Lies of the Line

Chapter 3

The windows showed the back gardens where people who worked in the castle were taking their breaks and talking with friends. The couch I was sitting on felt too grand for the simple room. It was relatively small in size and the long couch felt like it took up too much space. There was an empty fireplace, littered with ashes across from me and the windows were to the left. The door I'd walked through was on the right wall next to the portraits and paintings that hung there. The tea that had been placed on the low sitting table in front of me was still there, steaming and untouched. I had stopped counting the time it was taking for my uncle to join me when I reached thirty minutes and began people-watching.

I sighed as I looked back at the wall of pictures of kings and queens long gone who had ruled the lands before they had been split and tried to imagine who was who and what their life would have been like. The large grandfather clock that hung on the wall next to me ticked rather loudly as seconds turned to minutes, and minutes seemed to last longer and longer as each passed while the clock counted down the time that was wasting away.

By the time the door to the room swung open, the tea had stopped steaming and an entirely new set of people were in the back gardens. I turned to face my uncle as he walked in slowly like his bones were too heavy for him to carry. He slowly crumpled to the chair by the windows, the farthest from me, and lazily stared back at me.

"How may I help you, Lilac?" His tone was bored and the deep baritone bounced off the walls before being swallowed up by the silence.

"Lamorence is in the middle of a crisis and I am here to not only warn you but to ask for help." I started, putting my hands on my lap, and changed my tone to a neutral one. "My father has been poisoned and I know my brother was the one who did it. He plans on overthrowing you or at least attempting to, but he can't as long as my father is alive. No one believes me but my father and my lady-in-waiting. I am asking you to help me get Malik off the throne and save not only my people but yours." My voice sounded stronger than I had thought it would.

The chair he was sitting in creaked as he leaned back, putting the majority of his weight on the hind legs. "No." The answer was curt and firm. He hadn't raised his voice. He was eerily quiet. It cut through the silence and sent me on a spiral.

"What?" I said in disbelief. "Why not?"

"Lilac, you of all people know that my brother and I don't get along. I have wanted his land for years. I grew up there, and when my father told me I would be a ruler one day I made plans for the kingdom and imagined a future in the land of eternal summer. When the time came for me to be crowned, my brother and sister were given the crowns I wanted and I was... banished," the words were filled with malice and hatred. "to this kingdom, of snow, war, and people who are blind to the pain they live in by staying here. My father split the land in three just to punish me, and I will not give up a chance for happiness." He stood up from his chair and crossed the room, stopping at the door. "So no, I will gladly see your brother destroyed in war before I take back the home that was stolen from me." He slammed the door shut behind him as he stomped out the door.

Two knights escorted me out of the castle and that was the end of it. I sulked down the steps, with a stone of despair sitting in my chest, and I had no idea what to do. The walk back felt colder and longer than it had that morning. The only other person who would be able to help now would be my aunt in Cephille who I had never met. The markets, outside the castle, had died down, but not by much and the chatter that had once been enlightening was now just white noise to the thoughts spinning around my mind. Any solutions I had thought of disappeared with one word.

No.

It rattled around in my thoughts. His expression, his story, the icy words, and in the center of it all, the denial.