Blayne regarded me with a sneer. “You want my help or not, Ryiah?”
It was a challenge. A test of our supposed truce and my chance to find out more about his brother. I knew if I passed up this opportunity he would not offer it again.
Common sense bid I decline, but I was in no mood to listen to reason. I wanted to understand Darren, even if it meant spending time with the enemy.
I could only hope that Blayne didn’t choose this moment to suddenly return to his old nature.
“Lead the way.”
****
I didn’t know what I had expected, but the old queen’s chamber was certainly not part of the morbid possibilities in my mind. When Blayne took me to the royal wing I was sure he had made a mistake. But then he continued past the king’s chamber to the furthest door in the hall, one that had remained unoccupied since Queen Lillian’s death many years before.
I watched as the crown prince produced a large ring of keys from the pocket of his trousers, and then unlocked the door. Blayne paused as his hand stilled on the handle.
“You and I have our differences, but rest assured I love my brother, Ryiah. I believe that is the one thing we hold in common. What I am about to show, you are never to speak of to anyone. Do I have your word?”
I nodded.
He swung open the door, and I followed him inside. Then I took a step back, my back hitting the frame in horror.
Unlike the other royal chambers, this room had been stripped bare of material. No bed, no furnishings, no sprawling rug or tapestries. Nothing to suggest the queen had ever lived in the chamber at all. But that wasn’t why I had gasped.
Protruding from the back of the wall was a pair of chained manacles that were approximately three feet in height and a shoulder length apart. Another set rested along the ground, built into a metal bar lining the floor.
The swirled marble tile was discolored beneath the chains, as if someone—or two someones— had bled out repeatedly on its surface. The floor’s design was an elaborate design of red, gold, and violet swirl—the same as the rest of the palace— but the stain was much closer to rust.
“W-what is this place?” I choked. My heart was racing as I looked on and pictured a hundred horrible scenarios in my head. Reasons Blayne would need to show me this room. For the first time I prayed it was a ploy, that the crown prince’s motives were malevolent—anything but what I was imagining now.
“This was my mother’s room.” Blayne walked over to a dark pine chest I hadn’t noticed, reaching out to take one of the contents: a foot-long pole with a chain of small, sharp blades attached to its cord. He tested its weight in his hand.
“She was much younger than my father, much more lovely and had the most beautiful singing voice you could ever imagine. Darren was too young to remember her much, barely two years at the time of her passing. But I did.” He dropped the whip, and I could hear him sigh. “My father was never a kind man. But losing my mother as he did, well I’m sure you’ve heard the stories…”
I swallowed. My parents had told me the tale as a child. Before I was born, Queen Lillian had been poisoned during a ceremonial feast. It was widely believed that her wine had been intended for the king. The aftermath was the stuff of legends. Following his wife’s death Lucius had ordered the entire hall interrogated and then executed at once. Among the victims had been his current board of advisors, a handful of nobility, the serving staff on hand, and several of his guard. A culprit had never been identified and sixty-two men and women had died that night.
Scholars suspected it was the first of the Caltothian attacks. They also called it the “Lily Queen’s Slaughter.”
“This room…” My heart slammed against my ribs as he continued. “He had the servants redecorate after she passed. None of the staff was allowed to enter, and only the head infirmary mage knew.”
The prince’s voice was hard. “There was the palace dungeon, of course.” The boy laughed, low and cruel. “But it would have been too much work to carry two unconscious boys up and down the palace halls when this room was unused—and so close to where we slept.”
Blayne met my gaze head on. “So he took us here.”
My knees threatened to give out, and I clung to the door’s frame for support. I could hear every word Blayne was saying, and yet there was a thundering in my ears. I felt sick to my stomach, and the pastries from earlier were fighting to rise as I gulped in deep lungfuls of air.
“Any time we disobeyed orders, any time he had too much to drink, any time he decided we were too soft to carry on his line.” The prince’s lips twisted at the memory. “The man always had his mage heal us when he was done. No one ever knew, and if word ever got out…Well, he was the king and there was nothing anyone could do unless they wished to find themselves on the receiving end of his attention, like us.”