another noble shouted from the side wall.
“The kingdom needs another queen on that seat before winter.”
I lowered my head, hiding the smile that touched my mouth.
Inside my chest, my blood ran warm with triumph.
This was the exact moment I had waited for since I was a boy.
The plan I had carried in my heart for years was unfolding right in front of my eyes.
I remembered the small town of Olio, where my father and I had lived before coming to La Fita.
It was a dusty place with cold stone houses and dry fields.
My father used to sit by the hearth at night, drinking bitter tea and telling me long stories about this kingdom.
He told me how grand La Fita had been two hundred years ago, when our ancestors were true wolves.
In those old days, our people had actual power.
They could run faster than horses, break iron chains with their jaws, and smell blood across five miles of open land.
But over two hundred years, that power had dried up.
No man in La Fita could turn into a wolf anymore.
No man could outrun a horse or break iron with his teeth.
We were ordinary human beings now, living in stone palaces, wearing woolen coats, and playing games with legal papers.
Yet the old laws remained written in the books.
My father told me how the Orion Vale family had taken the title of Kingmakers, giving themselves the sole power to crown rulers and decide who was legitimate.
My family believed that title had been stolen from us.
My father spent his entire life nursing that hatred.
He told me that if our family could return to La Fita, eliminate the Kingmaker blood, and take full control of the throne, our ancient wolf abilities might eventually return to our blood.
When my father died in Olio, I packed my bags and came to La Fita carrying his words.
I came to take revenge on the Orion Vale family and reclaim what my father believed belonged to us.
Now, every person carrying Orion Vale blood was dead in the ground or burned in the ash.
I did not even have to fight the lords in this hall.
They were standing on the floor, begging me to take full authority and name a new queen.
Everything was falling straight into my hands.
I was still thinking about Olio when a sharp woman’s voice cut through the noise in the hall.
“No!”
Every nobleman turned his head toward the entrance. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Victoria stepped out from between two tall guards near the archway.
Tears ran down her pale cheeks, leaving wet streaks through the dust on her face.
Her brown dress was torn at the bottom hem, dragging along the red carpet as she walked.
“No, you cannot do this!” Victoria shouted, running four steps into the middle of the hall.
I straightened my back on the throne and looked at her, keeping my face soft and bewildered.
She shook her head violently, her dark hair falling loose across her shoulders.
“You are already talking about replacing my sister?” Victoria asked, her voice cracking loudly.
“She is not even buried yet! How could you all stand here talking about new queens when her baby is still alive?”
My heart stopped for a second.
I pulled my hands back from my knees.
Her baby?
I slowly turned my body on the throne to look directly at her.
“Her baby is alive?” I asked.
My voice came out as a real whisper.
Victoria stopped five feet from the dais steps and looked straight into my eyes.
“Yes,” Victoria said clearly.
For three seconds, neither of usually said another word.
The whole hall stayed silent.
Then I saw it.
The right corner of Victoria’s mouth gave a tiny twitch upward.
Her left eyelid closed and opened in a fraction of a second, giving me a quick, hidden wink that no noble in the room could see.
My own lips wanted to curve upward immediately.
The baby was alive?
I had never built that into my plan.
Corvin had told me two nights ago that the assassin he hired drove an iron blade straight into Josephine’s stomach inside her dark bedroom before setting the curtains on fire.
The child should have died inside her before the wood ever burned.
If Victoria had a living child be it fake or real in her hands, the entire political situation had just become ten times easier.
It meant my reign was legally secure without needing months of debate among the lords.
Victoria wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Luckily, my mother and I were able to save the baby,” she said, her voice sounding shaky and full of sorrow.
I stared down at her face.
“How?”
“We heard that My sister protected the baby before she died,” Victoria explained, looking around at the lords.
“She passed the child through the window into a dying servant arms just as the ceiling began to fall and that servant found my mother.”
I said nothing.
I knew her story was completely fake.
Josephine’s room had no open window facing the courtyard, and Nella had been sitting in the servant’s hall when the smoke started, and she actually ran here asking if it’s true.
Both her and her mother were even crying so how did they have her child when they just did that?.
But I did not care about the truth of her words.
If Victoria had brought a child into this house, it was a tool we could use to rule La Fita together and as long as she can fool the nobles.
Before Logan could speak, a harsh voice called out from the side of the hall.
“This does not make sense!”
An elderly nobleman stepped out from the second row of lords.
It was Lord Tony yugo.
His silver hair was brushed back flat against his head, and his dark wool coat was trimmed with black fur.
He was seventy years old, and his family had lived in La Fita longer than any other house.
Tony walked to the center carpet, looking from me to Corvin, and then turning his gaze toward Victoria.
“The king was just told that his pregnant wife died in a fire,” Tony said, his voice loud and firm.
“His right-hand man stood right there and swore she burned to ash inside a locked room.”
The hall went completely quiet.
“Now we are suddenly being told that she gave birth before she died?” Tony asked, shaking his head side to side.
“How?”
Tony looked around at the other lords.
“When did the Queen give birth? Why did no doctor announce a birth? When did this palace celebrate the arrival of an heir?”