Stalemate | A Rise To Power

𝘌𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘥

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Ethelind was one of the calmest in the room, the others panicking and tittering among themselves. Her gaze swept the hall, searching for Landon, only to find Audrey had got there first. She could hear snippets of their conversation before Audrey suddenly shoved him in the chest.

"If you poisoned your father, the truth will come out someday," Audrey hissed, but Ethelind could see that she was afraid of confronting Landon by the way her hands were clasped tightly behind her back.

Maybe I don't give her enough credit. Although she's making assumptions that might cost her, Ethelind thought. Everyone else was surging forwards, trying to get a closer look at Kael's dead body, and few were paying attention to the pair. There are too many people who wanted Kael dead. It will be almost impossible to prove anything.

Her gaze went to Calhoun, the Eastern ambassador. Would the East gain anything from the death of Kael? He glanced back at her, his face devoid of its usual pompous self-importance for once, before he turned and walked out of the hall without a word.

Is his façade of an arrogant fool just a cover? Her head was spinning. The world was too full of enemies to keep track of them all. Behind her, Jasper leaned against the wall with his arms folded and a small smirk on his face amid all the chaos. The old Lord Finley continued to drink his wine, watching the crowds around Kael calmly, and the servants murmured amongst themselves. Anyone in that room could have done it—unless Lord Greywell or Damek Westerling had decided to send in an assassin to slip in and out.

Ethelind turned back to Landon and Audrey.

"Why would I want to kill my own father?" Landon demanded. His face seemed offended at the accusation, but his voice was made bitter with raw grief. Whether it was genuine or fake, Ethelind could not tell.

"For the throne." Audrey's eyes met his.

Tread carefully, Ethelind wanted to say. Landon's shoulders seemed to slump for a moment, but his moment of softness didn't last long; a new form took over him as his jaw tensed and his eyes burned with anger. He turned to the King's Guard and nodded at Rickard, the one nearest to him. The man held his halberd a little too tightly, she noticed as she looked closer.

"Seize her," Landon commanded.

"What?" Audrey's eyes widened, then narrowed in anger. "I'm already your prisoner!"

Landon nodded, his face slipping into blankness. "And, this time, you're getting a proper cell," he said slowly, as if tasting each word on his lips.

"No, stop!" She struggled against her captor, straining as Landon watched mercilessly. "You can't, Landon, please..."

The guard pinned her arms behind her back before pulling her away, struggling and cursing. Landon watched in silence before he turned to Jax, who stood motionless, constantly vigilant. If he was mourning his dead king, it didn't show.

"I want to speak with the food tasters," Landon said sharply. "And someone who knows their poisons. Question anyone who might know anything—I want to find out who did this. Arrest any suspects if you have to."

A war has started when anyone is at risk of death, regardless of age or sex, Ethelind remembered her father telling her.

Jax bowed, stone-faced, before he turned and left to do as he bid.

Ethelind walked up to him when Jax was gone, her steps careful. She knew that she was going to have to tread carefully around Landon, skirting around the cracking ice of his trust. She had to make him realise she was useful or else she knew that the ice would break beneath her feet and she'd be plunged straight down into ice cold water, where she would drown and no one would be able to hear her scream.

"You can't subject her to the dungeons, Your Majesty," Ethelind said, reaching him.

He turned his steely gaze on her. "She will be released if she is found innocent. If not, she will be beheaded for treason. I will make sure justice is fairly administered in this castle."

"Forgive my bluntness, but I'm not sure if you are innocent yourself, truth be told." The ice was cracking audibly between them, a palpable thing, but Ethelind had to ask, just to see his face and try to read his expression.

Landon's lips twisted into a sneer. Suddenly he was a completely different person—the façade of the smiling prince was easily used to fool others, but it dissolved quickly when the eyes of others were turned away. His eyes were dark voids, slabs of cold stone, and his lips were liars, able to twist into words that could make or destroy. His black clothes, embroidered with swirling silver and adorned with shining buttons, were mourning clothes not only for Aldric but Kael too. A monster had emerged from the broken parts of Landon Shadowhart.

A memory of a scrawny boy with a wooden sword and muddy clothes flashed in her mind, but she could make no correlation between that boy and the fiend that stood before her.

"Poison is the weapon of a craven," he said coldly.

"Of course. Forgive me, I misspoke."

Suddenly his face was closer to hers and Ethelind felt her breath hitch in her throat. She found herself starting to take a step back but forced herself to stand her ground. Her right hand drifted over the pommel of Silence, reminding her that the sword was there, and she found the strength in her to stare right back into his eyes.

If I wanted, I could give him a few more scars, she told herself. He's just a boy.

"Then you will need to learn how to say the right things, won't you?" he asked, his honeyed tone soft but laced with asperity.

"Yes, Your Majesty," she gritted out.

He seemed satisfied and moved away. She knew he wouldn't hesitate to kill her if he thought that she was working against him. She suddenly felt fragile, easily expendable.

She hated the feeling but forced herself to bow and turned to go back to her chambers.

"Ethelind?" Landon asked.

She turned back around, making sure to keep her face neutral.

"I need you to organise my coronation."

Ethelind struggled to keep her face straight, shoving down the rage in her until she could almost feel herself choking on it. He was taunting her by making the request. He was trying to show her the power he held.

Humour him, she told herself. Be patient.

She nodded. "It will be done. And a funeral?"

Landon nodded and his gaze turned wistful, seeming to drift straight past her: past the walls of the hall, past the forests and towns of the North, past the sea, to the place where his father and brother roamed. He didn't reply and she took it as a dismissal.

She walked out. She wasn't upset by Kael's death—their relationship had never been built on amiability but, rather, their ambitions—but she knew that she would have to change her game play. A new monarch, a new Ethelind.

I will never be complacent as a mere subordinate, she realised. Her ambitions had always wanted more, and Landon just made her feel aggravatingly dispensable.

She couldn't prove that Landon had killed his father.

But maybe she could write to Damek and help raise a coup against the king.

It was a treasonous thought. It could get her killed. But it could also get Landon killed, and with him dead....

I could seize the North and send Malena to Ulysses to show my good intentions. I have a claim to the throne—my mother was Lucian's sister.

Ethelind considered it for a moment. Taking the North. But she pushed away the thought. She wasn't that ambitious.

But suddenly the thought was in her head, and she couldn't get it out.

Lmao murder mystery: who poisoned Kael?

Part 1 of Ethelind versus Landon in psychologically pissing the other off while refraining from just getting out their swords and running the other through :)

Love you all,
Shelly M xx