All's Fair in Revenge

Chapter 45: Hindsight

Hindsight allows for the opportunity to see a situation from all angles. Knowing what I do now, I might have stayed a little bit longer in the courtyard despite the risk, the cost, the consequences we'd both face. We'd face them anyway.

As Thorne and I reentered the main part of the castle by the grand staircase, we found servants and guards running amuck, scurrying hither and thither. I saw Liv almost immediately. She was searching for someone—undoubtedly me—the tension in her shoulders deflating once we locked eyes.

"What's going on," I asked, taking in servants huddled in groups whispering and glancing my way, guards in full armor clanking as they ran up and down the stairs. Everyone tried looking busy with no idea how to be useful.

Liv shoved me to a corner. "How'd you do it?" The confusion etched onto my brow prompted her to explain further. "The king is dead, how did you...?" She mimicked a knife cross her throat and then winced knowing the memory it'd stir for me.

At the time, I was too busy taking in the new information to notice. My widened gaze struck her own. King Enric was dead? The man I'd shared a table with for too many days now was dead. And I hadn't done it. "Natural or..." I checked to see no one listened, "not?"

Her voice fell to a level softer than a whisper. "It wasn't you?"

"Me? No," I said, shock pervading my voice. "No, I was with Thorne. Presumably not you?"

"Obviously or I wouldn't have asked." Liv grabbed my hand and hurried me up the staircase, dodging soldiers and servants as we went. "We need to get you to the royal quarters," she said, adding, "but do not think for one second you're going to get away with not telling me about," she gestured to Thorne paces ahead of us and gaining, "all of that afterward."

"Wait." I stopped her on the third to last step forcing the droves to part around us. "You're not mad at me?"

"That's your biggest concern at the moment?"

I shrugged. "He's one less thing I have to worry about now."

Liv smoothed my dress and braid. "We will talk of it later."

The queen's wailing led the way to the king's quarters deep in the belly of the castle along halls I'd tried to explore days ago. With a fresh death on their minds, everyone was too rattled to enforce the no-entry rules. Doors opened before me like they never had before.

I stopped Liv at one adjacent to the king's rooms. People bustled in and out but never stayed around long enough to notice anything of consequence. It would be my last chance to find out who may have killed Arin. With time running out, I knew I had to take it. "Cover for me?" Liv offered a weary expression. "Five minutes. That's all. If there's nothing, we'll go home tomorrow." Partly a lie, but most of it was true. That should count for something.

Liv looked between the door and the menagerie of courtiers and servants, guards and physicians bobbing in and out of the king's quarters. She nodded, belatedly, blocking me from view as I ducked into the dark room.

"Fuck," I soundlessly shouted, knocking into a small table in the cave-like room. I scrambled for a candle by the entry. But with no fire in the hearth, there was nothing to be done with it. Moonlight would have to do.

I flipped through books. I studied the desk. I opened drawers and scanned his texts, found a delirious letter about some ring the king favored, and moved on. Piles of books. Piles of paper. Piles of robes, of night caps, of slippers. The man spent entirely too many of his nights in this den. No wonder he had an early death.