A Royal Rebellion (5 page)

***

Arianna

Arianna smiled down at her son, little Airric suckling from his bottle with a self-righteous determination. He was as demanding as his siblings, yet somehow she knew that though he was youngest, he would be the ringleader in childhood adventures. Only a few months old, and he watched the world with wise eyes, and his cries for changings and feedings were enough to send the nursery staff running to tend to him.

The day was cold, winter blustering outside the palace walls, the weather keeping the Court subdued and in their private quarters. Usually at this time of day Arianna would be with Malcolm, leisurely strolling the halls of the palace, making sure to be seen. Yet the weather and the twisted tale Mason told her days before drove her here, surrounded by her children and nieces and nephews.

Camilla, Mason’s wife, was in the far corner, scolding her oldest son of seven years for failing to do something or other, and Arianna frowned, turning her shoulder so she didn’t have to watch. Camilla was a horrid woman. She came to the nursery only when her children stepped out of line for some supposed infraction or another. She delighted in disciplining them, or even better, disciplining the tutors and nursery maids instead. Arianna put her foot down when it came to Camilla interfering with her own children. She would be Queen one day—and while she left the daily care to the governesses and maids, Arianna had final say and authority over her children and how they were to be raised. And Camilla was to have zero private interaction with Arianna’s children.

She knew she wasn’t the ideal mother, but she wasn’t just their mother—she was to be Queen. Her life was not her own. Split between her duties as queen-presumptive and mother, Arianna regretfully lost much of her time as a parent. It was little hardship on the bad days—she didn’t regret the diplomatic trip to Elysian when all of her then five children had the chicken pox. On the good days, though, she missed their little smiles, their grasping sticky hands, and their pleas for story time and coloring sessions.

“You better start behaving! What would your father think? Or the King? Are you always going to be a disappointing child?” Camilla scolded, and Arianna frowned. No one but Ari, Malcolm, Camilla, and the king knew where Mason was, and Arianna went cold to her core. Camilla had to know the state her own husband was in and what was happening to him, she must—how could any royal wife abandon her prince? Even a wife as atrocious as Camilla had to realize that without Mason, she was naught but a gaudy decoration amongst those of the blood. Why wasn’t she protesting his treatment, or even visiting him?

“Grandpa never comes here! And Daddy isn’t home! I don’t care what they think, and I don’t care what you think! I hate you!” her nephew shrieked at the top of his lungs, and Arianna smirked as the young boy stormed majestically from the nursery, his siblings and cousins cheering from around the room.

Arianna looked out across the room, trying to block out Camilla where she fumed, taking her anger out on the boy’s hapless tutor. Her own children, from her oldest child, the future king, young Simon, to her youngest daughter, Selene, and the middle girls, sitting quietly nearby doing their lessons—and then to her nieces and nephews, Camilla and Mason’s children. She drank the sight of them in, for once thinking about what would happen if all of this was taken away. What would happen if Mason was right—a part of her was so angry, so mad at him for even suggesting the horrible reality he told her days before—but another part of her, the part of her that loved Cassia, loved her husband, and loved her children—if Mason was right, then she had two choices, and her rarely exercised conscience was demanding to be heard.

Her children, the succession, the crown and throne—all of it hinged on Mason and whether or not he was lying. Because the anger in her heart battled fiercely with fear—she ached from betrayal. Surely she couldn’t believe him. Her children, Malcolm’s and Mason’s children—they were innocent in all of this, yet to them fell the greatest betrayal.

Well, if Mason was to be believed, if his radical story was true, then they weren’t his, and her children…..dear God, by the Saint’s grace, he must be lying.

“Molly, take him, please,” Arianna called to Airric’s nurse, who promptly appeared and took the youngest princeling from her arms. She touched his soft cheek and gave him a strained smile, and all but ran from the room. She caught a glimpse of Camilla watching her leave, a frown on her typically dour face, but Arianna ignored her sister-in-law.

She had to find out. Her nerves were unraveling, and she couldn’t lose it in front of the children, or Camilla.

She left the nursery, and took off down the hall in the direction of the king’s rooms.

“He has to be lying.”

Yes, that was it. Mason was lying. He was always causing trouble, always stirring up his brothers, poking his nose where it shouldn’t be. He must be lying!

“He is lying, I know it!” Arianna cursed under her breath as she took a corner too fast, her heavy skirts catching on a stone wall, halting her for a moment before she jerked the fabric free. She huffed out an irritated breath, and let go her death grip on her skirts, determined to regain her composure. She could hardly approach the king in a frazzled state. She walked as fast as she could through the maze of halls until she neared her destination.

Arianna swept down the hall outside the king’s study, the tall, dark oak doors closed. The long hall was empty, which if the king had been inside then there would be two guards stationed just outside the doors. Arianna looked over her shoulder, and saw no one, so she hurried forward. Asking the king directly if what Mason had told her was true was less attractive than going through his desk and finding the facts for herself.

The doors weren’t locked. She opened one, blessing the well-maintained hinges that let her enter silently, and she shut the door behind her. The hearth was cold, the lights out, the only illumination coming through the drawn curtains. King Henry’s desk was along the far wall, which meant anyone coming to speak to the king had to cross the whole room while the king watched them, a tactic his majesty used to intimidate petitioners and his ministers.

Skirts rustling over the rugs, Arianna walked to the desk, breathing ragged, an unlady-like sweat building under her dress. If she were caught, she had no idea what the king would do. Being caught by anyone other than him would be simple—but for Malcolm and the king, she outranked everyone in the building, and the blood princesses were all back at their respective homes. Being the future queen came with plenty of protection, but nothing could protect her from King Henry if he decided to punish her for going through his personal belongings.

Not that she knew for certain how he’d react. The king she knew, and the king painted by Mason in the outlandish story he told her a few nights back, were drastically different. The king she knew, while arrogant and demanding, was a devout family man and dedicated ruler, doing his best to keep Cassia and her people at the top of the power scale. There was no country to match Cassia in the whole world, with Elysian, the late queen’s home country, being a close second.

So surely that’s what Mason’s tale was—just a tale, something he concocted to while away his hours spent being punished for letting Eddie disappear. Though why the king and Malcolm would be so upset over a single breeder when there were literally hundreds of them in the country for them to choose from left her equally confused. Mason’s explanation for that was equally ludicrous.

King Henry would never let a single minister mess with the affairs of his children, not even the rich and influential Minister of DNA Engineering and Cloning, no matter how much money was involved. There was no way, just no way that King Henry would bow to the wishes of a minister, and persecute a blood prince and legally bonded royal consort, one that if what Mal and Mason both claimed was true, was carrying a Cassian Royal.

It boggled the mind.

That’s why she had to find proof—one way or the other. Either Mason was being his typical prick self, or something horrible was happening. Something so horrible that if true, meant that for the last forty years, from the king to her youngest babe, all of them lived a lie.

A lie that drove a father to chase his own son like a common criminal, and in the ultimate irony—the only one of them not weighed down by the broken laws of the king.

She tore through the drawers of the desk that would open, scattering papers here and there. Just thinking about the wretched things that Mason claimed left her composure in tatters.

Tears found their way past her withering control, her hair falling from its immaculate coif. Her skirts were heavy, the corset too tight, and her limbs trembled, and she yanked fruitlessly at the bottom drawer, the old wooden antique momentarily defeating her. It opened with a snap, and she tumbled backwards, falling on her rear with an undignified squawk. The drawers and its contents spilled across the ancient rug, and Arianna struggled to right herself.

Her right hand landed on something cool and hard, and she stopped, looking down and wondering what it was.

A key, as long as her hand, heavy and made of either copper or brass, shiny and old. She peered at it, and the style was reminiscent of a century past. The end of the key held an emblem, and she tilted it back and forth, thinking it was familiar.

It came to her in a rush, and her mouth opened on a silent ‘oh’. Arianna climbed to her feet, and stared at the mess on the floor and desk in consternation. She wasn’t one for cleaning, and the king could return at any moment. She rushed for the door, tucking her stolen key into her bodice, making sure it was well hidden. It would take Malcolm to find it there.

She made it back out into the hall, and breathed in relief when she saw no one. Arianna rushed down the hall, and once she hit the main intersection, turned the opposite way she came from originally. There was only place that key would open, with the crest of the Elysian Royal House upon it.

Her Majesty, once Princess Esme of Elysian, and the late Queen of Cassia, dead these last twenty years. It was her key, and since nothing was in the King’s possession that spoke of the truth, then Arianna would go to the one place where the lies began.

Maybe with the queen’s key she could unlock the truth. It would be just and proper then, since it was a queen whose first and greatest lie condemned them all.

***

She was breathless, more from the possibilities than the fast walk through the palace. The late queen’s solarium was as it was the day she died, furniture covered, the books and trinkets and the still present scent of day lilies and roses hanging in the air. It was dust free, as it should be, the servants instructed to clean and little else.

Arianna hurried through the outer sitting area, heading for the door that would take her to the inner sanctum. The queen’s private bedroom, traditionally where the wife of the king slept when she wasn’t required in her husband’s bed. Such practices died out with the late queen, and Arianna had no intention of sleeping somewhere other than beside her husband. Besides, she had plenty of children…

Her stomach churned. She stumbled at the door to the old queen’s room, one hand on the panel. The key in her other, staring down at it, dreading. It was on the other side of this door that she might learn the truth.

Her children would always be hers, and nothing could take from her or change how she felt about them. Yet it was their parentage that was still in question, and so was the line of inheritance. It was the throne and their futures as royals of the Blood that would be taken from them, and all it would take was the truth.

Arianna approached the final door, the ancient key heavy in her hand. She inserted it into the lock, and after some effort, the lock turned, the door opening with a faint snick. She left the key in the door, and with one hand, pushed it wide. It groaned on its hinges, complaining, dust kicking up as the wood scraped over the uncleaned rug.

Darkness. The room was fully shuttered, the air stagnant. Dust floated in the air, and her sinuses burned with the desire to sneeze. Putting a hand over her nose and mouth, Arianna took one step in and looked around for a light switch. She found it, and flipped it on, and lights fluttered around the room. A few bulbs popped and went out, but enough stayed on she could see.

Arianna took in the late queen’s private room. While the outer sitting area had been cleaned, it was obvious this room hadn’t been touched in decades. Probably not since the queen died in her bed, just ten feet from where Arianna stood now. Her blood chilling despite the stifling atmosphere, Arianna shivered in morbid dismay. She had no idea where to look.

What was it that Mason said? He was here, the morning his mother died, the only one of her eight children to be present…and it was because he was there when his mother died Esme told him a terrible secret.

***

Memory

“She was dying. She had been dying for her whole life, and her last pregnancy, my youngest sister, was the one the one that drove the final nail in her coffin. She died because she told my father the truth too late, and his bitter resentment and sense of betrayal made him lose all grasp of reality.”

“What betrayal, Mason?” she asked, gripping the bars of his cell, leaning as close as she dared.

“There is a fatal weakness in our line, introduced through my mother. From her mother, a noblewoman in Elysian who married into their royal house. It’s a genetic disease, one that has over a 75% chance of being passed from parent to child, regardless of gender. In most it stays dormant, but can become active in the right conditions during childhood illness.” Mason’s face was free of his usual cynicism. His eyes were as dark as his brothers’, and she had no trouble reading hem. He was speaking the truth.