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  “And?”

  “Her father is none other than the former king, George of House Lyon,” Jarvik said, iciness in his voice.

  “They made a fool of me,” Elrek snarled.

  Daarik felt dread settling into his stomach. “Father—”

  “The sole daughter of George of House Lyon. The man I witnessed slaughter children and females and take glee in it,” Elrek shouted, spittle forming on his lower lip.

  “That is hardly her —”

  “I watched him slay your mother,” Elrek said, his voice at a full shout now. “He removed her head from her body, and he laughed,” he roared, his voice failing at the very end.

  “I thought it was understood that George had no offspring. He was the only one who didn’t have dozens of bastards floating around,” Baerne said, and Daarik nodded.

  “Well, he had one. I don’t know who the girl’s mother is, but her father is most certainly George.”

  “This is hardly the girl’s fault,” Daarik’s grandmother said quietly. “You can’t blame the child for the sin of a father she barely knew.”

  “Did she tell you? Did she tell you she was the former king’s only child?”

  Daarik shook his head. “We never talked about it. She is not fond of speaking of her family.”

  Elrek’s expression turned steely. “I wonder, through your haze of ridiculous lust, if you’ve ever once considered why that might be.”

  Daarik stood, staring his father down, his mind a whirlwind. Just hearing the name of the man who’d so heartlessly killed his mother filled him with rage. He closed his eyes, trying to calm himself, and the scene from that day played itself out as if it had just happened moments ago. His father and mother across the field from where he and Baerne had their troops, flanking George’s army on its weak side. He and Baerne had been laughing, joking. The battle was very nearly won, and there was no way George of House Lyon would get away from them again. The war would end. Victory was so near, they could practically taste it.

  And then, out of nowhere, George leapt from his enormous black warhorse and charged at Alira and Elrek. Everyone nearby assumed that Elrek was the target, and so rushed to protect their king.

  It was only when George’s blade met Alira’s neck that the warriors surrounding Elrek and Alira saw their error. The battlefield had gone momentarily silent as the Maarlai tried to process it. And then there had been Elrek’s keening wail, closely followed by the cold, victorious laugh of King George. His men had whisked him away, fighting the enraged Maarlai at every step. Seeing their beloved queen taken from them had taken the fight out of the Maarlai, and George got away, only to be cut down a few weeks later by Elrek himself.

  His death still wasn’t enough. Nothing would undo the things George had done that day, or the way he’d celebrated afterward. Daarik understood his father from that perspective, at least. But the rest of it… he wouldn’t go down that road.

  “The fact remains, whether I’m ‘lust-addled’ or not, that that is not my wife’s handwriting. The shape of the letters is totally different, as is the slant of the hand. Being able to so convincingly fake handwriting script is something very few could pull off,” Daarik said. “So I would suggest finding out who among our own people might want to see a shake-up in leadership.”

  “One of our own wouldn’t do this,” his father said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “No? How often do you speak with anyone outside of your little inner circle here? Anyone other than Jarvik? You make a point of living out there among our people, but you don’t pay attention. There is plenty of unrest. Half of them out there want you to press our advantage and annihilate the humans completely, even though that’s completely against every belief we hold dear. And the rest wonder why we change so much? Why the palace? Why the treaties with the humans when we’ve already won?”

  “Petty squabbles, nothing more,” his father said. The dismissive tone had Daarik ready to hit something.

  “Daarik speaks truth, sir,” Baerne said. “And it is more than idle chatter. There is an entire contingent out there who would like nothing more than to wrest power from the both of you,” he continued, meeting first Elrek’s eyes, then Daarik’s.

  “And how close are you with this contingent?” Jarvik asked Baerne, and Daarik bristled at the sly look in his eyes.

  “I am not close with them,” Baerne said flatly.

  “Then how do you know so much?”

  “Jarvik, watch your tone with my grandson,” Faerlah warned. Daarik exchanged a look with his grandmother.

  “They have approached me, several times, with their arguments.”

  “And why would they do that?” Jarvik asked.

  “Are you daft, old man? It’s obvious. I’m Elrek’s oldest son, yet the throne goes to Daarik. They assume this bothers me, that I’ve been passed over and there’s some kind of lingering resentment there.”

  “And isn’t there?”

  “The only thing I envy of Daarik is the woman he’s married to,” Baerne said with a lopsided grin.

  “Here’s an idea,” Daarik said. “Why don’t we bring Shannen down here and ask her, instead of sitting here idly wondering about whether she did it or not?”

  Jarvik rolled his eyes. “As if she’d admit it.” He sat back with a disgusted look on his face.

  “You truly believe she had nothing to do with this,” Elrek said, holding up the paper again.

  “She had nothing to do with it.”

  “Either way, she lied. She could have told us who she was.”

  “I’m guessing the assumption was that you already knew exactly who it was that you were marrying me off to,” Daarik said. Ordinarily, he would have been ashamed at the accusatory tone of his voice, but this had gone beyond all reason and he was done straddling the line between choosing to honor his wife or his father. He’d sworn his life to Shannen, and he’d meant it. And, more than that, she deserved his loyalty.

  At least, he wanted to believe she did. He hated Jarvik a little more for even making him wonder about Shannen and her motivations in all of this.

  “I highly doubt that she expected that you would have just gone along with picking a random female of House Lyon to wed me to. This actually puts more of her concerns about our marriage into a different light.”

  “Concerns?” Elrek asked.

  “Concerns which are mine to know. But my wife is smarter than I am. And she gave you credit for being more cunning than you actually are. Take it as a sign of respect,” Daarik said. He shifted his gaze to Jarvik. “It was Jarvik’s idea to include a royal in the mix. And Shannen was the only royal heir not already betrothed to somebody.”

  “As if I had any idea who spawned the hellbitch you married,” Jarvik hissed.

  “Watch it, old man,” Daarik said, forcing himself to keep his voice low and calm.

  “Baerne, fetch Shannen, please,” Faerlah said, and Baerne gave her a low bow and was gone before anyone could object. “It seems to me that the simplest way to settle this is to have all of us present and not speak behind the woman’s back as if she doesn’t exist,” she finished mildly. She glanced at Daarik and sent him a quick wink. He breathed a little easier, knowing his grandmother was on his side. She’d liked Shannen from the start, and if there was one thing he knew about his grandmother, it was that she was a very good judge of character.

  That, and she was extremely protective of her family. If she’d thought, for a second, that Shannen meant him harm somehow, she would have removed Shannen from the palace herself, despite what Elrek had arranged.

  The room was silent as Daarik, Elrek, Jarvik, and Faerlah waited for Baerne to return with Shannen. Daarik suppressed a sigh. He was supposed to be lavishing Shannen’s body with attention right now. Tasting all of those delectable parts he hadn’t been able to even touch their first time. Touching her bare flesh, hopefully hearing her moaning or, a male could hope, screaming his name. He forced the t
hought away. He had the feeling she wouldn’t be in the mood after this. One more reason to be irritated with his father and his stupid notions. Of course, he knew where the notions came from.

  He studied Jarvik. The male was a snake. Anti-human in every way, yet so like the worst of them that it was almost laughable. Daarik wondered, for the first time, if maybe it was time for him to take over his father’s duties as ruler. In his younger, stronger days, Elrek never would have let another so clearly affect his decision-making processes or his attitudes. Daarik glanced at his grandmother to see her watching him. She gave him a small smile, and he wondered if she could guess what he was thinking. At this point, she would make a much better ruler than her son. She had all of the qualities Maarlai respected: strength, intelligence, and, most of all, compassion. Pride in their people, but respect for others. Loyalty.

  His train of thought broke as he heard the doors open, and he turned to see Baerne walking through with Shannen. She looked at him questioningly, and he beckoned to her.

  Shannen walked toward Daarik and took his outstretched hand. Baerne had said little to her, other than that her presence was wanted and that Daarik was waiting for her with his father. She wondered if something terrible had happened with her people. If they’d pushed the Maarlai too hard during one of the constant border skirmishes. Daarik held her hand tightly, gently running his thumb over the sensitive skin at the underside of her wrist.

  “All right, she’s here. Ask her what you want,” he said to his father, and Shannen glanced up at him, surprised by the clear anger in his voice.

  “How may I be of service, King Elrek?” she asked, courtly manners coming to her automatically as she gave the Maarlai ruler a low curtsy.

  “Shannen. You wrote this missive to your uncle pleading more oversight at the borders,” Elrek said.

  “I did. Were there changes you wanted made? I realize that a few of my statements toward him were a bit pointed, but believe me when I say that that is normal for communication between us,” she explained.

  “No, the plea for attention to the matter is fine. It is the instructions you gave for how to get past our defenses that I take issue with,” the king said.

  Shannen stared at him, dumbfounded. “I wrote no such thing.”

  Daarik continued rubbing small circles at her wrist with his thumb. “I told you this already,” he said, again in a tone that she had never heard him use with his father.

  “So you had absolutely nothing to do with writing a secret message about the weaknesses at our southern border?” Jarvik asked. Shannen bristled at the accusatory tone, as well as at the predatory glee she could see on Jarvik’s face. Nine gods, she hated that male.

  “I most certainly did not.”

  “Then maybe you could explain how it got there,” Elrek said, holding out a piece of parchment. Shannen took it, releasing Daarik’s hand with some regret. He stood solidly beside her while she looked it over. It took her a moment to see the faint, nearly parchment-colored script outlining, in Common, how to get past the Maarlai village’s defenses.

  “This is not even my handwriting,” she said immediately. “And I have paid almost zero attention to patrol shift schedules at the southern edge of the village, which I’ve visited precisely once, when you had me in that hut overnight before I married Daarik,” she said, placing the parchment back on the table. “If someone is accusing me of writing this, then they may as well accuse me of some kind of sorcery as well, that I can be all places when my body is never seen anywhere but the palace and Janara’s library.”

  “You have free rein here. You could go anywhere and nobody would know it,” Jarvik argued in his wheedling tone.

  And… something snapped. Shannen had been polite, more polite and respectful than she had ever been of her own king. And to have this constant suspicion, on top of her recent confrontation and the snickers and whispers behind her back, had done it.

  “Perhaps you should spend less time looking for ways to blame me for your problems, and more time cleaning up your own house. I would start with that one,” she said, pointing at Jarvik.

  Jarvik laughed. “The king knows he can trust me, wench, and if—”

  “If you speak that way to my wife again, I will rip out your spleen and make you eat it, fool,” Daarik growled beside her. And then he shouted something in Maarlai. A word Shannen had not learned yet. After he said it, he looked sheepishly at Faerlah and said two words Shannen did recognize: “forgiveness, grandmother.”

  For her part, Faerlah merely nodded. “No need to apologize to me, Daarik. I was prepared to call him much worse than that.”

  “Tell me this then,” Jarvik snarled. “Whose daughter are you?”

  Shannen stared at the ugly old Maarlai. Then she glanced at the king, who was watching her expectantly. They really didn’t know, she realized with a start. She tore her gaze away from Jarvik to see Elrek watching her expectantly. No. One of them knew, she realized. The rest were just waiting for her to confirm it.

  “I am the only child of George of House Lyon, former ruler of my people,” she said, standing taller. “Did you really think my uncle kept me in his home out of the goodness of his heart, when so many of my other uncles’ bastards live in poverty on the street? My father made my uncle promise to raise me if he ever died.”

  “And who is your mother?”

  Shannen shook her head. It was nearly enough to make her laugh. She could see where this was going. Her father had been a benevolent ruler to his own people, but had held a deep and abiding hatred for the Maarlai, who he fought against tirelessly during his reign. And he had clearly been better at it than her uncle, because it was shortly after her father’s death that the Maarlai gained control and her uncle was forced to kneel before Elrek.

  “My mother’s name was Katarina Amaleez.”

  “And what was her position in the king’s household?”

  Shannen smirked. “Her usual position was beneath the king, I assume. Or on top sometimes, I would suppose.”

  She heard Daarik clear his throat beside her, and when she glanced up at him, he seemed to be trying not to laugh.

  “Don’t be smart, girl,” Jarvik said.

  “My mother was a prostitute, your Majesty,” she said, ignoring Jarvik. “That was her importance to my father. That, and she gave birth to his only child.”

  “And where is she now?”

  Shannen rolled her eyes. “She passed away shortly after my father. We were moved into the palace to fulfill my father’s wishes upon his death, and she became ill not long after.”

  “Do you know that your father murdered Daarik’s’ mother?” Elrek asked, sharpness, rage in his tone. “Murdered my wife, while I watched? And he took glee in it!”

  Daarik was about to say something, and Shannen put a hand on his arm, urging him to be silent. She would fight this particular battle on her own.

  “I do not doubt that he did,” she said calmly. “My father lived for war. He loved war far more than he loved anyone or anything else in his life. He hated your people, and I am well aware of the fact that he enjoyed killing you. I am sorry for your loss. I am sorry you had to watch it happen. But if you expect me somehow to pay for the acts of my father, who I met once in the entire nine years of my life in which he could have known me before he died, then you are going to be sorely disappointed. It was a war. War is brutal and heartbreaking. And I am not my father, not any more than Daarik is you,” she said, meeting Elrek’s eyes.

  “No remorse. Disrespect,” Jarvik hissed. “She should be locked up at the very least. I would put her to—”

  “You were warned,” Daarik said, and before Shannen knew what was going on, Daarik had leapt over the long wooden table the elders were sitting behind and pulled Jarvik out of his chair, throwing him bodily across the room. Jarvik landed on the stone floor, and Elrek shouted at Daarik to stop.

  “That is an order, son,” Elrek shouted, just as Daarik leaned over Jarvik, fist raised to delive
r what Shannen knew would be a devastating blow.

  Daarik snarled something at Jarvik before tossing him aside like a rag doll. He came and stood beside Shannen again, arms crossed, anger and defiance reflected on his face as he stared at his father.

  “So you betrothed your son to a random woman. You had no idea who I was, and you blame me for that? You blame me for the fact that your son is wed to the daughter of the man who killed your wife. Whose fault is it, really? I never kept my lineage a secret. I just foolishly assumed that you knew exactly who it was that you were marrying Daarik off to.”

  “I should have been more careful. It is clear that you have addled his wits,” Elrek muttered. Jarvik was slowly standing up, and he limped back to his seat.

  “In truth, I think I’m seeing clearly for the first time,” Daarik said, and Shannen’s gaze shot to her husband’s face. He looked resigned, yet determined. She reached over and took his hand, trying to offer him the same strength and support he had offered her when she had faced the king and Jarvik’s accusations. He squeezed her hand gently.

  “I think your time as our ruler has come to an end, father.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Shannen barely believed what she was hearing, and, from the reactions of Jarvik, Faerlah, and king Elrek, they were just as stunned at Daarik’s words as she was. She glanced sideways at Baerne to see him standing much as Daarik was, arms crossed, chin raised. The half brothers clearly had the same look of defiance abut them, at the very least. The room was silent as death as Elrek and Daarik stared each other down.

  “I am willing to forget that you said those words, son,” Elrek finally said. “Your life has changed immeasurably. You spoke out of turn.”

  “No,” Daarik said. “I meant it. And I’ll say it again, publicly.”

  “You’ll cause civil war among our people, because of a slight against this human you’re married to?” Elrek said, shaking his head.