I was close, so fucking close, but just as I reached through the gap to unlock the door, I heard a single word.
“Stop.”
It wasn’t uttered in anger. It wasn’t said in fear. It was clear, calm, and soft. I turned over my shoulder to see my father, supported by his nurse.
“Stop, Randal. Stop.”
Not a fucking chance. “She killed the love of my life,” I said, seizing the lock blindly on the other side of the door. “And she’s going to fucking pay for it. She has to pay for it.”
Using a cane, my father hobbled towards me, shaking his head. Seeing him so weak and frail threatened to drain the fight right out of me.
“Randal, listen to me. Your life is not your own. Vendettas, personal desires?” He furrowed his eyebrows and placed his hand on my shoulder. “That is not the duty of a king. You must lead. You must sacrifice.”
As I looked at my father, it was as if a dam of grief broke inside me. The harsh sting of tears filled my eyes for the first time in as long as I could remember. I yanked my hand back from the gap in the door, pinching my temples with my bloody fingers.
“She killed the woman I love. She has to fucking pay for it. You know she does.”
His blue-green eyes, dimmer and grayer now, shimmered with a sheen of tears as he looked up at me. He pulled me close to him, hooking his arm around the back of my neck to bring my face to his.
“Rumors. According to rumor, she killed the woman I love, too, son. Don’t forget that.”
My mother. He meant my mother.
Christ almighty, to hell with this horrible fucking existence; so much pain for so little happiness. I let the grief grab hold of me like the enemy that it was. I pulled my father close and let my tears fall onto his shoulder. My heart burned in my chest, fucking aching with loss—for Iris, for my mother, for fucking everything.
“I don’t know how you live with it.”
My father sighed, gripping my shoulder tight. “You just…you fucking have to. It’s that simple. Ignore the rumors, no matter how much you want to believe them. That’s our fate. Our duty. Marriage is not for love my son. It is for survival. It is a duty to the kingdom. When we married, it secured our border where we were weak. With her came trunks of gold and riches when the droughts and war left our coffers nearly empty. She was necessary.” He led me away from the door slowly, each step punctuated by the sound of his cane on the floor. “If you must, banish her back to her homeland the instant you take the throne. Take it from me—she’ll be miserable in the hellhole from whence she came.” He smiled a little, looking smug and amused. “She comes from a family of power-hungry traitors. Most of them have skittered off into exile over the years. They’ll lock her up as soon as she arrives.”
No better than she fucking deserves. I liked the idea, but it didn’t fix a goddamned thing. My blood was still up, my body was tense, and I had murder in my veins. It took all my strength not to turn around and kill her, consequences be fucking damned. She’d look the best she ever had with her head on a stake, the crows pecking at her cheeks.
And yet, damn it, I knew my father was right. He was always right. He was a good king, a reasonable king. And an honest man. I knew he always did right by me, even if it fucking hurt.
Still though. Fucking still. My Iris was dead and I was alive, and that was not fucking acceptable. Seizing my sword like an axe, I landed a long arching chop against the Queen’s door, unleashing all my fucking rage at the battered, splintered oak.
Iris had shown me love, Iris had shown me happiness, and nothing but blackness was left in her place inside me. Again and again I attacked the door with ferocious whacks and chops. Sparks flew off the blade as I connected once and again with the old iron knob.
“I’m coming for you, you fucking whore,” I roared as I battered down the door. And damn, did it do me good to hear her scream in terror, thinking I was going to kill her after all.
But I knew, deep down, that I wouldn’t.
Nor would I ever love again. Fuck no, never. Not as long as I lived.
Chapter 16
Iris
There were 27 of us packed into the prison beneath the castle. It was one cramped room, hardly bigger than a hog pen. A single torch outside the bars cast a dim light through the prison. It was dark, moldy, and filthy, and I was sure it was where they put people they wanted to forget all about. The buckets of human waste were overflowing. The stone walls oozed with decades of foul water, slippery and glistening.