That night, King Lucien’s sleep was disturbed much more than it had always been. For some painful, incomprehensible reasons, nightmares about what happened to Declan plagued his unconsciousness. His waking moments were no better.
An hour after midnight, the king was wide awake with a hurting heart and a head filled with painful memories of his cousin, who died in the most horrible way right in front of him.
In the dark of the night, he clenched his hands into fists, wishing the pain would stop. If only Danika were here.
Danika. His heart unclenched a bit at the thought of her. How is she? How is his child?
Getting up from the bed, the king entered the bathroom, turned on the cold water overhead, and let it wash over him. Not for the first time, he regretted giving his word to help the princess and her lover. If not that he was a man of his word, he would already be in Mombana to await the birth of his child.
On the morrow. No, it is the early hours of the morning already.
After today, he will make hasty plans to be in Mombana as fast as he can.
But first, the pain from the memories of his dead brother will have to leave him.
After all these years, it did not hurt less.
It was a rocky ride. The carriage kept bumping into road obstacles, shaking the prisoner in all directions at the same time.
“Sorry, bud,” the prison guard drawled mockingly. The others laughed.
They weren’t sorry at all. In fact, they enjoyed rocking him around. It was their own way of playing jokes on him, Navia’s prisoner.
Callan pressed his lips together, folding his tied hands in front of him and squeezing nervously. When he found out that he would be moved from Navia to Salem, he did not know if he should be happy or filled with dread.
He was both. The princess might actually trust this king so well that she was so happy when she told him that his judge and jury were no longer in her father’s hands, but he wasn’t. Callan knew he would get killed with her father, but with this new king, he had no idea if he’d be freed or tortured, humiliated and then killed.
But his princess was happy, so he had to go with it.
Being in that godforsaken cold cell for more than four months was almost driving him to insanity. That place is a living nightmare for him—literally. There hadn’t been a single night he had a good sleep in that cold, barren place. Every night was a reoccurrence of a part of his past that must have been so traumatizing that his place had to block it out. Hard.
His flashes got so worse in that dungeon that he was able to figure out a few things in these past few months.
He’d been in a dungeon like that before in his life, and many of his bad memories happened there.
He’d been raped before—the day he was killed. It was so horrible, it made his strong brother bawl and shout like a baby while he begged his abusers to stop and kill him instead.
He was able to remember his brother’s name. Lucien.
He was able to remember his brother’s face.
He’s not a peasant. He had no idea of their status in society, but they were not peasants.
His brother loved him so much. Had fought for him so much. Had protected him so much. His brother loved him. There was nothing much he remembered, but Callan always had the urge to cry whenever he remembered his brother.
Another bumping of the carriage on something jolted him out of his thoughts.
“Oops. Sorry,” another guard said amusingly.
He’d had enough. “I’ll make sure the princess hears about this joyful ride, I assure you all.”
The smile disappeared from their faces. They looked at each other nervously and back at him. “Um, it was c-completely unintentional.”
“Of course, it was. That must be why we are riding the bumpy sides instead of the clear road.”
They cleared their throats self-consciously. The carriage rider changed routes instantly and turned the horses towards the smooth route.
As the journey progressed—more smoothly this time—Callan wondered if a time would come when he would be able to see his brother again.
After all the postponing and planning and researching and chickening out, Talia finally decided that she would poison the king and Zariel today.
Coza had been very angry the night before when he didn't hear any chaos and upheaval from the people. It only meant that the queen of Mombana did not die. His anger only escalated when all his messages to the mistress went unanswered. He'd sent more than five messages through messenger birds, but they'd all flown back empty. No reply at all.
He'd taken his anger out on Talia, taking sexual pleasures from her body in the most brutal way.
“Kaya!” came the loud voice behind her.
She turned and stared at the cook wide-eyed. “Um?”
“Where's your mind!? That tea!”
She turned and glanced at the tea she was pouring into a cup. “Ooooh!!” That was when she realized that the cup had filled up and overflowed. Dropping the old kettle down, she glanced sheepishly at Maima. “Sorry.”
The cook's lips turned down in disapproval. “Keep your head around you next time, will you?”
“Yes, Maima,” she replied obediently before she faced her task again.
Outside, Talia looked cool and reserved as she added honey and stirred the king's tea, but on the inside, she was a mess.
“The king asked you to get his tea for him?” Maima, one of the royal cooks, asked conversely as she chopped the vegetables on the other side of the kitchen.
“Yes. After his training with the guards, he ordered me to get him tea,” she replied.
“Just make sure you don't put lots of honey on it. The king absolutely hates a lot of it.”
“Of course.” She'd done her research very well before she finally gathered up the guts to execute this plan after two months.
Lifting up the two wooden cups, she made her way out of the royal Kitchen to her bedroom to add the poisonous concoction.
As she walked, her legs shook. By the gods, this was more of a suicide mission than any conspiracy she had been involved in all her life.
Thank God nobody knew her identity in the palace.
No one knows she would be killing the king and one of his strongest guards on this day.