Page 126 of A Monarch's Fall

“Percy, that’s quite unreasonable,” she said.

“And so is snooping around inside my head and seeing things that you shouldn’t,” I shouted, standing from my chair.

Heidi stood too.

“I can see that you are very distressed, and I want to help you, but I cannot do so when you are so dysregulated. I will not be shouted at,” Heidi told me.

“Then leave!” I shouted and pointed to the door.

“Very well,” she agreed and walked towards the door.

I panicked. “No, wait, Heidi, please don’t say anything to Selene,” I begged, trying to stop her from leaving, but she had already reached for and opened the door by the time I grabbed her elbow.

“Let go of me, Percy,” she said calmly, but I could tell she was annoyed.

“Please don’t say anything,” I begged.

But she didn’t say anything, only pulled her arms away from me and left.

I tried to follow, but Theo, the newest guard I had spoken with in Ardens, held me back and guided me back over the threshold of the door into the room again.

“I’m sorry, but I’m under strict orders. You cannot leave,” he told me.

I was distraught as he was pulling the door closed.

“I’m happy that you are alive,” he said just before the door closed again.

Chapter thirty-one

Friends in Low Places.

Selene Borealis

Iwas furious.

What had gotten into Percy?

Where was all her animosity coming from?

I was aware of my failings. I had been humbled and humiliated by them. That was the very reason that she would be safe now. I would not make the same mistakes again. I would not overlook any potential threat, even those that came from people I knew and believed trustworthy. True security was a lie, but Percy would find no safer place than beside me.

How could she say she didn’t love me anymore? The way she begged for me once we were alone, how she clung to me in her sleep, even crying out when I attempted to leave her, and she expects me to believe that she cares nothing for me?

It was insolence, disrespect, that I had allowed to continue for too long, and my attempts to set things right during our brieftime in Ardens did not have the intended effect. I would correct such behaviour now. She needed discipline.

To be so roguish that she thought she could convincingly keep anything from me was an insult to my position and role as the one responsible for her welfare… Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so insulted, so… hurt by her behaviour. My failures were public and immeasurable. I had believed that The New Foundation, especially after Adamantia’s letter, would have treated her with a certain level of respect and dignity. I have been so wrong in so many ways; I may have been wrong again.

I pushed open the door to the Royal Greenhouse, a place that I had adopted since my short reign as Queen Regent after surviving Hades’ Delight poisoning, and I had cultivated every possible deadly plant the Borealis Kingdom had to offer. There was something morbidly soothing in embracing that which almost killed me.

Percy was forbidden from this greenhouse. Half the contents were a death trap waiting to snare anyone incautious or lacking in knowledge. Not that either of those terms could ever be attributed to my flower witch, still, I did not want her in such a potentially dangerous environment. It was fortunate for me that such an environment did not attract many. It made the greenhouse a peaceful space.

“Leave and return to attend to your duties later today,” I instructed a gardener whose body was obstructed by a large Daphne bush.

The gardener laughed in response.

“Are you not aware of who you laugh at?” I questioned, already so angry that Father would have to forgive me if I made a deadly meal of one of the gardeners.

Simply thinking of my father filled me with a new wave of rage. Striking me. His carelessness with Percy. His insistence on marrying me off despite knowing how I feel about it. I almostwished Vasilios had been successful in his attempt to assassinate him.