The Usurper's Queen | COMPLETED

24 | a loving mother

   Ever since going home, I was pampered and spoiled rotten by my father and Gilbert, but my mother was distant from me. She would keep writing to Lisbeth and say to me that my sister’s marriage is an unhappy one, and she would shame me for not sacrificing my own betrothed for my sister to marry, as that would have made her very happy.                                                                      
    She was also terribly unfond of Gabriel, which is probably due to the fact that we hid his original identity from her. So to my mother, he is simply Gabriel, an orphan boy that Edmund found in the streets, not Hadrian II of Lecarre. If she had known that Gabriel was in fact the deposed king, my incredibly prejudiced and biased mother would undoubtedly give him her heart and soul. However, she also did not know how to keep her mouth shut, so the truth had to be hidden from her.

Now that Hadrian II of Lecarre is presumed dead by the Royal Council, the two kingdoms went on to distribute the regions that they have wrongfully taken. Terrawyn received the western  Dolore, while Phoenicia took over the eastern Kelle. Not many days later, my father returned with the news that Kelle has been turned into a principality, and the young Prince Gregory is now crowned Prince of Kelle. 

Edmund has voiced his discontent over the distribution of the regions, as Terrawyn merely sent an army of seventy thousand men, and now they want the same amount of land as the Phoenicians, who sent almost three hundred thousand men. However, he had no say in this, and Dolore was soon given to the Terrawinians. This was disheartening to hear, but something much worse followed after.  

Princess Cecily has been stripped off of her royal titles, and now she is simply Lady Cecily of Almswood, a small piece of land in the eastern regions, where the Ainsworth family’s influence is strong. She was declared as a bastard and illegitimate, and undeserving of a position at court. Her sister Margaret was now safely crowned Crown Princess Consort of Terrawyn, while Cecily herself had no power whatsoever, and now she was impoverished too. However, I found it odd that the King would wait for so long until he eventually bastardized her, and I realised that he must have discovered that Cecily was the one who tried to save me by stealing the keys and leading Edmund to the dungeons, thus causing his plans to fail.

There was also another possibility. Since Gilbert has accepted Cecily’s proposal, the marriage must proceed. The King wants an alliance with House Winterbourne, which they are trying to get by marrying Cecily to Gilbert, but they did not want our already powerful and influential family to become even more mighty. So, instead of marrying a princess, Gilbert was marrying the king’s bastard child.

He still had to treat her well, but strategy wise, she brought him no advantage. I was worried for Cecily, and I was afraid that my brother would throw a fit and refuse to marry her. Indeed, she was very kind to me, but Gilbert has yet to see that side of her. My father too wasn’t very fond of her either, as she was the daughter of dead Queen Helene, the woman that my family demonized.

I sent multiple letters to the palace, but I received no reply from her. My father also said that he never sees her in the palace, and I began to fear for the worst.

Two weeks after my escape, I finally received a letter from Princess Cecily.

My Lady Anne, 

I am no longer a princess now, and I am to be regarded as nothing more than the King’s bastard child. The lands and estates in my name have been revoked and passed to my brother, and all that remains in my possession is Almswood Castle, and I am to live there until I am of age to be married. Forgive me for being unable to reply to your previous letters, for I have been locked in my room for the past few days. I am writing this in my carriage, and by the time you read this, I am probably already in Almswood.