CHAPTER 69: SILENCE OF THE DOWAGER

"You didn’t need to," the Dowager murmured. She smiled behind her cup, hearing the reason why they asked her to "host" this.

They didn’t want a mediator, they wanted a leash for her tyrant son. And perhaps... they’d get one. But not the leash they expected.

Silence.

She looked to the King now, whose fingers curled tightly around the head of his cane. "You’d trade your own son’s birthright for convenience?" she asked, hiding what she knew. She knew why the king hated Leroy and wanted him to lose his title as the crown prince.

But she had a selfish reason to not let that happen.

He sneered. "He was born to me, not raised by me. He returns, draped in a foreign bride, drunk on a foreign name. He lies beside the enemy, defies me, and dares call it love."

"And yet," said Lucia, brushing an invisible thread from her sleeve, "Vaeloria praises him. Kaltharion knows the sacrifice he’s made for its people. The people adore him. You’ve seen the tapestries. Heard the songs. If we don’t claim him, they will." They couldn’t just dethrone Leroy.

Arvand pressed on, sensing the weight shift. "If Lorraine truly loves him, she will let him go. For his future. For his kingdom." Now that Lucia had talked sense, Arvand wanted to make sure Elyse becomes the future queen.

Duke Arvand added after a pause, "She may yet surprise us with such... grace."

The Dowager’s fan snapped open. "You speak of Lorraine as if she’s a servant waiting to be dismissed. She’s the wife of the future King. And more than that, she is the reason Leroy returned from that war with his soul intact."

Lucia’s eyes narrowed. "But if she truly steadies him, as you say, would she not wish to protect him from the scandal her presence brings?"

The Dowager set her teacup down with a soft clink, the sound small but final, like a judge’s gavel. Her gaze lingered on Lucia, steady and unblinking.

"My dear, don’t mistake cowardice for counsel. You speak of scandal as if Lorraine authored it, when it was we who invited wolves to her door and expected her not to bleed."

Her fan flicked open with a whisper.

"She asked for no throne. Obeyed without ambition. While the rest of you trade crowns with bloodstained hands, she’s the only one here not playing a game."

The dowager’s rebuke did sting, and everyone shuffled in their seats, uncomfortable. Except for Hadrian Arvand. "Don’t talk about that stain on the legacy of House Arvand as if she deserves pity."

The King of Kaltharion rose, his chair groaning behind him. "Then let us have Gaston. Let us forget Leroy ever lived."

Lucia’s hand caught his arm. "No. Not yet. Not while the people chant his name. If he vanishes, they will mourn him. Gaston will be forced to bear the scorn of the people."

"But if Lorraine vanishes, gracefully, Leroy may yet be salvaged. Reforged."

The implication was louder than any sword strike.

Leroy will be forced to choose: His crown or Lorraine.

Arvand leaned back, folding his hands. "And married," he said softly, "to someone born to reign."

The Dowager did not speak. She watched them. All of them. Snakes that walk on two feet. Fork-tongued men and women in lace gloves and velvet coats, hiding daggers behind pleasantries.

They had come to bargain for a kingdom. To tear down a prince. To erase a girl who had already been made small all her life, and now they wanted her gone in the name of peace.

And the astonishing thing of all... was how the Swan Divina had predicted it. Even the dowager thought that the Divina was asking her to kill Lorraine, but now the Dowager saw the all-seeing wisdom of the Divina. She saw this, didn’t she? She saw how Lorraine’s own father would sit and plot to bring her ruin.

Should I let Leroy shed his mask? The dowager wondered. But she clenched her jaws. No.

She said nothing and let them dig their graves with silken tongues and stain their hands with velvet treason.

And when they were done, when all the players had moved their pieces, she would decide.

Whether to be their executioner. Or Lorraine’s guardian.

-----

Of course, the secret meeting didn’t stay secret.

When the news reached Lorraine, she only smirked. Reclined against her cushioned chair, still nursing the stiffness in her limbs, she didn’t look surprised, only amused.

"Sylvia," she murmured, voice cool, "what do you think they plotted? My death? Leroy’s dethronement? Or both?"

Sylvia didn’t blink. "You already know the answer, Your Highness."

Lorraine laughed. A short, sharp sound. "Mm. My father wants Leroy to marry Elyse. His father wants Gaston to be heir. Of course, they met. I almost feel left out."

She leaned forward and began writing swiftly on a parchment, lips curved in something too calm to be fury. Sylvia watched the familiar glint return to her eyes, the one that always spelled trouble for someone in power.

It looked a lot like Lorraine was considering killing the King of Kaltharion. Right here, while he was still in Vaelorian lands.

Not her first plan, but not off the table either.

Sylvia’s stomach turned. Why would the princess go to such lengths for someone like him? She wondered if Lorriane had changed her plan to leave. "The plan to leave..." she began gently, testing the waters.

But Lorraine didn’t respond. Her quill moved with unnerving purpose. She was already summoning names in her head, dispatching instructions to her courtesans.

Leroy couldn’t be dethroned. Not like this. She would see to it.

Just then, Emma burst in. "The prince... he’s been waiting in front of the tower," she said breathlessly, practically bouncing, "Every sunrise. For two days!"

Lorraine’s hand froze.

Her gaze slid sharply to Sylvia in an accusatory tone, who suddenly found the rug intensely interesting.

"You didn’t tell me," Lorraine said.

Lorraine didn’t feel it much that day. But she felt it the next morning, in the deep pull of her muscles, the tender ache in her thighs. Her body was still recovering from how completely they’d melted into each other that day. Not once. Not gently, but with a hunger only long-denied lovers could understand.

She could barely walk. Every step was a memory. Every breath a reminder.

And Leroy... he wasn’t looking for her anymore in their home. She didn’t know he’d been waiting elsewhere... for the Swan Divina. Had she known, she would’ve gone. She would’ve limped, half-dressed, hair undone, just to see him.

Now that her body no longer trembled with aftershocks, she missed him. She missed the way his hand spread possessively across her waist and the way he kissed her like he was afraid it might be the last time.

All this time, she could have had one more taste of him?