Page 21 of The Rivaled Crown (The Veiled Kingdom #3)
CHAPTER 21
VERENA
I moved through the streets, my steps dragging and my mind racing. Exhaustion had sunk into my bones, from the training, from Micah, but I ignored it.
Because I could feel Dacre moving closer.
The mark on my wrist thrummed, faint and steady. A tether stretched between us, pulling me toward him even as my mind churned with everything that had happened. My mother’s sacrifice, my father’s cruelty, Micah’s lies, and the weight of the rebellion pressing down on my shoulders like a blade poised at my throat.
My fingers curled around my wrist, the golden mark now hidden beneath my sleeve. I didn’t want any of them to see it. I wasn’t ready for the rest of the rebellion to question us or murmur their opinions or fear over what it meant.
It was still ours for now. Our bond, our marriage, and our secret.
And I wanted to keep it that way.
I weaved between the rebels who moved about the city. The whispers followed me like they always did, like they had from the moment I stepped foot back into this place.
I terrified them, and there was nothing I could do, nothing I could say that was going to change that.
I walked faster, my breath unsteady, my body still humming with the remnants of magic. But no matter how much distance I put between myself and the training grounds, I couldn’t escape the weight of what Micah had said.
“Another thing to break you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to push the words away, but they clung to me.
Micah had been placed in my life by my mother and Dacre’s grandmother. He had known the truth about me before I had. He had watched me struggle, had watched me starve, had watched me suffer, all the while keeping that secret buried inside him.
And then, when my father had dragged him back into the palace, when he had broken him down, he had betrayed me.
But he hadn’t been given a choice.
The thought unsettled me, twisting something inside me.
I inhaled sharply as the warrior building came into view, the heavy doors looming in front of me. I was close now.
Dacre was close.
I could feel him searching for me through the bond. I could feel the steadiness of him, the way his presence coiled through me like it could protect me.
I reached for the door, but before my fingers could graze the handle, a voice drifted through the air. Low. Sharp. Familiar.
Dacre’s father.
I froze. I hadn’t seen the man since they had decided to allow me to stay, hadn’t wished to face him, but now, something inside me stirred at the low hum of his voice that was filled with frustration.
Slowly, I turned toward the sound, following it through a narrow path to the door of a small building carved from the stone, and that was where I saw them. Five men huddled around a worn wooden table, each of them dressed in their well-worn leathers.
Dacre’s father sat at one side, his hands braced on the table, fingers curling against the edges of the map spread before him. The tension in his shoulders and sharp set of his jaw told me everything I needed to know.
This wasn’t just idle conversation. This was strategy. This was war.
I took another slow step forward, keeping to the shadows, my body pressed against the cool stone wall.
“...too dangerous,” one of the men said, his voice heavy with unease.
“She is the rightful heir,” another countered. “The only heir much of this kingdom will accept.”
“By name alone,” Dacre’s father retorted, his fingers dragging over the map. “We do not need a queen, and we certainly don’t need one who is half of the king before her. Part of this kingdom may only accept her, but the other half will forbid it.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Another man let out a quiet scoff. “Like it or not, your son seems to believe otherwise, and our people are watching him. They are watching her. If they choose to follow her…”
“They won’t,” Dacre’s father interrupted, his voice final, cold.
“And if they do?” The second man’s words were carefully weighed, a subtle challenge hanging in the air.
Silence stretched between them, and I could hear my own breathing trembling in the stillness.
Then, slowly, Dacre’s father straightened. His movements were stiff and controlled. “Then we make the choice for them.”
My magic flared, and the mark on my wrist burned as if it were being branded into my skin all over again.
“What are you suggesting?” one of the men dared to ask.
Dacre’s father hesitated for only a heartbeat, a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity before he spoke. “We remove her before she becomes a bigger threat than she already is.”
I had known that they didn’t trust me, that they feared my power, but hearing it spoken so plainly, hearing the decision settled in his voice?—
I forced my breathing to remain even. Forced my magic to stay locked beneath my skin.
I had spent my entire life feeling like a prisoner, first in my father’s palace, then in the rebellion’s distrust, and now in their fear of what I was becoming.
But I was done letting them control me.
I was done hiding.
My life had been ruled by men who thought they could decide my fate for me, but my fate wasn’t theirs to control. It never had been.
Then, I stepped forward.
The moment my boots scraped against the stone, every head in the room snapped toward me.
I let the silence stretch, let them feel my presence before I reached for the only open chair and dragged it across the floor. The sound was deafening. Jarring.
Slowly, I sat down beside Dacre’s father.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t look away, but I saw the slight shift in his body, the way he angled himself forward, blocking part of the map from my view.
I tilted my head, letting my gaze flick lazily over the table. “What’s that?” I asked, my voice smooth, even.
“It’s not your concern,” he answered quickly. Too quickly.
“I’m nothing more than a dying heir, according to you.” I leaned back in my chair, crossing my legs and resting one ankle on my knee as I met his gaze. “What could you possibly have to hide from me?”
Dacre’s father didn’t move. “Careful, girl,” he murmured, his voice quiet, dangerous. “You have no idea the game you are trying to play.”
I shifted in my seat, leaning forward slightly until our gazes locked. “And what game is that?”
His jaw tightened, but I didn’t stop.
“Is this the game where I bleed for my kingdom while you remain hidden below it?”
His nostrils flared. “Excuse me?”
“You think you know what’s best for this kingdom, but have you even looked upon it in the light of day?” My voice sharpened, and my magic stirred. “Do you even know what it is you’re fighting for anymore? Who you are fighting for?”
One of the men inhaled sharply, but Dacre’s father’s cold eyes didn’t waver from mine.
“You put too much faith in stories, girl. They’ve filled your head and made you believe that you’re something that you’re not.” He leaned forward with his elbow pressed against the table, and he studied me intently. “Prophecies are the desperate prayers of those who don’t have the strength to carve out their own future.”
My magic hadn’t stopped moving inside me, and for a moment, I wanted to unleash it upon him, to make him feel exactly what I was. “Those prayers, are they the same ones your wife uttered when she wanted a better future for your people, for her children?”
His expression faltered, and for the first time, I saw a crack in his mask.
I leaned forward slightly, mirroring his position. “Your wife, a daughter of Veyrith, just like me. A woman of the same kingdom as my own mother. A woman who fought against the same king as my own mother. That doesn’t feel like some silly story to me. That feels like fate.”
His jaw clenched, and I could practically see the way he pulled my words in and crafted his response in his mind as if he were sharpening a weapon. “Your mother did nothing to fight the king. She did nothing to stop the war.” He ran his teeth over his bottom lip as he watched me, and I could feel the eyes of all the other men as well. “You speak of fate, but both of those mothers are dead. Both of them died at the hands of your father.”
My voice was quiet, measured, but the magic inside me was not. “And your hands are clean?” I looked down at his hands before me, and he clamped them into fists. “My father will die for what he’s done.” The words settled into me. They slammed into my chest as I felt the truth of them in my bones. “And what price will you pay?”
His jaw locked, but he didn’t speak.
The men around us shifted, their unease crackling in the air like an impending storm.
Then, footsteps echoed from behind me.
I didn’t turn. I didn’t have to. I felt him the moment he stepped into the room, the moment the tension around me shifted, the moment that thread between us pulled taut.
Dacre.
His fingers wrapped around the back of my chair. His lips brushed against my shoulder, the touch featherlight, but it sent a sharp shiver down my spine.
And I knew, even before I saw his face, even before I looked up at the men still watching us, that everything was about to change.