Chapter 123: Tomorrow at Dawn
The Queen stood.
"Bullshit."
That wasn’t the response I’d expected. She still looked calm, but there was an edge in her voice now. A sharpness that hadn’t been there before.
"Justice, you say?" She stepped down from the platform and slowly approached me. "That wasn’t justice."
I didn’t answer.
"And you," she continued, "had enough courage to go looking for information about my brother, your headmaster."
Well, shit. That was exactly what I had been afraid of. So she had found out I was trying to determine whether Mr. Marble had really been with them that day in the Circle. That noble woman I had run into before, the one with the endless libido, must have told her about me. Great. That was not good.
"I only wanted to cross his name off the list," I said. "I wasn’t accusing him of anything, or..."
She lifted one finger, and I shut up immediately. After that, she took a slow breath as if she were forcing herself to stay calm, then walked back to the platform and sat down again. She crossed her legs with perfect grace and met my eyes.
"You are really pushing me, Walker," she said.
"I’m sorry, Your Majesty."
Silence settled over the throne room after that. I glanced at the guards and saw that they looked just as tense as I felt. A few of them traded uneasy looks, and one even looked like he was sweating through his armor while trying very hard not to meet the Queen’s eyes. Nobody in the room seemed eager to say anything at all.
"Back in the cave," she continued, "Ken told me it had been his idea to check the secret passage you found."
I shook my head. "It was my idea. He was probably just trying to protect me."
"I thought so." She nodded once. "Stupid boy."
I stayed quiet.
"And then there was what you did in that cave," she said.
"Yes, Your Majesty?"
"That is the part I was talking about," she replied. "That was not justice."
"I... don’t follow, Your Majesty."
"I watched you strike that man with his own severed arm." Her voice remained calm, but her eyes did not move from mine. She even lifted her hand slightly and mimicked the motion of something being thrown down. "Plop. Plop. Plop. You looked perfectly calm while doing it. No anger. Like you were nailing something into a wall."
I did not answer.
"You are used to ugly things," she said.
I started to speak, then stopped myself. Disrespecting the Queen would be the last thing I wanted to do right now. I just needed to keep my mouth shut, listen to whatever scolding she had left, and hope I left this palace alive. Even that was starting to seem less and less likely by the second. I could feel her anger even though her face had not changed at all.
"Was it the rush?" she asked.
"The rush?"
"Killing him like that," she said. "Was that what you wanted? Was that what made you act so cruelly?"
"I wanted him to suffer the way Jelda suffered, Your Majesty," I said. "I wanted him to feel the same desperation she felt in her last moments."
She leaned back against the throne, resting her head against it while keeping her eyes on me. Then she leaned forward a little and nodded, as if confirming something she had already suspected.
"You were about to say something," I said. "What was it?"
"I mean no disrespect, Your Majesty. It is best if I..."
"Say it."
"I was going to apologize and..."
"Do not lie."
"Your Majesty, with respect, you will not like it."
"Say it."
I exhaled slowly, then took a step forward. "Again, with respect, I grew up on the streets. You grew up in a palace where a fly probably needed permission before landing on you, Your Majesty. I know how people think when they are not trying to lick my boots."
One of the guards moved suddenly from behind me and kicked my leg out from under me, forcing me down onto one knee. Before I could recover, he pressed me lower until I was kneeling on both knees, then brought his sword up to my throat and looked toward the Queen for permission to cut me down. So that was how this was going to go. I was about to be executed because she wanted me to say the thing I had already decided not to say, all while knowing perfectly well the result would be exactly this.
The Queen raised a hand.
"Stop."
"But..." the guard started.
"Let him go."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The guard backed off and returned to his place. I got to my feet again and rubbed my throat before brushing the dust off my pants.
"Explain what you mean by that, Ace," the Queen said. Her tone was still calm, but there was poison under every word.
"I meant that hanging him would not have changed anything," I said. "You would not have made an example of him. The good people would have gone home feeling sick, but satisfied at the same time, because a monster was gone."
I shook my head and kept going.
"But the others, people like Ed, they would not have learned anything from it. Men like him don’t watch an execution and think, ’That could be me.’ They watch and think, ’What an idiot. He got caught.’ Then they go home and make sure they do not make the same mistake."
I took another step forward, my voice lower now.
"I lost the only girl I ever loved," I said. "Her father used to beat her. He left marks on her face, and eventually the school noticed. The authorities were called, and he apologized, but he never stopped. He just started hitting her in places people would not see. He learned."
I took another step.
"Then she lost the ability to walk," I said. "A monster is always a monster. You don’t scare people like that by making an example out of one of them. You just make them smarter. A fly will always land on shit. That is nature. You cannot change it."
She didn’t say anything, didn’t react, and didn’t move. She just sat there, her eyes locked on me. I didn’t move either, meeting her gaze with empty eyes. I hadn’t expected to talk so much, but the words had poured out anyway. Did it feel good? No. Some things were meant to stay buried, and this was one of them. Boy, oh boy. I was ’royally’ fucked.
"Your Majesty," I continued, clearing my throat. "What will happen to Ken?"
She didn’t reply for a beat. Then, she uncrossed her legs and placed her arms on the armrests of her throne.
"You two will be punished," she said coldly. "Captain Thornhawk will provide a list of items that need to be retrieved from the Circle."
"Okay..." I muttered. "But..."
I froze. Wait... what was I supposed to do now?
They thought this murder case was closed. They knew about the guy from the market, the one who had killed his assailant. But they didn’t know about the third person involved. The shadow in the background who had forced Jelda to activate her necklace, causing her to teleport straight into a trap.
Would telling them fix anything? Probably not. But if I kept my mouth shut and got dragged away for this stupid errand the Queen was forcing on me, that third guy could easily skip town and vanish for good. Fuck. This was a choice I really didn’t want to make.
"But?" the Queen prompted, her brow arching.
I shook my head, swallowing the truth. "Nothing, Your Majesty. Thank you for your generosity regarding..."
"Save it," she interrupted. "Those kind words don’t suit your mouth. Not after the disrespect you’ve shown me."
Well... rude.
"Go," she commanded, waving a dismissive hand. "You will be taken to the dungeon. Tomorrow at dawn, you head to the Circle."
ꨄ︎ꨄ︎ꨄ︎
The guard pushed me inside and shut the cell door behind me, and Ken immediately got to his feet and came over to stand beside the bars. I let out a slow breath, rubbed the back of my head, and sat down on the cold stone floor before leaning back against the iron gate. Well, at least I was still alive.
"How did it go?" Ken asked.
"We have to head to the Circle tomorrow," I said. "To find some items."
"I know," he replied, sitting down on the other side of the cage with his back against the wall. "The Queen told me."
"You also tried to take the blame?" I asked. "That was stupid."
"Yeah, well, she didn’t buy it for even a second."
"She is smart, huh?" I scoffed.
"Or we are royally dumb," he said, then gave a weak grin. "You know, we are sitting in a royal palace dungeon, so the joke practically writes itself."
"I made the same joke to myself a few minutes ago," I muttered. "It was not that funny."
A brief smile crossed his face, but it faded almost immediately. Yeah, no surprise there. We were sitting in a fucking dungeon, and tomorrow we were supposed to go to the most dangerous place in the entire kingdom. Smiles and sunshine were not exactly part of the mood.
