Page 75 of The Moon Blessed King
‘Yes, and I’ve heard you. I’ve listened to you. And I find it wanting.’ Her fingers squeeze tighter. ‘I never once thought of you or your uncle as anything other than the people whose defeat I would celebrate vigorously. I always knew your uncle was an opportunist at heart, but I admit: between the two of you I would have assumedyouto be the one to kill our queen. Anyone would after a year’s imprisonment. But you didn’t. Or you say you didn’t. Perhaps you did, and your uncle took the blame just to ensure you got to keep your pretty crown.’
Elician’s jaw clenches. His nostrils flare. ‘You don’t know anything about my uncle.’
‘He captured and tortured Prince Marias, leaving him crippled and using his life as a way to barter forourAltas.’
‘He never tortured—’
‘IsawMarias’s leg. Do not argue with me,boy, you were achild. Any physician could have set his leg properly, but no one, not in themonthsof negotiations between our countries, considered doing so for him. That is torture by any standard.’
Elician stops. He blinks, dumbly, at Leferge. At her shattered face and proud scars. At the fierce and furious loyalty dripping from her voice. No doubt, like Partho, she was there. She saw the exchange. She knew far better than he did how Marias returned to Alelune and what Queen Alenée had given up to ensure his return.
All his life he has presumed Marias’s treatment in Soleb wascomfortable. No one would have allowed him to die, certainly. It would have caused chaos if Anslian had wilfully captured the Alelunen prince and let that prince die while in custody. And yet, how would they have treated him?
‘Oh,’ he gasps, fingers flexing in painful understanding as the realization sets in. ‘We don’t have your kind of physicians in Soleb.’ Givers could have healed a wound like Marias had, except he had earned that wound on the battlefield, where no Givers would have been. Even if a Giver could have been summoned once he had been successfully removed from combat, Elician’s father would have needed to grant an exception for Marias to be healed. Marias was a prince, after all; it would have been forbidden. And now, Elician knows just how deeply his father loathed Queen Alenée for refusing his offer of marriage. Letting Marias’s leg deteriorate past the point of repair would have been another moment of petty vengeance, and the injury’s worsening condition could have easily been explained by Elician’s first thought: their physicians are substandard compared to Alelune’s.
Leferge is right. It would have been torture. Marias’s leg was shattered. He was lucky it wasn’t amputated, and even then, perhaps it should have been.
‘That boy’ – Leferge jerks her thumb in the direction Partho led Cat’ – is undereducated, unfamiliar and untrained. He does not know his people, and he is bound toyou.’ She lets the insinuation dangle, implications flowing freely through the threads of disdain woven in the air between them.
‘Partho has already threatened my life,’ Elician growls out.
Leferge sneers at Elician. ‘Queen Alenée loved Marias more than her own people, and it cost Altas its freedom. And in our constant efforts to reclaim that city, eventually that cost the people of both Altas and Endura their lives. None of this would have happened if she had never bartered Altas away simply for a man she loved.’
None of this would have happened if I had been willing to let Lio die.
Rage floods through him. Unbridled rage. It is not the same.
‘Alenée divorced Marias, remarried and raised acreatureinstead of a child,’ he spits out. ‘She tortured Alest rather than let him live free. She had no concept oflovetowards either of them. If she had raised that monster of a boy better maybehewouldn’t have seen fit to send Reapers to slaughter Altas and Death wouldn’t have descended upon Endura. But what happened there – what Alenée did – it wasn’t because oflove.’
Leferge shakes her head. ‘You understand nothing of our history. And worse, you’ll have taughthimto believe it too. Death should kill Alest and Gillage both during their challenge; perhaps then we’ll finally have a ruler with some sense.’ She leaves, and hot rage boils through Elician’s body as she disappears into the crowd of soldiers still trying to set up camp.
His fingers wrap around the hilt of his sword, and he clenches and unclenches his hand as he stomps this way and that looking for Leferge, Partho or Cat. He spots a line of blue and follows a row of Guardsmen until he finds the familiar structure of the tent he and Cat and were given for this journey. He shoves back the curtained entrance, finding Partho and Cat talking like they always are.
Tension bleeds from Cat’s shoulders when he sees Elician. ‘I was worried,’ he says.
‘Leferge had some things to say,’ he replies, a bit too short-tempered. He winces at his own tone, apologizing even as the bitter words linger on his tongue.
‘Is there a problem?’ Partho asks.
At the moment?Elician thinks, looking at his husband.No.Cat is here, safe and alive. He has a loyal guard, one who will defend him as Lio has always defended Elician. He needs to do nothing more than what he is doing. Questioning his suitability to reign or his potential efficacy on the throne has no place in the here and now. Elician shakes his head. He wants to reach for Cat, wrap him in his arms, feel his weight against his body, press his lips to Cat’s hair. Hesettles only for a light touch on Cat’s arm. ‘Difference of opinion,’ he says, forcing a smile. ‘That’s all.’
‘About what?’ Cat asks, leaning into his touch.
‘That the reason Altas and Endura happened is because your mother loved your father very much –heropinion,’ he clarifies as Cat’s brows furrow and the corners of his lips drop. ‘Not mine.’
He doesn’t know what he was expecting with that revelation. In truth, as he looks at Cat, he isn’t entirely sure he should have said anything at all. Perhaps it would’ve been better to lie, to change the topic or shrug it off. But Cat seems accepting of the news. ‘That’s not what happened,’ Elician argues uselessly. ‘You don’t divorce the person you love. You don’t send them away to—’
‘The most guarded prefecture in the country?’ Partho cuts in. ‘Where any threat against him or his child would be dealt with by the most highly trained military force in Alelune?’
‘She was the Queen of Alelune,’ Elician snaps back. ‘Her word was law—’
‘Elician…it’s different in Soleb,’ Cat says.
‘The female child of a queen will always be more valuable to our people than a son or a husband,’ Partho explains. ‘Our stella is the future of our country, because her bloodline cannot be shaken or denied. Marias had cost Alelune Altas, and he had been incapable of giving Queen Alenée a daughter. It was…expectedfor him to be put aside. And when he wasn’t, when no action was made to secure a proper heir, therewereattempts on both his and Alest’s lives.’
‘That’s sick.’ Elician shakes his head, then shakes it again. He raises a hand to his mouth, presses his palm to his lips to keep from saying more even as Partho snarls and stalks towards him. Cat steps between them. His blue stone necklace sways in his rush, bright light shimmering in an arc in the corner of Elician’s eye.
‘But everything aboutyourascension to your throne was without strife, correct?’ Partho growls. ‘Your life was perfectly happy and content in your golden tower with your fawning disciples who neveronce questioned who or what you were? Or the stain you would bring to your throne?’
