The Flower Crown Princess

Part 33

"You're certain you can do this?"

I look up into Asdagh's eyes, shaking my head. "No. I'm- I'm terrified," I whisper, tears stinging in my eyes. I close them. "I don't want to do it."

"But you have to."

"I know that. I will do it," I reply fiercely, a tear escaping. "But I don't want to."

His face crumples in something- pity, maybe? Sympathy?- and his hand grasps mine. "I understand," he replies softly.

"Do you?" I hate the way my voice cracks, it makes me feel so vulnerable, a queen who still is only fifteen and really still a girl, a girl with no idea what do do. Placed in a situation she does not want. A situation beyond her control, no matter what she tells herself.

I hate being that girl.

Asdagh doesn't answer. 

*****

I walk into the council room. Purposely late. The whole court is arrayed before me, and at the center, perfectly in place, is Nolan, grinning, a cat that has a mouse under his paws.

I'm not his mouse. He is mine.

"Queen Nivh, what could have brought you to the meeting a whole five minutes late?" A grin slides across his face, deadly and sly.

I stare coldly into his treacherous eyes. "An accusation."

"That can wait." He turns away, but I can see the spark of fear in his face. "Now, on the matter of exports-"

"Prince Cadwal, you may once have been in line for the throne but you are not now. I am on the throne and you will listen to me."

A ripple of shock shivers through the assembly- I purposely called an extensive council today.

"Prince Cadwal has been dead for fifteen years." It is hard to mistake the tremor in his voice as his head snaps back to me, away from his parchment agenda. For a flash of a second it is etched onto his face.

"I don't know whose bones were found- or whatever was found. But, ladies and gentlemen of the court, I can testify with one hundred percent surety that the missing, disgraced traitor, Prince Cadwal, is here in this room."

"Your proof, Your Grace?" An older woman stands- the Duchess of something- or- other. "It is an audacious claim."

"I know." I gulp and nod to a servant boy, who promptly runs out of the room. "Several months ago, I was introduced to Princess Maridi of the Rivers. She revealed that she was a member of a rebel group- in fact, the same rebel group that has been a constant threat."

And so the whole story spills out- from Maridi's revealing of the Dawning to my traveling to the lakes, to Arkhil's plan and up until today. Nothing is left out- not the Duke of Welser's ball, not the hidden room in the castle where my family is being imprisoned.

"It's complete now, the plan," I tell the transfixed audience. My voice has stopped shaking and I address them in perfect confidence. "Somehow- by the grace of whatever supernatural being controls the universe- I convinced him. Look at his face, you know I'm telling the truth."

Absolute, total, deafening silence.

Every head turns from me to Nolan.

He's gone blotchy fuchsia in the face and I can almost see his frothing at the mouth.

More silence.

Silence that is heavier than granite, silence that rolls like thunder and cracks like breaking glass.

"You betrayed me." The voice is dangerously low and grumbling. "You betrayed my trust and for that, I will kill you!" He screams the last words and lunges towards me, unprotected on the speaking floor.

I have never felt something so terrifying as the sheer terror I feel now. I cannot move. I cannot scream. I cannot do anything but stand there and await Nolan barreling into me- I can almost feel the air being torn from my lungs and my head hitting the cold tiles...

I brace myself, a sob almost escaping, waiting for the force that is sure to kill me.

A young man comes in from the side, faster than any fletcher's arrow. Down the two men go, dark hair tangling with dark hair, stocky limbs with stocky limbs. Taken purely by surprise, the young man pins down Nolan and then do I see who it was- just as there's a flash of a metal blade, a cry of anguish, and Kell topples, holding his already- soaked hand to his heaving chest.

"Kell!" Another voice joins mine- a weak, accented one. Maridi has been retrieved from the cell by the servant boy, along with my two brothers.

I rush to my faithful servant, who is still lying on the tile while Maridi stands horrified on the sideline. A knife is gruesomely embedded in his chest and his breath comes in ragged bursts. "You didn't have to do that, you know," I plead to him, though I know I won't do any good. I keep my eyes away from the knife and fixated on his deep, dark eyes, filled with specks of light, light of a thousand golden stars I cannot see.

"Yes, I did," he whispers, so quietly that only I can hear him. "I promised myself that if I found someone I loved, I would die for them."

My tears drip off of my nose as my eyes flutter shut. I squeeze them hard before looking at him again.

It is too late. The smile is frozen in his face, the starry eyes far and distant.

"He's gone, Nivh," whispers Asdagh from behind me.

"Your Highness?"

I turn to face the guards that hold Nolan, safely bound and gagged. "Kill him."

The guard who spoke nods his head. "Of course, Your Highness. It will be done at dawn."

"No!"

"But-"

"Kill him now. On accounts of murder, impersonation, infiltration, and treason. It is an execution fifteen years overdue." I say the words blandly, but I mean every word. "Take him to the execution yards and do it immediately. If you put him in a cell, he will escape."

"Yes, my queen."

They leave and I am left with a body. I look at Kell's empty face and cry.

*****

It is my wedding celebration.

The ceremony I don't remember anything of- I mumbled something and Asdagh mumbled something back. I have a thin gold ring on my finger now.

I sit next to my new husband at the second day's feast and look up to see a stricken face across the table. Maridi gets up and goes to the door of the hall. Nobody notices.

She looks at me and smiles weakly, fear still clear in her face.

The door opens, the headscarf once again falls from the copper curls. The door closes behind the queen that was never re-crowned.