Kingdom's Vice Series: A Voyage of Vengeance ( #2 2015)

Chapter Thirty-Two: An Account From The Wind

He paces the length of the throne room with an air of authority hovering above his crown, above his silvery starlit hair. His breathing is harsh and rasp, full of the surging anger and emotion he tried so hard to conceal in the past. The deaths of his own, like those of the innocent girl, greatly affected him, though he dares not to admit it. Alec can see it in his eyes, in his walk, his motions, not as fluid and erethral as they used to be.

"Have all the suspects been assembled?" he asks Alec in a thick voice, one that commands an audience.

Alec bows his head, "Yes, My Lord. They are awaiting your presence at the entrance."

The king nods and places a hand on Alec's shoulder, "Good," is all he says before his silken robe slinks out the doorway, into the Sapphire's light.

The crowd waits for him, a collected look of anxiety plastered on each of their faces, some of them more visibly angered than others, while few seem terrified.

"What have we done, O King, to be assembled in such a fiery barricade?" a woman demands to know, bringing her bound hands to his view, shaking them violently. "Have we not been loyal to your whims, your laws, your desires, My Lord?"

Alec waves off her protest quickly, "Daeras, Lady Sarine. Hold your tongue until the King has spoken his piece." His fingers trace the filigrees along his sword hilt. The woman recoils and lowers her hands as a man of stockier build steps forward.

"Ye want a slice of Allerian flesh, ye can come and slice it from me yeself!"

The king steps forward the second the tension hits the air and he is quick to lower Alec's hand. "It's alright, Alec." He says. "Let the people say their piece. One of their own is dead, surely it is enough to force some into the arms of denial and anger."

"What angers me," the man roars, rushing forward, "is that our own king would come so near as to suspect us of killing our own! Are we such savages, like that of which we are accused? Have you no faith or trust in your people?"

The king does not answer. Instead, he takes Alec's blade from its sheath and aims it at the man's throat. There is a fire in the king's eyes, one that startles everyone—even Alec. The blade slides down the glinting reflection of the man's face and meets the fraying ends of his binds. The man barely breathes, afraid that one rise of his chest might spell the end of his life. Will the king do such a thing? Instead, the blade severs the binds from the man's wrists, letting his hands fall limply to his sides.

The man looks up, eyes hopeful. "My Lord?"

The king lowers his head, "My thoughts have been troubled by this pending war—someone among us is planning to bring our ruin. Hence, the decisions I have made involve detainment, questioning and if needed, execution." The word comes out like a threat and the people receive it with hostility and terror in a collected gasp. "But you have my word that no harm will come to you if you speak only what is true. Speak only the truth and I will allow you to leave with your life. If you are proven dishonest, you will be punished."

He descends the steps in a flowy, gliding movement as if flying and stands before Lady Serine. "What have you now to say, silent one?" he questions her, tilting his head to the side, beckoning an answer—a snap in her patience. "Have you no indignation to spirit your words against me?"

She lowers her head in shame and reaches for her phantom shawl, though her binds restrain her. Her eyes are wet with fresh tears, her cheeks burning a flushed red pigment, perhaps a blush in another life, in another time, when the king would have looked upon her with kinder eyes, seen more in her worth admiring. But now she is nothing but a servant woman standing before him, being scolded for speaking out of turn. The silence of the humiliation is deafening.

"Speak," he commands her in a gentler voice.

She looks up and lets her eyes meet his. "I know nothing, My Lord. I swear it. To the Light's rays, I swear it. I only knew the girl, nothing more."

He reads her face, the tears, the red cheeks—the lines and the story they tell. Each of the curves and creases weave a tale of pain and constant fear. The lines did not lie. This woman is petrified and would not dare to lie to her king.

He strokes her cheek with the back of his hand and releases her. "Be gone then, Lady Serine. Your conscience is clean."

And with that, she scatters off into the night, pulling her shawl over her shoulders before fading into the blue lights. The king's attentions turn to the remaining folk who stand in a huddle. One by one, he questions them, each of them speaking no lies, weaving no falsities into the air. The lines do not lie. All of them leave with their lives and consciences intact, though the one that lingers is the woman whose silence is so loud it causes the king's heart to grieve. Though the loss is not his own in the way that it is hers, he feels for her. For the pain of losing a loved one is not foreign to him, he does not hesitate to comfort her there in the blue light. They bask in it for a few moments together, before his hand finds a way into hers—fitting together perfectly like a puzzle piece.

And there, in the shadows, stands Faeore, hooded and cloaked, the blue light illuminating the tears she has shed in the night.

"I saw as much," she whispers to herself there.

The king will love again, she remembered hearing once, during a Prophecy.

The king will lose again, is the other fate she has yet to discover. But she dares not to intervene in her father's business when the rumours of war are swirling so close to the throne. She will wait until the time comes, until she must act upon all she has seen and heard. Until the future finally comes knocking on the gates. Ready or not.