A Dragon's Treasure

Chapter 25 - The Queen

The queen looked at the three people in front of her. Her second son stood there, a look of pure elation on his face. She could feel the quilt of her actions crawling its way up her spine. This was something straight out of her nightmares. She had hoped she would never see his face again, that she could continue pretending he didn't exist. How did he even survive? How did Roman for that matter? She knew what he had planned, he wasn't very good at hiding those kinds of things, but after seeking out a dragon he had instead, found his long-lost brother and decided to bring him back to the castle? She shook her head as her past came back to haunt her. She didn't want to think about that day.

"Ma'am, you have... you're having twins." The handmaid sounded terrified, and honestly, the queen was as well. Being pregnant had been so hard on her, and she wasn't sure how her body would handle a second pregnancy. This had been her one shot, her one hope at an heir, and he was a twin. If superstition was to believe, this would spell doom for the country, and if it wasn't, the country would still riot if they knew.

"No one can no about him," She said shakily—tears in her eyes. There had already been questions about throne legitimacy since it had taken her so long to conceive. The council was full of vultures, ready to throw her off the throne at a moment's notice. She had kept all of them at bay, but she wouldn't be able to handle the scandal of twins. "Take one of them out to the forest, leave them there." There were tears in her eyes as she condemned her own child to death. "I will give you money, but you must not come back after that."

The memory always came back at the most inopportune times, in the middle of the night when she was trying to sleep, now, when she was trying to lead.

The night queen had sent a hunter after the handmaid, claiming she had stolen the money. The woman was killed and her silence was assured. The queen had covered all of her tracks, she had made sure it wasn't possible for the twin to be tracked back to her, and yet, here he was looking like the spitting image of her late husband, the spitting image of her son.

"No one will believe you," She lied, turning to look at Roman, tearing her eyes away from the proof of her sins.

"The country couldn't have gone on without you. We would have fallen into chaos, it wasn't personal, it was diplomatic. You understand that son, I raised you to understand that."

She saw a look of sympathy in Roman's eyes, and she hated it. "You also raised me to be truthful and honest, to be a prince that the people could look up to. Is this the kind of legacy you want to leave, mother? A thrown painted in blood? The woman who attempted to kill her own son because he was a twin? You were given an opportunity to break superstition, to make things better for everyone in our kingdom who was born like me, but you threw that chance away, literally!"

No, she would not be lectured by her own child. Her face grew hot with rage. "Twins are a curse!" She wasn't even sure she believed it, but she knew if Roman attempted to rule while being open and honest about his twin, he wouldn't survive.

"Remus has been nothing but a blessing to my life!" He looked so much stronger now, more sure of himself. He would be more difficult to control and lead. She didn't like it, but worse... Roman had said his name.

Remus.

Tears began to slide down her face. She wasn't sure if they were from anger or pain. It had been one thing when he didn't have a name, when he was just a nebulous void that she could pretend was evil and corrupt, but now he had a name, he had a face. He was a real person, not just a nightmare in her mind. Remus was... had been her son. She had given him up in hopes of giving Roman the best opportunities possible. She had sacrificed him for the son that was now turning against her. She wobbled a bit, trying hard to maintain her air of authority.

"Erni, Tobi, and August already know, and you know that Tobi can't keep his mouth shut to save his life." Roman was walking towards her. She didn't have an out. She didn't have a way to fix this. All of her years of planning were for naught.

"Come clean, mother, let me take back the throne peacefully. We can find a way to smooth this over." No. There would be some people who sympathized with her, there always were, but the vast majority would fall for Roman's charm. She had raised him to be a leader after all. They would demand her head.

"There is no penance for me," she growled, fear turning into anger. She was in front of the door. They couldn't escape unless they went through her. She was desperate. Pulling out a knife she looked at her son one more time, wanting to remember him the way he was. She knew this wasn't going to work, but she couldn't let it all fall apart. "You don't understand the sacrifices I made, everything I fought to do to make sure you would be a worthy king, and then you went and disappeared."

Something on Roman's face changed, hardened a little but then it smoothed out. "I don't want to fight you mother, I want to find a peaceful resolution to this. I know that you had to have gone through a lot, but you put me through a lot as well. The two of us seem to be at an impasse though. Can you see any peaceful solution where we might both get what we want?"

He was a diplomat. He would have made a fine king, but she could see any solution to this where they both got what they wanted. There was no compromise they could come to here.

"You cast that thing back out into the forest," She gestured to Remus, one last desperate attempt to regain control. "And him too." She pointed to Logan, "And you can take over as king, replace the fake and all will be fine." Somehow, she knew the answer before he even said it.

"No."

He had never used that tone with her. He had grown, a few weeks away from the palace and away from her and he had turned into a man who could become king.

"I will not trade away Remus and Logan. One is my brother, and the other is my best friend. I won't send them away to appease your fantasy." It wasn't a fantasy, at least it hadn't been. Not until he made it all come crashing down around her. She clung to her knife tighter. For more than two decades she had fought to make sure everything went exactly as planned, and yet, now, it fell apart like sand.

"I don't think we can come to an agreement." Her voice was quiet, calm. She had made up her decision. "Guards!" She screamed before lunging towards Roman with her knife. She had sentenced one son to death, what was another?