Page 48 of Enchanted Queen

I spotted Zaire in the distance, speaking with the queen’s brother and another Enchanted who I hadn’t met. If the queen knew he was there, or speaking with her brother, she gave no indication, just kept moving the stick around her sharp teeth.

Malachi came over and stood before us, swishing his tail lazily as if swatting a bug.I believe you owe me a story.

“Here?” I asked. “Now?”

He bobbed his head in a nod.We like to tell stories at these events. Tales of overcoming and achieving. To inspire.

I supposed I had avoided it for long enough. And Malachi and the queen knowing the entirety of the story may help them trust us just a little more.

“Where would you like me to start? It is a long story, I’m afraid.”

Those are the best,Malachi argued.So start from the beginning.

“I am not sure what Dra Skor knows of the inner workings of Wylan, so I suppose I should go back to the very beginning. When my brother and I were born, twin heirs of the royal bloodline, my father locked away the birth documents so only he, my mother, and the doctor who delivered us knew which of us was the true heir. In fact, I am not even certain my mother knew.”

The queen stopped chewing on her stick and everyone seemed to calm down, content to listen to me. I noticed a group not far off stopped talking to also listen.

“So that wasn’t just a rumor to keep you safe?” Amory asked. “You truly had no idea?”

I shook my head. “None. Until my father died, my brother and I had no idea which of us was the true heir. In fact, after his death it took a few days to break into his safe and find out. We were kingless for a few days.”

I took a sigh and kept speaking, telling what growing up in the castle was like. When we were younger, we were inseparable. Up until Krew’s magic settled in a month or so before mine, and that was when the animosity grew between us. When we started to understand that only one of us would become king.

And from then on, my father began to pit us against each other. While knowing the entire time which of us would truly rule... or should have ruled. He formulated tests for us to turn us into the rulers he thought we should be. Knowing that both of us were vital to keeping Wylan strong.

“My father wasn’t always the tyrant he was in the end. Though I would never go so far as to call him a decent father, for a while he wasn’t horrible.” I paused. “Then I messed up. One night I snuck out to Savaryn. To see a girl,” I admitted. “And leaving Kavan Keep without guards was always strictly forbidden. I used my magic to go over the wall and back in when I came back. But when I came back, one of the stable workers saw me from a distance. He didn’t know which one of us it was, but that one of the heirs had snuck into Savaryn in the dead of the night.”

Emric added with a laugh, “Which you both would continue to do in the years to come.”

I also smiled. “Yes, but more discreetly because we learned our lesson.” I laughed. “Emric grew up with us, so he remembers much of this.”

I swallowed as I got back into the story; this next portion harder to tell. “So I had been seen. My father didn’t know which of us it was, just knew that one of us had left without guards. He wasn’t even mad we were sneaking around, just that we didn’t take guards with us.” I inhaled deeply. “That pretty much sums up my father, actually. You could break all the rules and then some, so long as you were properly protected.” I swallowed. “So though he knew he’d take a whip for it, as we both knew was my father’s favorite form of punishment, my brother Krew, King Krewan Valanova as you now know him, took my punishment for me.”

I paused, still moved all these years later by how my brother protected me. I looked up to find that somewhere along the way, a dozen or more shifters circled around us to listen. To me.

I loathe your father,the queen sent me in the silence.

I looked to her eyes before continuing, the fire bright enough that I could see her hatred which mirrored my own. “Krew had sensed from the beginning the darkness growing in my father. At first, I thought Krew wanted to show that he was tougher than I was by being able to take my punishment.” I paused. “I saw the scars afterward when I confronted him. It hadn’t been pretty. While I was being selfish and suspecting the worst from him, my brother was in pain. Krew told me that he was tired of fighting me when we should both be fighting our father, our common enemy. So that was why he did it.” I shook my head. “He was trying to showmehe still cared, though our relationship was changing as we were growing up and being molded into proper Valanova princes.” I stopped again, emotion stinging my eyes with the love I held for my twin brother. “From that day forward, it was us against him.”

I continued on, telling the story of how the king had Krew’s lover Cessa killed, how Krew hid Warrick away in Nerede, and even how he tried to kill my father one night while I had been asleep. But that was all also the catalyst for the forming of the disloyal. How though that was the darkest despair I had ever seen in my brother, we both knew the only way Wylan would have a brighter future was if we took the throne from my father.

“So by the time the actual Assemblages were called, I was buried in masks and tension. Knowing my twin brother thought it would take him giving up his powerandhis life in order to get the job done. He wasn’t taking his Assemblage seriously because of it, so to keep my father from suspecting a thing, I had to act as if I was. And for a while, even I believed I was. Krew may have been a bit dramatic in his suspicions, but he always was selfless in that way. He was willing to do whatever it took to get my father off that throne.”

John snorted. “Come now. You both are absolutely stubborn about doing the right thing. Though you may be your father’s sons, you are also your mother’s. Katarina was the same way, thus she raised you in that way. You were given the option to follow your father’s example or your mother’s, and both of you chose the path of light over dark.”

My eyes went to John’s, a silent thank you as I dipped my chin in his direction. I hadn’t realized how much I needed that reminder. Rarely did people remember the good of my mother, how good of a queen she’d been. They only remembered the cruelty of my father. But I knew firsthand how the cruelty scarred and only faded over time.

I went on to explain that my mother died. How we only recently found out that he siphoned her magic into an object, and that was how he remained so powerful, his magic far swifter and above the rest.

My eyes went to the queen’s as I added, “And that isn’t even the worst of it. My father’s thirst and hunger to be the most powerful Enchanted in the realm drove him into becoming the most vile person I have ever known. And though he may have been our flesh and blood, we owed it to Wylan, as well as the rest of the realm, to remove him from the throne.

By this point, Malachi was lounging on the ground, listening to my every word like I was spinning the best tale he had ever heard. The truth was that in years of masks and underground workings, there were a thousand minor battles and squabbles, but only one huge one in the throne room that day. From the outside looking in, nothing big was going on, yet day by day Krew and I grew stronger. Together.

As I looked around, I found countless more had joined us. Kian was there. Most of the advisors were listening in. Even Zaire, who loathed me, was listening to the tale of how the Wylan king fell. Others joined us on the ground to sit and hear about the death of their enemy.

So I kept speaking. Even when my throat felt dry as I explained how the farther the Assemblages went, the more mad my father seemed to become. Since Jorah likely needed to come to Dra Skor, I was sure to give her ample deserved credit also. “At the same time my father was becoming more unstable, Jorah’s presence and Iron Will seemed to be unlocking something in the forest. She was beginning to heal things which had been black for years.”

I paused for good measure before I explained the fire in the forest. How he used it to weaken us. That he was threatened by Krew and Jorah’s soul bond. So he planned to kill Krew.