The King is Dead by Benjamin Dean

Author:Benjamin Dean
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2022-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen I Yield

‘HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM! NOW!’

I stepped back from the gate as the King’s Guard – my guard – edged forward, guns raised. The gates remained shut as they charged, moving as one orchestrated squad. I didn’t want to move a single muscle, not when their guns were trained on me, but every fibre of my body screamed, a torturous adrenaline slithering over my skin. I wanted to step outside my body and run – keep on running far away, until I could never be found again.

‘Step away from the gates and get down on your knees,’ one of the guards said from behind his gun, his voice gruff and deadly. The flashes of a million cameras went off behind me, a murmur spreading between people I couldn’t see.

I wanted to speak, to shout out that it was me, the person whom this palace swore to protect. But the guard had seen me up close, looked me directly in the eye, and seen somebody else. He didn’t see the king. He saw a trespasser trying to break into the palace. Fighting back tears, I raised my hands and sank to my knees.

‘It’s the king!’ somebody behind me shouted out. Each word felt like a burn on my back.

The guard’s eyes narrowed as he took another step towards the gate, his nose centimetres from the railings as he looked down at me. I lifted my head up so the lights of the palace could find their way beneath the hood I’d forgotten I still had up as a pathetic protection. He leaned down, nothing but the bars between us. Then the realization spread over his face, slowly at first and then all at once. After a few seconds, the guard’s face fell completely, eyes widening, his mouth dropping open.

‘GET THE GATES OPEN!’ he shouted, his gun now hanging limply by his side.

The other guards scattered as the gates inched forward. I felt nothing but shame, kneeling before the palace. The cameras trained on my back were just as intimidating as the guns that had been pointing at me. It took all my strength to stand back up under their glare. I didn’t stop to explain to the guards. I couldn’t even look them in the face. Instead, I ran through the gates, into the palace courtyard and through the waiting door, which had been flung open to receive me.

‘What on earth is going on?’ I heard Gayle say before she appeared round the corner, wrapped in a pale green dressing gown with slippers on her feet and a scarf hiding her hair. Her face dropped when she saw me standing there in my hoodie.

Peter wheeled round the corner too, still in his suit and tie. Gayle looked over my shoulder to see the guards running around like headless chickens, the front gates now closed, but the flashes from paparazzi cameras still illuminating the forecourt.

‘What have you done?’ she whispered.

I didn’t have an answer to that. I could

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