Chapter 53

S tunned silence fell in the throne room as ten people attempted to process the unthinkable—a king accused of murder.

During Loegria's founding, its first king had established a power balance within court. As Aria's father so liked to remind everyone, a king's word was law. Except in one area.

A king could not pardon himself.

"During my grandmother's reign," Aria said, speaking to them all, "a law existed to execute Affiliates upon discovery. There were no qualifications to the law, not for age, not for innocent intentions. Dorothy Ames, a ten-year-old girl, was discovered to be Fox-Affiliate. Tried and found guilty of nothing beyond existing, she was executed. The event haunted Queen Theresa to her deathbed, and, consumed by guilt, she finally revoked the law in perhaps the final action of her life."

"There has been no such change to the law!" Lord Emmett sputtered.

"There was," Aria said forcefully. "My father just didn't tell you. He didn't tell anyone."

She snatched her grandmother's journal, flipped it open to a marked page, and read: "Though I feel myself fading, I have spoken to Perry, and I can rest knowing my son will enact the change I have made. I leave behind a true reparation for my mistake. No longer will her little voice demand justice from the grave."

Though the writing was too small for them to read at a distance, she turned the journal, showed the proof. Shocked expressions echoed back at her.

Except from her father.

Who sat as a statue on his throne.

"This is speculation!" protested Lord Emmett. When he looked for support, he received nods from a few of the others. "Queen Theresa, may she rest, grew unstable near the end, and that entry doesn't even mention Dorothy by name much less state a change to the law."

"Her name may not be in this specific entry, Lord Emmett, but it's scattered throughout my grandmother's journal, beginning with the day of Dorothy's execution. I believe there was not a day that passed she didn't think of her. Even on the day of my parents' wedding, when she claims to be filled with hope for her son"—Aria flipped to the page quickly—"she writes about ‘little Dorothy, from whom has been stolen the opportunity for hope or happiness, from whom I have taken all but a voice in the grave.'"

"What does this have to do with Charles Morton?" Countess Redford asked.

Lord Philip answered, his voice haunted, "Charles Morton was an Affiliate."

At the base of the stairs, Auden Huxley mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, looking like he regretted ever coming to the palace. The guards stood at rigid attention. No one seemed able to look at the king.

No one except Aria.

"You had no idea, did you? That Grandmother recorded it." Aria's voice took on a hard edge. "I had a lot of solitary nights for reading, Father. You didn't tell anyone because you couldn't live with your mother's regret—it meant she made a mistake . It meant she was not a flawless monarch, as you believe we all must be, and in your eyes, revoking a law would have displayed weakness in the Crown. What did you care about little Dorothy? You were too young to attend her execution. You didn't have to hear her screams in memory as your mother did; you only knew that when she spoke of Dorothy, it made you uncomfortable. Her regret made you uncomfortable.

"So you ignored the new law. You buried it. And when Charlie Morton was discovered to be an Affiliate, you broke that law, taking the very path your mother tried to protect you from, repeating her mistakes but far, far worse, because at least she had the strength to admit them."

She snapped the journal closed.

Court members and guards alike maintained a funeral hush, all of them staring at the king and his daughter, opposing forces on the dais. Aria's father met her eyes, but he remained stone-faced. He didn't speak.

Say something , she willed. Inside, her anger boiled together with grief, mixing in a steam that misted her eyes. Her fingers trembled on her grandmother's journal.

Though she'd thought it frozen and abandoned on a mountainside, a quill reared in her mind, too quickly to halt, this time with only one accusation.

Who brought you to the lake?

She remembered swimming with her father, clinging to his neck as she cried in fear of drowning. She remembered his strong arms holding her close, his deep voice rumbling softly in her ear. "I won't let go until you're ready, Aria."

The unshed tears burned her eyes. She clenched her teeth.

I'm not ready, Father.

I'm not ready.

But she had to let go.

She released her quill, the one that had tried so hard to shape her in her father's image, and she released the words clenched behind her teeth:

"For this crime of lawbreaking and treason—betrayal of the previous monarch—it is the duty of the Upper Court to decide if King Peregrine may be pardoned. I submit nay."

Then she waited, and her heartbeat began the count. It would take a majority vote to convict her father and remove him from the throne.

For a long moment, no one moved.

"Your Majesty?" prodded Lord Philip, his voice hoarse. "Have you no defense?"

The king said nothing.

The queen stood. "You may think this is pettiness, a vendetta for other reasons, but my mother-in-law spoke to me about Dorothy. I remember her regret. As for the rest of it—I believe what has been presented. I submit nay."

Marquess Haskett scoffed. "Her Majesty hasn't attended a meeting in a year, and she comes to dethrone her husband? This is nonsense. I submit pardon."

"I submit pardon," Countess Redford agreed.

Aria felt the shift in momentum threatening to grow, but Earl Wycliff stood as a rock to stop the river.

"I hope we might all consider the full circumstances of recent events in this court," he said gruffly. "In truth, something fractured the day Charles Morton died, and we have felt the growing effects ever since. Now we have found the truth of it. I submit nay."

Three against pardon. Two in favor.

Aria looked at Lord Philip. The man stared helplessly back. She knew there was a lifetime of duty warring inside him—the debate of loyalty to country against loyalty to monarch, with the division between them nearly impossible to find.

The man's lips moved, and it took Aria a moment to understand the silent question: A featherstitch?

In response, she moved her eyes to the peace treaty, resting on the bench before him. Her father had intended to march against Northglen in war; Aria had sacrificed for peace. It was the best argument she could give in her defense—the proof of her own loyalty to Loegria.

Philip stood. His first attempt at speech made no sound, and then, in agony, his voice emerged. "I submit nay."

Four against.

But it was not yet a majority, and Marchioness Elsworth submitted pardon.

Only Duke Brightwood and Lord Emmett remained.

Duke Brightwood stood. He rarely spoke on the topic being discussed in meetings, instead offering quips and droll comments, but today, his smile had vanished.

"I will not dethrone my king," he said. "I submit pardon."

Four against pardon. Four in favor.

All eyes turned to Lord Emmett, the final adviser.

He stood and quietly said, "The evidence is not enough for me. I submit pardon."

Pardon held the majority. Aria's heart slowed in her chest, each beat thudding dully against her rib cage, like a prisoner who'd beaten her fist so long against the door she'd lost all strength to continue.

Queen Theresa's journal slipped free from her fingers, and turning in surprise, she saw her father held the journal, opening it to the pages she'd marked, one after another. He stared down in silence at his mother's handwriting. After turning to the final entry, he lingered. Then he closed the cover.

He stood. "This trial is decided."

Aria looked away, so she did not see her father's face when he said—

"I abdicate."

She whirled back, gaping along with the rest of the Upper Court. Her father met her gaze, brows furrowed, dark eyes shining with a profound pain, and then he reached out to grip her shoulder. Not for comfort, but as a man who'd lost his steadiness on the ground.

"I made a mistake," he whispered, pressing the journal into her hands.

For a moment, his grip lingered, painful in its strength, then he walked down the steps of the dais, exiting the throne room.

Aria watched him go, adrift in the lake.

Until, with effort, she remembered how to swim.

"Respected advisers," she said, drawing in a deep breath. "It appears I'll need a coronation."