn’t I stop the words?

He exhaled, stirring the candle flame in front of him into a frenzy. “So.” His voice was even, quiet. “This is how you insist on behaving?”

He searched my face for several long, terrible moments. My heart rammed into my chest but I couldn’t turn away, couldn’t lower my eyes.

I didn’t want to—tried not to—but I whispered, “Yes.”

What’s wrong with me?

The smallest trace of anger flared in my father’s eyes, making them gleam silver in the candlelight.

How could you?
Those words, however, wouldn’t move past my tongue; they were lodged in my throat, where I felt like I was suffocating on them.
How could you kill your brother? My uncle?

Desperate for help, I looked at my mother. Her face registered disbelief. Her horrified eyes turned not to her husband, but to me.
Why? How could you accuse your own father?
her open mouth pled, though she never moved her lips. The shocked words were written plainly all over her face, shouting in my own brain.

But how could he kill his own brother?

Father’s deep, callous voice tore through my mind, shattering my hope that this was all a terrible dream. “My own daughter is a traitor,” he announced to two of his guards, who had already stepped out from the shadows.

My heart quickened. I hadn’t seen them there, hadn’t imagined my father would request members of the Royal Guard to be present during a simple family meal.

My father stared at me. “She is willing to spread rumors and lies to tear the kingdom apart, and is a threat to us all.” He turned to Narek, Captain of the Guard, and gestured with a flick of his wrist. “Take her to her chambers and guard the door.”

Would he really convict me of treason and make me a prisoner in my own home?

Arms grasped me and lifted me from my seat before I could react. “Please, please!” I shouted, but I had no argument to make, no pleas to soften a murderer’s heart.

My mother stood, her body trembling as her wide eyes fixed on me and then on her husband. “Zarev…Your Highness…what is this? She is only a child…your child…”

“She’s thirteen, nearly a woman, and old enough to know what she is saying.”

“But…she’s in shock—grieving…” my mother’s voice shook; it was flimsy, uncertain. Her feeble argument faded in my ears while the guards carried me out kicking and screaming. The only replies to my shouts were the sounds of heavy doors slamming and the guards’ footsteps echoing in the long, empty hall.

They carried me to my bedchamber and shoved me into an armchair by the fireplace. Despite the warmth from the fire crackling on the hearth and the familiar atmosphere, chills shuddered down my spine. I gasped for air and tried not to think about what could happen to me. Shapes seemed to move in the shadows collecting near the entrance to my dressing chamber, in the darkness settling around my bed.

I stared up at the men, wondering if they felt any hesitation, any misgivings about what they were doing. But their expressions bore no compassion.

They began to file toward the door, leaving me huddled in my chair, when I heard approaching footsteps from the hallway outside. “Wait,” a voice called out—the king. I froze.

They swung the door open. As my father strode through, he glanced over at his men. “Leave us.” While the guards retreated silently, he stared down at me.

Blood throbbed in my ears and my breath lodged in my throat. I stared down at the floorboards, refusing to meet his gaze.

“Where did you get such a mad idea about me?” His voice was low, full of a threat I’d never heard before. Where was the man I’d called father? Certainly, he had always been stern and withdrawn, someone I longed to please, someone I longed to hear loved me; but he had never treated me poorly. Tears erupted, smearing the floor into a smudgy brown mass. “Look at me.”

Slowly, I raised my head, blinking in a feeble attempt to hide my watery eyes, but there was no masking my pain and fear.

“Why would you think I killed my brother?”

I swallowed and stared at the patch of silver hair collecting in his dark beard. When I was a child, I giggled whenever the rough stubble tickled my cheeks as he hugged me goodnight. Those embraces had been too rare.

“Answer me.”

His frown deepened the wrinkles around his mouth. Those lips had told me to be strong, to never show signs of fear or doubt. Those lips had given me commands I’d tried to obey in hopes they would one day say that he loved me and was proud of me, his only child.

Manipulator. Liar.
Was everything he did a ploy for power? An act to fool people into serving him in some way, even if those people were of his own flesh and blood?

“Did you overhear a rumor? Servant’s gossip?” His robes whispered around his legs, brushing the polished wood floor as he stepped closer.
“Who else have you told?”
He dropped his hand on the back of my chair, jostling me in my seat.

I lifted my face. He hovered over me, so close now that I could feel his hot breath on my forehead and smell the lobster from dinner. “
Now
you refuse to speak. Do you retract what you said?”

The word leapt out of my mouth: “No.”

A flicker passed over his eyes—anger? Or perhaps more disappointment in me. “Your uncle was weak. I can build a great kingdom, and you, as my daughter, can rise to power with me. Would you turn down this chance due to your own sentiments? Will you side with your uncle or your own father?”

Tears hung in my eyes.
My own father is a monster
.
“How could you?”
I choked out. “How could you?”

For a long moment, he watched me, his cold eyes sending a chill down my back. “You are a fool,” he murmured. Before I could react, he turned on his heel and swept from the room without another word.

As I drew a deep breath to calm myself, I realized I’d been left unsupervised. Racing to my door, I tried the knob to find it locked. Footsteps beat a steady rhythm in the hallway: a guard was pacing before my door, hemming me in. My windows overlooked the beach far below, and I knew the drop was too high and the roof too steep for me to jump or climb to escape. I was a prisoner in my own chambers.

Despairing, I plopped back into my chair and tried to determine a course of action, but my thoughts felt foggy and sluggish. I closed my eyes and prayed I was trapped in a nightmare. When I opened my eyes, none of this would be happening. My uncle would still be alive. My father would order me to continue my horseback riding and archery lessons. My mother would ensure I spent hours learning etiquette, which would someday help me win the heart of a handsome nobleman and secure a royal marriage. My life would be routine and predictable again. Isolated yet important. Uneventful but comfortable.

Footsteps thudded along the hallway outside, snapping me out of my daydreams. I clenched my clammy fists tightly. But no one entered my chambers—not yet. Instead I heard movement outside my door as another set of footsteps walked away. The guard?

My bedchamber disappeared. As suddenly as the first, another vision flooded my brain, showing me one of the king’s conference rooms, used for royal meetings.

“What will we do with her?” My father paced back and forth in front of a long table.

I didn’t know if my urge to scream came from my sense of betrayal or fear.

“We are not sure if she has, or will, tell anyone,” another man, standing at the edge of the room in the shadows, said. It was Narek, Captain of the Guard. He was no longer dressed in heavy metal ceremonial armor, but in his black leather breastplate and greaves, red tunic and pants, and blue cloak that signified his position as a member of the king’s Royal Guard. Misroth’s insignia, the dragon constellation Vehgar, glittered across his chest nearly as brightly as real stars.

“She must have received her information from someone.” My father rubbed his beard angrily. “She saw nothing of what happened.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m certain of nothing at this point, Narek. I thought my wife and daughter were kept ignorant of my plans.” He spun on the captain. “Only you knew.”

There was a pause before Narek replied. Not yet eighteen, he was young for a captain, but his face was as hard and impassive as a more seasoned soldier. His tight lips and black eyes betrayed no fear.

“If I wanted to betray you, your daughter would be the last person I’d confide in, Your Majesty. I know you hold my abilities and my intelligence in higher esteem than that.”

My father’s anger seemed to abate a little. He nodded, glancing down at the floor as he gave himself time to think. His voice came out quiet but steady. “She will have to be disposed of.”

Narek frowned slightly. “She isn’t much for talking.”

“She did not keep silent tonight. Any servants who overheard will have to be removed…any guards whom you do not trust with the truth.”

“Allow me to manage it all, sire. But the question still remains, how to keep her silent. Disposing of her…she is only a child. And
your child
, the princess of Misroth, no less. There will be questions…” Narek was flustered, and I couldn’t remember ever hearing him sound that way. “It could leave a larger mess than the one we already have on our hands.”

“I trust you with my kingship and my life, Narek. Her words could make the people question my rule, even if we tried to make her words out to be a wild claim of a half-wit. Let her punishment fit her crime,” his firm voice rang out, ricocheting off the walls, settling deep within my mind and my heart.

Let her punishment fit her crime. Let her punishment fit her crime.

The king stopped his pacing and spun to face his captain. If possible, his voice became even firmer, layered with emphasis. “Need I remind you of your allegiance? Or our agreement?”

“No,” Narek murmured. He held a fist over his chest. “I will dispose of her.”

As he backed out of the room, the vision faded and I found myself still in my bedchamber. I stared up at my ceiling, studying the carved designs of waves set in the wood molding. My own father was going to murder me, like he had murdered my uncle.

Before the visions had appeared to me tonight, I had been content in my ignorance, resigned to the fact that my father would always be distant and stern, but never suspecting he was capable of such cruelty. Knowing the truth was bad enough, but giving it voice was about to kill me.
I’d rather never speak again than have this new curse,
I thought angrily.

My heart jolted when I heard footsteps outside my chamber. I didn’t have much time. Narek was already on his way.

Scrambling from my chair, I tiptoed next to my door and pressed myself against the wall, listening to the approaching steps. I told myself not to move, not to breathe. The door swung inward and the guard stared blankly ahead, scanning the room for a cowering girl. With a deep breath, I kicked him as hard as I could in the groin. Crying out in pain and surprise, he tried to grab me. But I was already moving, dashing past him, through the doorway, and down the hall. I swept down the hallway, my footsteps creaking and echoing on the wood floors so loudly I was sure my presence was being announced to every guard in the castle. Stern faces of past kings and queens stared down at me from old paintings and tapestries hanging from the walls and looked as if they were accusing me of treachery as well. Darting down different intersecting hallways, I put as much distance between the royal quarters and myself as I could, doing everything I could do confuse my pursuer. But I knew I was delaying the inevitable. I had to get out. And how would I ever manage to get past the king’s guard?

Farther, farther. Turning into the conservatory, I collided with a lone servant, who gasped and began apologizing. “I did not see you, princess…I’m so sorry…”

Her voice trailed off as I ran past her. Lush plants and trees stretched toward the glass ceilings, their flowers and branches upturned toward the stars, but I found no peace in the fragrant space that had once been a regular retreat for me. I dove under a leafy branch right before it smacked me in the face and charged through the back exit.

I threw myself into the room beyond—a study reserved for the royal healer’s use, but tonight the small space was empty. My steps were soft on the velvety carpet. The only wall not composed of floor-toceiling shelves was the far one, which held a window overlooking the castle grounds and the sea far below them. Pushing past the untidy desk resting before it, I wrenched the window open and poked my head outside. The drop was terrifying. I felt my stomach plummet and my heart rise to my throat. Far below the cliff the castle and its grounds rested upon, sea waves rolled on the beach. The salty breeze brushed against my cheeks, so brisk that tears stung my eyes.