A Beast's Tale

Chapter 78

I would have finished on time if I made my brothers work.

The thought tugged at the back of mind as I worked through dinner, rewriting the proclamation for the third time. I left it for last, knowing it would be the most frustrating and difficult task. There were details that didn't need to be public knowledge, but, at the same time, any gaps would be filled in with rumors.

I was interrupted by a knock at the door. Ivetta's knock. I sighed and glanced at the clock. She knew I was working late. Why was she here?

"Come in."

She smiled at me as she let herself in, taking in the sheets of parchment scattered across the desk. She was carrying a plate of food. That was why she came. Worrying about me unnecessarily, when she was probably tired from three long days in a row and really needed to take care of herself.

I was tired from those three long days, too. Maybe that was why I was stuck on this document.

"I'm guessing you skipped lunch because of the round table, and I know you skipped dinner, so I brought you something," she explained, setting the plate on a clear area of my desk.

"I told you I was working late," I said, setting my quill aside as I resigned myself to accepting her attention.

"You didn't tell me you were giving Clavis and Nokto the day off," she replied, returning my frown.

"They're useless when the foreign princes are here."

She sighed and walked around the desk to me. I turned in my chair to face her, wondering what she was doing.

"Mind if I sit here?" she asked, lowering herself onto my lap and wrapping her arms around my neck.

She just won. I didn't even know if this was an argument, or a conversation, or an intervention, but whatever it was, she won it. I wrapped one arm around her waist, my other hand holding the outside of her thigh to steady her on my lap, smiling involuntarily. "Not at all."

She leaned in and pressed a light kiss on my lips. "What are you working on?"

"An official proclamation," I replied, glancing back at the now unimportant papers on my desk.

"About Leon?"

I studied her curiously. "He told you."

"He told everybody over dinner." She rested her head on my shoulder and snuggled in closer to me. "But he didn't say much. Only that he was a slave, and he was switched for the real Leon at age six."

She wanted to know, and I had to tell her eventually.

"Leon had a heart condition," I started, resting my head on hers. "His mother was afraid of losing her standing in the palace, so she sent one of her knights to find a replacement."

"Did you know?" she asked quietly.

"No. None of us knew. He was locked away in his room for months. Only a select few were allowed in - his mother, the doctor, his nanny. When he was finally let out of his room, we all thought he was different because of his long illness."

"But he was a different boy altogether."

"A slave boy, bought for a single coin when the knight found the Obsidianite slavers beating him to death."

Her fingers curled into my shirt. She was all too familiar with beatings.

"His nanny, his doctor, that knight - they were all found murdered shortly after Leon emerged from his room," I continued.

"What?" she breathed, pulling back to look at me with wide green eyes.

"His mother had them killed so nobody would find out," I said, brushing her silky black hair back from her face. "And then she died of guilt."