The Rebel Prince (The Season Series #3)

Chapter 25 - Part 2

I took the stairs carefully, wincing as they squeaked and groaned under my weight. They ended in a narrow hallway behind the bar, the jangle of cooking utensils and scent of spices emanating from the kitchen at the other end. The barmaid appeared, bearing a tray similar to my dinner tray. I ducked back into the stairwell as she hurried past, bound for the front room.

"...make it out after me. She's closed Suprelizia. Thank you, this looks scrumptious."

I didn't recognize the voice.

"Closed?"

That was Frederico. Silence fell as whoever the other voice was seemed to be eating.

"Every servant is required to bear a written order stamped with a special seal, one she has given only to those who have sworn fealty to her. Every delivery wagon is turned inside-out. Half the servants have disappeared after what she's done and the other half are too terrified of what she might do to do anything but follow their orders."

As the voice spoke, the barmaid hurried back to the kitchen and I slipped out from the staircase. Sidling down the hall, I crouched, using the height of the bar to conceal my entry into the front room. Unsure whether the barmaid would return and notice me crouching, hidden, I crept to the end of the bar farthest from where Frederico and his men sat. It was dark here, the shifting light from the fireplace near the prince's table barely reaching this end of the tavern. They seemed to be the only occupants, so I hoped that the barmaid would have no reason to come near me as I settled in to listen.

"What has she done?" Frederico asked. The hesitation was ominous.

"She issued a blood order that night." Another loaded pause. "The poisoning of the duques was seemingly not enough to keep the nobles in her thrall. Delminas and Dellanos survived the coup by bending the knee. The others..."

The group waited while the unknown voice seemed to gather the courage to say what came next.

"She went to their palacios and rounded up the families of Delmar and Delbosque. The Delmar line has ended, executed because of the duque's treason in sharing poisoned wine."

"And the Carvalhos?" That was Rafael, his voice hitching as he spoke his family name.

"Their palacio sits empty, after Dulciana's men tore through it. The duque and the duquesa died in the palace, as did Alfonso and Eliana."

A chair screamed against the stone floor.

"She was with child!" Rafael roared.

Someone murmured something, to which Rafael simply growled, his heavy footsteps echoing before the tavern door screeched open and slammed shut. Silence settled once again, a dart of pity for the big man who'd stormed outside. His entire family, slaughtered because they wouldn't bend the knee to the usurper. I thought back to the women in the open air landau in the streets of High Relizia. It seemed a lifetime ago, the duquesa's easy smile, her eldest daughter's protective arm around the younger one.

Dead, all of them.

"What of Armando?" Frederico asked quietly, his tone sobered and sad.

"The morning I fled, the rumours said he was to be crowned Duque Delmar in the place of his late father."

More curses, Frederico's the loudest among them. Footsteps approached from the hallway behind the bar and I shrank back even farther into the shadows.

If Armando, the bastard son of the Duque Delmar, assumed his executed father's title, Dulciana could marry him to legitimize her claim to the throne. I shook my head, marvelling despite my disgust at the scope of her plan. She'd driven her brother from the palace, fleeing for his life, and elevated the man she loved onto the throne beside her, all in one fell swoop.