The Secrets of the Throne (sequel to The Girl behind the Throne) - ON HOLD

Chapter 5.

Cast in this devil,

I've got the metal,

the means to make things right.

Tired of guilt,

tired of being sorry,

haven't we suffered enough?

There was a really annoying light above Freya’s head as she tried to sleep, the noises of the T.V were deafening like they were shouting in her ear.

“Go away”. She muttered throwing a hand out and slapping whatever it was talking to her.

The sound of a chuckle filled the room. “At least she wakes up like her mother”. The king said laughing, even more when the queen slapped him on the back of the head.

Freya opened her eyes blinking slowly, the glaring light filling her features making her head dizzy and feel like it was full of cotton wool.

The queen stood there looking anxious while the king rested a hand on her shoulder. Opening her mouth to speak, Freya found only one word coming out of her mouth. “How?”

The queen looked at Derek anxiously, “did you explain to her?” She asked in a rushed voice. Derek nodded looking weary at Freya’s trembling arms.

“No what I meant was how are you my parents”.

 They both looked really uncomfortable when she asked that, a blush even rose to the kings cheeks. “Well when a man and a woman love each other very much”. The queen started to say, suddenly looking like she would prefer to be anywhere else.

Freya covered her ears humming loudly until she was sure the queen had stopped speaking. “I meant how in all logical reasoning can I be your child” she said gesturing between the dumfounded royal couple. “And thanks for the birds and the bees chat but my mother beat you to that eleven years ago”. She added and soon wished she hadn’t. No sooner that she had said it the queen’s face puckered.

The silence filled the room, the queen looking like she was trying hard not to cry. The king spoke this time, his strong jaw clenched. “Well we are. You’ve got to see how strange this is for us too Freya, for eighteen years we’ve been mourning a child we thought we had lost, but here you are”. He said in a low voice, his authority filled the room instantly leaving Freya dumbstruck.

Eventually she found the courage to start talking, remembering her own parents and how they had been. She thought she had a reasonably happy childhood at the time, but the more she seemed to think about it, it wasn’t. Her mother Danielle a retired figure skater was selfish, egotistical and obsessed with only one person, her father.

“I’m sorry, but it’s just a big shock to me. For years I thought I only had Meredith, but now I find out I have a whole readymade family waiting for me after years of being by myself”. She said noticing herself how vulnerable the last sentence made her sound. “I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to call you, your majesties, Mum, Dad?” She asked making the couple look at each other.

“We’re not expecting you to just suddenly think of us as your parents, but we would like to try and show you that we can be, so why don’t you call me Tess”. Tess said with an attempt of a smile.

“And I’m Jamie”. Jamie said with an easy grin- that freakishly reminded Freya of her own.

He opened his mouth to say something else when a preppy stressed looking ran inside the room, his hand over the mouth piece of the phone he held in his hand.

“James, they’re at the palace?” He said in between ragged breaths.

Jamie turned around frowning. “Your family, they all turned up. I guess Prince Rupert must have told them”. He said in gasps, bending over and talking to himself, Freya caught the words “getting too old for this shit”, across the room.