Heir Apparent

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Thea

Pandamonium erupted. While the courtiers were suddenly too loud, the Empress-Mother was equally too still. She held the Northern King's gaze, her jaw clenching just as Jade's did when she was holding back her anger. In one swift motion, she raised her hand, snapping her fingers at the guards around her. She only had to flick her eyes toward me and they were around me, pushing me away from the courtiers, the king, and Leviticius, who had only nodded once to me, then slipped away through the press of bodies.

They took me to the sitting room just beyond the reception hall, where the Empress-Mother stormed in, slamming the wooden door behind her with a force that reminded me of when Jade had tossed aside a chair. When she met my eyes, I knew then that whatever secret she thought she had known about me, it certainly wasn't that I was the bastard daughter of the Northern King. What would she do to know that I was always the heir to my mother's assassin legacy?

I opened my mouth, but her hand was decisive, even stopping my tongue from wagging. I had never known Jade's father, but I was beginning to wonder if she had anything of him in her when I was so clearly looking into the eyes of her future.

"Take her down to the lower cells for the time being."

There was no time to react. The guards shoved me along through yet another hidden door. They were rough handed, but not cruel. I suspected that the 51st had yet to fully integrate into their ranks. I couldn't imagine that anyone with such loyalty to the Empress would allow my feet to even touch the ground.

The cell they locked me into wasn't the smallest I had endured. I could still pace about the small square in a tiny circle. The heavy metal door sported a small, barred window at the very top, just at my browline, but I was often considered small. Gil, Jade, even the Empress-Mother probably saw through it just fine. I felt more than I saw the guards standing point outside the door and pursed my lips. This was certainly not part of my plan.

And yet, as paced, I moved the chess pieces about the invisible board. My father, if I could even call him such, had just publicly outed me before the whole court. A court, if I remembered, was racked with prejudice against their Northern enemies. A centuries old conflict through border and trade disputes, not to mention some long ago blood feud that no one seems to really remember, including the history books. It would take a story re-make to turn things around in my favor.

Being locked in a cell would certainly afford me time to formulate a believable story. Something that pulled at the heartstrings.

"How could you."

I wasn't sure how long Gil had been watching me when I turned around to find his gaze framed in the door window. "I do not know what you mean?" I pitched my voice higher and wrung my hands. The picture of harmless innocence.

His eyes narrowed. "Stop playing games, Thea. You can fool a lot of people. Even fooled Jade, but you will not fool me. Jade treated you fairly."

I stopped wringing my hands. "She did."

"And you, what? Betrayed her? Warned her about all these 'birds and mice' and what? You're one of those 'birds?'" His voice held steady, but I could tell there was real pain behind them. For that, I almost felt bad.

"You think me a spy?" But as long as he was talking, he wasn't doing the torturing, and I had noted the blood on his hands over the last days. I knew many tricks to withstand torture, the product of being raised by the Hired Hands, but I wasn't the fool who willingly walked into it. "A spy for whom? For the man who just threw me to the wolves? Or a spy for the Hired Hands? A spy for assassins. Hmmm. That's an interesting idea. Perhaps we should go into business for it. It could be quite lucrativ-"