Elyndra bowed.
”Princess Elyndra Ivor of Velmora, Your Majesty.
I am one of the selected candidates.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
His eyes were sharp but his body no longer was.
Elyndra looked at him too hoping for maybe a better suggestions from him.
He nodded slowly.
Across the hall Lythia had gone very still.
Her eyes were fixed on the king and on Elyndra and the way the king was looking at her with interest, with attention and something was moving in Lythia’s face that she was working hard to keep invisible.
Her jaw tightened.
”You were all invited to compete for a crown, not to build your path with corpses.” the queen said then rose slowly from her throne.
“On behalf of His Majesty the King,” she declared, her voice loud throughout the chamber, “The evidence has been presented. Judgment shall proceed.”
King Vaelor looked at Viella, still on her knees, still shaking, tears running down her face without sound then looked at Elyndra.
”Justice cannot function without evidence.” His voice was calm and unemotional.
He rose from his throne.
Everybody in the hall straightened.
”The evidence has been brought out.
This court shall rule according to what has been presented before it.”
His gaze shifted toward Viella.
The young woman immediately broke into fresh sobs.
”For the murder of a royal candidate, your kingdom are stripped of rank and you are sentenced to death.”
The Kings’s voice did not rise.
It didn’t need to but they were dangerously cold.
It filled the room.
Not dramatically, not suddenly, but completely, reaching every corner at once.
”No…” she cried.
“Please! Please don’t….”
Viella was still begging as they took her arms, not loudly anymore, the voice had gone rough with crying.
Elyndra watched her go.
She kept her face still, her hands still and her breathing even but still felt the ache move through her chest and had somewhere.
She had done this.
Not entirely.
Lythia had done this, and whoever was helping Lythia had done this, and the palace that treated evidence as verdict had done this.
But she had put the pieces and an innocent girl was being dragged out of the room crying.
She watched until Viella was gone.
Then she turned and walked out of the hall.
—
Elyndra was the first to leave.
She did not look at anyone as she walked.
She kept her face exactly where she had placed it, calm, neutral, giving nothing.
Behind her, she heard the official’s voice carry through the corridor.
”The confinement order is hereby lifted.
Candidates may move freely through the palace grounds…”
She didn’t slow down.
Her steps were even and she kept her chin up and her face composed and walked as though she was going somewhere specific because standing still was not an option right now.
”Princess Elyndra.”
She stopped.
Then turned.
Lythia was standing in the corridor behind her.
She had come quickly, her robes still perfectly arranged, she had a smirk on her face.
”I never lose,” Lythia said softly.
Almost casual.
“I thought you should know that.”
Elyndra looked at her.
She lifted one brow slightly.
She said nothing.
Then she heard footsteps behind her, approaching.
Unhurried but deliberate.
She turned her head.
Zyran was coming down the corridor toward them.
He had seen them both, she could tell from his attention, the way his gaze had taken in the shape of what he was walking toward.
Then something happened.
Lythia moved in one motion she was down, one knee on the stone, head bowed, hands folded.
The smirk was gone.
”Princess Elyndra.” Her voice had gone soft and genuine. Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
“I owe you an apology. My accusations in the hall the other day…I spoke from grief and I spoke wrongly. I am sorry for the distress I caused you.”
Elyndra looked at her bowed head.
Then she looked up at Zyran, who had stopped a few paces away and was watching carefully.
She crouched down.
Slowly.
Gracefully.
Until she was at Lythia’s level, close enough to speak quietly, close enough that only Lythia would fully hear her.
She smiled.
It was warm and bright and entirely performed and she held it with the ease.
”Of course,” she said softly.
“I accused you too, didn’t I. We were both grieving.” She reached out and took Lythia’s hands and helped her stand.
“Rise. Please.”
Lythia came to her feet.
Her eyes met Elyndra’s for just a second and they were both smiling again.
Lythia turned.
”Your Highness.” She gasped slightly, as though she had only just noticed him.
Her voice went gentle and respectful.
“I didn’t see you there. Forgive me.”
Zyran didn’t look at her.
”Leave us,” he said.
Lythia’s head came up just slightly, just enough to show the surprise she couldn’t entirely suppress.
“Your High…”
He was not looking at her.
His eyes were on Elyndra, and his hand was already moving, reaching out.
His hand found Elyndra’s, not grabbing, not pulling, just a firm and easy grip, his fingers closing around hers.
“Come,” he said.
“Walk with me.”
He had took her hand.
For a moment Elyndra simply stared.
Her breath stopped somewhere in the middle of her chest.
His fingers wrapped gently around hers.
Warm.
Far warmer than she expected and the warmth traveled through her skin.
She could have pulled away.
His grip wasn’t strong and he wasn’t forcing her.
Yet strangely…
She did not want to.
Elyndra’s breath stopped somewhere in the middle of her chest.
She did not pull away.
Behind them, Lythia’s eyes widened in disbelief, anger flashed across her face.
Elyndra didn’t need to turn around to know exactly what expression was on her face.
—
They walked slowly.
The palace garden was quiet at this hour.
The afternoon light falling at the long angle, the fountains running with the steady sound of water.
They walked with no destination, just direction and for a while neither of them spoke.
She had questions.
Several of them, lined up carefully in the back of her mind, each one waiting for the right moment.
”Today was unfair,” she said finally.
He glanced at her.
”The court,” she said.
“The way it proceeded. Viella…” She stopped.
“The witness might be telling the truth. And it wasn’t enough.”
She looked at him.
He was watching the path ahead with the same expression he always wore in public, cold, composed, attentive, giving out nothing.
”You said nothing,” she said.
“In the court. You sat through all of it and you said nothing.”
He was quiet for a moment.
”The case was not mine to argue,” he finally said.
”You are the Crown Prince of Azgareth.”
”Yes.”
”And you said nothing.” She heard the edge in her own voice and pulled it back.
”She may be,” he said.
Simply.
”That does not trouble you?”
He turned to look at her then.
His eyes were serious and had little or no feelings in them.
“The palace is not a place where innocence is always the deciding factor,” he said.
“You know this. You knew it before you walked through those gates.” His voice did not rise.
It remained even, but something in it sounds too dark and unkind that hadn’t been there before.
”Courts do not run on what is right.
They run on what can be proven, what can be managed.
That is not cruelty.
It is simply the nature of power.”
He held her gaze while he said it.
She looked back at him.
He sounded just like what she had expected.
He means it, she thought.
And he is not wrong.
And she hate that he is not wrong.
They walked in silence for a while after that.
The light had moved further toward evening.
She had been carrying another question for the entire length of the garden.
”The man,” she said.
“At court today.” A pause.
Swallowed once, barely, invisibly.
“Standing behind the Queen.”
Zyran turned to look at her.
She was looking at the fountain.
Her face was calm but he could see clearly how she’s struggling to make them calm.
”Who was he?” she asked.
Her voice had changed.
Barely.
Zyran watched her face for a moment.
”Càhir Valerius,” he said carefully.
“Of Daekhar. He holds the position of Royal Chamberlain. He serves in my mother’s personal courtyard.”
”Do you trust him?” she asked.
Her voice was quiet.
Direct.
He blinked once, a slight thing, almost nothing.
“What?”
”Do you trust him.” Not a question the second time.
A request for a real answer.
He looked at her for a moment.
“Yes,” he said.
“I trust him. My mother selected him and has trusted him for years. That is enough for me to.”
The look on her face changed.
She couldn’t stop it entirely, something moved in her expression.
She was disappointed for no reason but she had been.
He trusts him as much as he trusts Desdemona.
Which meant he trusted the man who she had lost her mother to.
Trusted him.
Because Desdemona trusted him.
Because Desdemona had selected him.
Of course he would trust him.
She stopped walking.
He stopped too, half a step later, and turned to look at her.
She looked at him for a moment.
She looked at his face, his silver grey eyes then she looked down at their hands.
Still joined.
He had been holding her hand through the entire walk and she thought he might not have noticed until just now, the way he was looking down at it.
She removed her hand from his.
Gently.
”Thank you for walking with me,” she said quietly.
And she left him standing on the corridor above the eastern garden without another word.