Chapter 7 - The Lie Beneath the Throne
Elara refused to believe it.
The accusation sounded impossible, yet the paper lay in her hands with the king’s name circled beneath the royal seal. The ink was old. The seal was genuine. At the bottom of the page, beside Aldric’s name, someone had written one sentence.
He knows what happened to the first queen.
Captain Rovan read the line twice. “This could be forged.”
Maribel gave a tired laugh. “That is what I said about the ledger.”
“You expect us to believe you now?”
“No. I expect you to ask the king.”
The palace bells rang again above them. The fire had been contained, but parts of the west wing were destroyed. Guards searched the corridors for the attackers. No one knew who had opened the gates or how the queen’s men had entered the tower.
Rovan wanted to return immediately, but Elara folded the papers and placed them inside the front of her dress.
“We take these to the king,” she said.
Maribel stopped her. “If you show him that page without reading the others, he will lie.”
“You have lied more than anyone in this palace.”
“I know. That is why I recognize the signs.”
The queen pointed toward the stack. “The document beneath it contains the king’s order to release Varron from investigation. The next contains the physician’s report from the night Celestine died. Read them before you decide who is guilty.”
Elara looked at Rovan.
The captain nodded reluctantly.
They read the documents in the nursery while Maribel stood beneath the blue door. The first was a military order signed by Aldric, instructing the royal guard to stop investigating Chancellor Varron’s movements. The second was a medical report stating that Lady Celestine’s fever had worsened after drinking wine at supper. The third was an unsigned confession from a servant who claimed she had seen the king enter Celestine’s chamber shortly before midnight.
The fourth document was missing its final page.
“This proves suspicion,” Rovan said. “Not murder.”
“It proves Aldric had something to hide,” Maribel replied.
Elara remembered the king’s tears in the chapel. They had seemed real. A guilty man could cry. A father who had lost his daughter could still have caused the death of his wife.
“Why would he kill Celestine?” she asked.
Maribel’s gaze moved to the portrait. “Because he believed she was planning to take you and flee the kingdom.”
“Was she?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I helped her prepare the horses.”
Elara stared.
The queen finally told the whole story.
Three days before Celestine’s death, the first queen had discovered that Varron was purchasing soldiers from the eastern guilds. She planned to take infant Seraphine to the southern provinces and ask the king’s loyal commanders to protect her. Maribel, then a young noblewoman close to the court, had agreed to help.
“I admired Celestine,” Maribel said. “She was kind, intelligent, and loved by the people. I believed she could save the kingdom.”
“What changed?”
“Varron found out. He offered me a position as queen if I helped him separate Celestine from the child.”
“And you accepted.”
“I believed I could betray him later.”
Rovan shook his head. “You were ambitious.”
“Yes.”
The simple admission seemed to make the room colder.
“I wanted influence,” Maribel continued. “I wanted a place in the palace. I thought I could protect the king better from inside the throne room than from outside it. I was wrong.”
“What happened on the night Celestine died?” Elara asked.
Maribel looked directly at her. “Aldric entered her chamber after receiving a message that she had confessed to treason. He confronted her. They argued. He left alive.”
“Then who poisoned her?”
“Varron.”
“And you watched?”
“I arrived after she collapsed.”
“You could have saved her.”
Maribel’s eyes filled. “I could have called the physician. Instead, I made a choice. Varron told me that if Celestine survived, he would kill you. I believed him.”
Elara’s voice turned hard. “You believed a murderer, and my mother died.”
“Yes.”
“Then you are guilty.”
Maribel nodded. “I have never denied it.”
The queen’s confession did not make Elara feel better. It only gave shape to the anger she had carried without a name.
Captain Rovan opened the last document. “There is a mark here. A small blue line.”
“That was Celestine’s private code,” Maribel said. “She used it to identify a message written under pressure.”
“Can you read it?”
Maribel took the page. Her face tightened.
“It says, ‘The king did not order this. The order was forged.’”
Elara looked toward the king’s name.
The circled line had been written over the original ink. Beneath it, hidden by the paper’s fibers, was another sentence.
Varron speaks with the king’s seal, but not with his voice.
Rovan exhaled. “The king’s name was added to implicate him.”
“Then who forged the order?” Elara asked.
Maribel turned toward the door.
“The person who has controlled the palace for eighteen years.”
The sound of footsteps approached through the corridor.
Rovan raised his sword. The blue door opened, and King Aldric entered with Halven, Tomas, and two guards.
“I have been searching for you,” he said.
His gaze fell on Maribel. “Why is she here?”
Elara held out the papers. “Did you order my mother’s death?”
The king stopped.
For a moment, he seemed unable to understand the question. Then he saw the documents and closed his eyes.
“No.”
“Did you enter her chamber that night?”
“Yes.”
“Did you argue?”
“Yes.”
“Did you leave her alive?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you never tell me?”
Aldric looked at the portrait of Celestine. “Because after I left, she begged me to take you and run. I refused. I believed the accusations against her. When she died, I thought my anger had caused it.”
Elara’s throat tightened.
“You let me believe you had lost me to traitors.”
“I did not know you were alive.”
“You never questioned Maribel?”
“I questioned everyone. She brought me evidence. Varron brought me witnesses. The palace told me what I wanted to hear because I wanted someone to blame besides myself.”
Maribel gave a soft, bitter laugh. “And while you mourned, Varron ruled through both of us.”
Aldric stared at her. “You knew he forged the order.”
“I learned years later.”
“Why did you remain silent?”
Maribel looked at Elara. “Because by then, silence was the only thing holding the kingdom together.”
“That is not an excuse,” Elara said.
“No. It is a confession.”
Before the king could respond, a guard rushed into the nursery.
“Your Majesty, Chancellor Varron has escaped.”
Rovan spun around. “How?”
“The lower cell was empty. The guard assigned to him is dead.”
The king’s face hardened. “Where is he going?”
The guard held up a piece of parchment.
“He left this.”
Aldric read it, then handed it to Elara.
The message contained only one sentence.
If the princess wants her crown, let her come to the place where the first queen died.
At the bottom was a location.
The old summer house by the black lake.
Elara folded the message and gave it back to the king. “He wants me to follow.”
“He wants you frightened,” Aldric said.
“Those are not always the same thing.”
The king looked at her. “You should not have to carry this.”
“Neither should you.”
“I am your father.”
“You are also the king. Everyone expects you to carry what they refuse to touch.”
Aldric studied her, and something like recognition passed between them. He had spent years believing that courage meant standing alone. Elara had learned that courage often meant admitting when one needed others.
Tomas approached with the burned wooden horse. “Will Varron hurt us?”
The king knelt before him. “Not if I can stop him.”
“Can you?”
Aldric did not pretend certainty. “I will try with every man I have.”
Tomas looked at Elara. “What if trying is not enough?”
Elara placed her hand on his shoulder. “Then we help him.”
That became the plan. They would travel before dawn, not as a royal procession but as a small group capable of moving quickly. Rovan chose trusted soldiers, Halven carried the medical kit, and Tessa volunteered to come because she knew the old servants’ routes around the lake.
Maribel remained under guard, but the king ordered that she be taken along. If Varron had left a message, the queen might understand the trap better than anyone.
Elara looked once more at the name of the place and felt a memory stir: black water, a woman singing, and the sound of a child’s laugh beneath a roof of glass.
“I have been there,” she said.
The king’s expression changed. “You were taken there?”
“I do not know. I remember the lake, but not the house.”
Maribel’s face tightened. “Celestine used to bring you there in summer.”
“Then Varron chose it because he knew the memories would hurt.”
Rovan folded the message. “We leave before dawn.”
May you like
Elara touched the locket. “No. We leave tonight.”
No one argued. The palace had already taught them that darkness did not make secrets safer. Sometimes it only gave them more room to move.
