Renegade Queen : A Court Intrigue Fantasy (The Forbidden Queen Series Book 3) by R.J. Vickers

Author:R.J. Vickers [Vickers, R.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-25T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

That afternoon, we began taking steps to secure the house. The young household staff were set to work washing bloodstains from the Whitish soldiers’ uniforms and mending the torn edges, while Dellik’s crew dragged a huge cabinet into the main hall so it could easily be shifted to block the front doors.

None of them seemed to need me.

The next days passed in a haze. Overwhelmed with guilt, I tried to stay away from the household, instead spending my time looking through the governor’s paperwork or walking alone in the garden. Despair at how badly the fight had gone trapped me, and I feared to make another decision that might go awry. Instead I battled my thoughts alone, allowing the haze of doubt to cloud my vision, the lingering pain in my arm to distract me from the grim road ahead. The churning sea filled me with a restless dissatisfaction, the seagulls scolding me for delaying the inevitable.

My father caught up to me while I walked in the garden one day. He fell into step beside me, not looking my way. At last he said, “I am proud of you, Kalleah. You have a remarkable ability to determine what is necessary and pursue it unflinchingly, no matter how unpleasant the process.”

“Do you think fighting is the right course? I did, until Lord Jofran questioned it. Until he died. A war will devastate our kingdom. Would it be better to surrender and save ourselves the bloodshed?” Even as I asked the question, I knew that was not a possibility. Surrender would mean giving up our magic races for slaughter. It would be a horrific betrayal of the very people on whom our kingdom’s prosperity depended. Yet I had to know my father’s thoughts.

“No. As you said before, a kingdom under Whitish rule is not a place any of us wish to live. A quick death at the end of a sword might be kinder than what they have planned for us.”

I nodded and walked on, the sun warm on my hair, the waves crashing below. Summer heat had settled over the estate, heavy despite the sea breeze, and it was far too easy to pretend that all else ceased to exist so long as we remained within the secure walls of the estate.

My father was silent for several minutes, walking alongside me with a pensive frown. I felt an unexpected surge of affection for him—he knew what I faced. He had seen what it was like to rule a country that increasingly threw aside reason, and he understood how much my decisions weighed on me.

Eventually we reached the cliffs. I stopped with my feet nearly touching the crumbling edge, while my father hesitated a pace behind me. Waves leapt and foamed below, and seagulls squabbled over a fish on a spray-slicked rock.

“Maybe you should take back the crown,” I said softly. “Our people loved you while you ruled. If I plan to usurp the throne from Leoth, I have no more claim to it than you do.

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