Queen of the Unwanted Read online

Ellin would have been happy never to set eyes on Lord Creethan again, especially after the atrocious way he’d acted when she’d informed him he would no longer be a part of the royal council. He claimed to want to apologize for his behavior, but Ellin suspected he was more likely hoping to convince her to reinstate him.

  Her first inclination when he’d requested an audience, naturally, had been to decline. Semsulin, however, had urged her to accept in hopes of mending whatever bridges possible. Creethan’s family had not been silent in their outrage over his dismissal, and she was certain the recent cancellation of the trade agreement with Aaltah would be laid at her feet—even though Creethan had still been the trade minister when the terms were being negotiated. She could not afford to seem petty or hold a grudge, Semsulin argued, and she reluctantly agreed.

  Lord Creethan bowed with every semblance of respect when he was shown into Ellin’s office, and when he rose, his shoulders were slightly hunched, his gaze downcast. If she had not seen his explosion of temper when she’d dismissed him, she might think him truly repentant, maybe even embarrassed by his misdeeds. But she could never forget the look of hatred in his eyes, and she knew his polite court persona was nothing but a mask to hide his true, vicious self.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me, Your Majesty,” he said, darting an anxious look up at her face. He seemed fidgety and nervous, his hands plucking at the buttons of his doublet as he shifted from foot to foot.

  Ellin considered politely offering him a seat to soothe his unease, but decided against it. She would greatly prefer the audience stayed as short as possible. “You said it was important,” she responded. She attempted to keep her tone neutral, but she was fairly certain a chill crept into it anyway. Once, she had thought of Creethan as harmless, but that had clearly been a mistake.

  His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, his gaze turning sharp. Perhaps her tone had held more than just a little chill.

  “I thought perhaps you might want to reconsider your hasty decision now that Aaltah has canceled our trade agreement. You will need a skilled negotiator to smooth things over and get that agreement renewed. With all my years—”

  “Lord Creethan, are you forgetting that the terms to which King Delnamal objected so strenuously are the ones you yourself put forth?” she interrupted. “If your purpose for this audience is merely to beg for your job back, then you might as well save us both the time.”

  Creethan shook his head, casting off his polite mask entirely. “If you were capable of being a queen rather than merely a woman, you would see that you are driving us all to the brink of ruin!”

  Ellin’s mouth dropped open. As badly as he’d remonstrated with her when she’d dismissed him, he had not gone so far as to offer open insult. But he was not finished.

  “Prince Waldmir won’t agree to renewal of our agreements and now you’ve alienated Aaltah as well, all because you insist on supporting that traitorous nothing of a principality that is of no strategic use to Rhozinolm whatsoever!”

  Ellin pushed back her chair and rose to her feet, fighting to keep her own temper in check. “You had best leave the room this instant,” she growled. “You are coming dangerously close to treason. Again.”

  The tension was such that the guard by the door took a couple of steps closer to Creethan, ready to seize him and bodily remove him if necessary. Ellin couldn’t fathom why the man had bothered to request this audience at all. He’d made only a token attempt to convince her to reverse her decision, and surely the opportunity to insult her to her face was not worth the indignity of being bodily tossed out of her office.

  Creethan bared his teeth in a snarl. And suddenly, there was a dagger in his hand. “I am loyal to the Crown of Rhozinolm, and I will see its rightful king on the throne!”

  Ellin stood frozen in place, hardly able to comprehend what was happening. The door guard had been approaching Creethan from his left side and reached out to grab his left arm to keep him from getting any closer to Ellin. From behind her, she heard the sharp intake of breath from her personal guard, followed by the unsheathing of his sword. But Creethan made no attempt to rush toward her, instead plunging the dagger into his own breast.

  For a fateful moment, everyone in the room was too stunned to react. Creethan’s eyes blazed with pain and victory. Then they went white and his hand released the embedded dagger to reach into the air in front of him.

  “Down!” both guards yelled at her in tandem as her personal guard reached her side and gave her a mighty shove.

  The fall to the floor seemed to take a quarter of an hour, giving her a clear view of what happened next as Creethan brought his seemingly empty hand to the hilt of the dagger, activating the Kai spell that was no doubt infused into the jeweled pommel. She could not see the spell itself, but she saw Creethan fling that hand in her direction, aiming the spell at her as she fell. And then she saw her bodyguard step between her and the spell.

  Ellin hit the floor with a grunt. Above her, her guard let out a cry of pain, and Creethan shrieked in frustrated fury. The guard collapsed on top of Ellin, knocking the wind out of her and making her vision momentarily go black. She didn’t think she lost consciousness, but by the time she could breathe again, the room was swarming with guards. Ellin caught a brief glimpse of the guard who had saved her life as he was pulled off her. Blood streamed from the poor man’s mouth and nose and eyes and ears. More blood than anyone could survive losing, although another guard put his fingers to the man’s throat to search futilely for a pulse. She sat up, her whole body shaking with reaction, and saw that Creethan lay on the floor, his eyes wide and staring and his lips twisted into a permanent grimace of rage.

  “Are you hurt anywhere, Your Majesty?” one of the guards asked her, kneeling by her side and looking at her in obvious concern.

  Ellin looked down at herself and realized she was covered in blood. A sob rose from her throat, and no effort of will could keep it contained.

  “Get a healer!” the guard shouted, but she shook her head.

  “I-I’m not hurt,” she stuttered between sobs. “Th-this isn’t my blood.”

  The healer was sent for anyway, and Ellin was too shaken and miserable to protest.

  * * *

  —

  Ellin sat shivering before the fire in her sitting room, cradling a hot cup of tea in her hands. The fire crackled cheerfully, and Ellin suspected the room was actually uncomfortably warm, but she couldn’t seem to shake the chill.

  “No one could have foreseen Lord Creethan would do such a thing,” Semsulin said in a tone that was no doubt meant to be soothing. Comforting words were not his forte.

  Objectively, Ellin knew he was right. Creethan had shown a flash of ugly temper when she’d dismissed him, but nothing had suggested he was so infuriated as to kill himself to destroy her. How could he possibly have hated her that much? And how could she possibly have failed to realize it? A good man had died to save her because she’d been too blind to see the truth.

  “Do you think he really believed he was acting for the good of the kingdom?” she asked.

  Semsulin snorted. “I think he saw the comfortable life he’d built for himself collapsing before his eyes and couldn’t face the future.”

  Ellin frowned deeply, hardly able to comprehend what had happened. Tamzin’s attempt to wrest her kingdom from her had hardly come as a surprise, but Creethan’s assassination attempt felt like some bad dream come true. “Surely it’s an exaggeration to say his life was collapsing simply because he was no longer on the royal council,” she protested.

  “I suspect if we investigate further, we will find he’d been using his office for a great deal of personal gain. You will, of course, write up a posthumous writ of attainder on him. I would not be at all surprised if, when the Crown seizes his assets, we find he has accumulated far more wealth than we knew. And I also suspect we will find he was beh
olden to people who would have been…displeased with him for losing his influence. I don’t believe his attempt had much, if anything, to do with what he perceived as the good of the kingdom.”

  Ellin took a sip of her tea. She wanted to put the cup down, but she was afraid that with her hands idle, she’d once again start rubbing her wrist where she’d found a drop of her dead guard’s blood that had escaped her attention when she’d changed out of her bloody clothes. She’d thoroughly scrubbed it off already and had the irritated red patch on her skin to show for it.

  “But still, to kill himself in order to kill me…” She shuddered. Her guards had been prepared for attacks both physical and magical, and she knew for a fact that while they were on protection duty they had shield spells activated at all times. But not Kai shields, at least not in the supposed safety of her own palace.

  “He knew that was his only chance to succeed,” Semsulin said. “Perhaps he feared his family would suffer for his misdeeds, and he thought putting Lord Kailindar on the throne would save them.” His eyes met hers, and his voice took on a brittle edge. “And perhaps Lord Kailindar encouraged him to believe such a thing…”

  Ellin put down her tea and sat forward, staring into the face of her lord chancellor and trying to read the thoughts behind his careful expression. She was not shocked at his suggestion, for it was obvious to anyone with a modicum of sense that Kailindar would be the greatest beneficiary in the event of her sudden and unexpected death. “So you believe Kailindar is behind the attempt?”

  Semsulin met her gaze unflinchingly. “I would not dismiss the notion out of hand. Just because he doesn’t display the same kind of naked ambition as Tamzin doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

  Ellin had not yet told anyone about her promise to make inquiries on Kailee’s behalf, and she couldn’t help wondering if her uncle had seized on what he’d taken as an implicit threat to his daughter’s safety and used that as an excuse to remove her from the throne. But their conversation had ended on what felt like a cautiously positive note, and she could hardly believe he’d been contemplating regicide. Nor did he seem the sort to make such a precipitous decision without some sort of severe provocation.

  Then again, Ellin had failed to see the depths of Lord Creethan’s hatred, so perhaps her judgment was not to be trusted on this matter.

  “I see no reason to believe Creethan was acting on anyone’s authority but his own,” Ellin said, though the words came out sounding more like a question than a statement.

  Semsulin shrugged as if it hardly mattered. “Even so, it would behoove you to have Kailindar questioned.”

  She recoiled at the very thought. If he’d been affronted by her stripping of a ceremonial title, she could only imagine how he would react to being questioned about his possible involvement with an assassination attempt. “Only if I am willing to alienate him forever.” She wasn’t certain of her ability to win him over with a marriage for Kailee, but she was sure she would lose any possibility of goodwill if she humiliated him by having him questioned.

  “If he’s behind the attempt, then alienating him is hardly an issue.”

  “But—”

  “Even if he’s not,” Semsulin interrupted in what was for him a rare breach of protocol, “we have to consider that Creethan’s attack is a symptom of a greater issue. You have as yet not secured our trade agreements with Nandel, you have lost an important trade agreement with Aaltah—a loss that is not of your own doing, but whose consequences will still be laid at your feet—and you have allied yourself with an upstart principality that many believe will be utterly destroyed before long. It is all too easy to see other malcontents viewing Kailindar as a potential savior, and the assassination attempt makes you seem vulnerable despite its failure.”

  Ellin had not thought it possible to feel any greater chill in her soul. “Just what are you suggesting, Lord Semsulin?” she asked, although she knew the answer perfectly well.

  Semsulin hesitated only a moment before he put his implication into words. “I’m suggesting that Kailindar may be a danger to your throne whether he was behind this attempt or not. There are many already who consider him the rightful king and who support you only because they aren’t especially fond of him. The more discontented the people become, the more attractive Kailindar will become. Lord Creethan may have given you an excellent opportunity to rid yourself of a dangerous rival—before his popularity comes to exceed your own.”

  Ellin was well aware that many monarchs before her had managed to conveniently rid themselves of anyone who might conceivably prosecute a rival claim to the throne. No doubt some of those rivals had been legitimate threats, but there was little doubt many had been eliminated merely as a precaution.

  “I’m well aware the suggestion is…distasteful,” Semsulin said when her silence stretched out for too long. “Rest assured that I don’t make it lightly. But it is my duty as your lord chancellor to point out the unexpected opportunity today’s unfortunate events have provided you.”

  Ellin stared down at her hands. “What would my grandfather have done if he were in my place?” she asked softly.

  Semsulin’s reply was swift and unequivocal. “King Linolm was never an especially sentimental man. If he saw a danger to his throne, he would be quick to eliminate it in any way possible. Your father would have done the same, had he survived to take the throne. But this isn’t a question of what others would have done in your place. You must make the decision for yourself. After all, you are the one who has to live with it. Keep in mind, however, the distinct possibility that Lord Kailindar is behind this attempt.”

  Ellin noted that her lord chancellor had a remarkable facility for presenting something as a decision she must make herself while making it abundantly clear which decision he felt she should make.

  If she had Kailindar questioned, there was no doubt in her mind that the magistrate who did the questioning could find an excuse to call in the royal inquisitor. Just as she had no doubt that the inquisitor could be persuaded to bring about the desired conclusion.

  “Shall I contact the magistrate?” Semsulin prompted.

  Ellin took a long moment before she answered, though in truth she’d known her decision all along. Killing Tamzin in the heat of the moment when he was openly attempting to seize her throne and throw her in the dungeon was one thing. Manufacturing evidence that Kailindar had planned an assassination attempt against her, condemning him to torture and eventual attainder and execution, was quite another.

  “Not just yet,” she said. “I believe I may have another way to ensure his loyalty.”

  “Oh?” Semsulin said with a raise of his eyebrow. “What might that be?”

  “Let me determine if my way is plausible before I go into detail.”

  “Even if he is entirely loyal, that does not preclude others from rising up in his name,” Semsulin cautioned.

  “I know. I’ll just have to make sure that uprising would not have the desired effect.”

  Semsulin was frowning at her, not surprisingly. She waited for him to point out that the assassination attempt might never have happened if she had taken his sage advice in the first place and not dismissed Lord Creethan. She was sure the thought had crossed his mind, but the words did not cross his lips.

  “We can make the whole question moot if we can somehow persuade Prince Waldmir to approve your marriage to Zarsha,” he said instead.

  She nodded. “Something that will likely be much easier to do if Kailindar continues to represent me in the negotiations and does so wholeheartedly.

  “I will not have him questioned by a magistrate at the moment,” she said decisively. “But I reserve the right to change my mind if I cannot reliably secure his loyalty. I will make sure he understands that.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Alys stared at the door through which Honor had exited, listening to her footstep
s retreat and breathing deeply. It was an uncommonly early hour for her to retire for the night, but she’d heard Jinnell’s name mentioned earlier in the evening, and that alone had been enough to sink her into melancholy. She’d held off the grief while in public by promising herself a good cry as soon as she could get away. Not that crying ever seemed to do much to relieve the pain, but she’d found that if she held it all in for too long, the tears would escape at inopportune moments.

  When at last she could hear Honor’s footsteps no more, Alys collapsed onto a settee, covering her face with her hands and weeping with abandon. The pain was like a breathing, malignant creature that resided inside her chest, constantly gnawing on her bones, squeezing the air out of her lungs whenever she allowed herself the briefest illusion that it might be easing up even a fraction. It was incomprehensible to her how someone, anyone, could intentionally cause another person this kind of agony, for she couldn’t imagine inflicting it on even her worst enemy. She would happily kill Delnamal with her own hands, and it would not trouble her conscience one bit if she made him scream loud and long while she did, but she would not put even him through this.

  She cried until her eyes had no more tears to shed and her body ached with exhaustion. Her breath still came in hiccups, and her nose remained stopped up no matter how many times she blew it.

  From a silken purse that lay on her bedside table came a soft chirping sound that could only be the talker she made a habit of carrying with her at all times. She had a nice array of the little talking fliers in her office at the town hall, but the one she had paired with Queen Ellinsoltah’s was the only one she habitually carried, for there was no alliance more important to the survival of Women’s Well than that one.

  Still sniffling, Alys retrieved the little talker from the purse with a baleful look. There was no point in keeping it with her at all times if she was going to ignore its call, but she was hardly in a state to be seen right now. Bad enough she was dressed for bed, but she did not need a mirror to know she looked a fright, with reddened nose and eyes making it obvious she’d been weeping.