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34 Family Reckoning

Penulis: Karima Sa'ad Usman
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-09-27 18:46:17

Arden’s POV

The heavy doors shut behind us, sealing the echo of the murmuring court outside. The room that remained was smaller, intimate in its own way, yet tense enough to make the air feel like it might shatter with the next word. My father moved toward the long table at the center, his robes sweeping behind him, his hand already pressed to his brow in weary agitation.

Richard hovered near the hearth, jaw clenched, arms crossed like a sulking child. Ivana stayed close to the king, her hand brushing against his arm as if she were the one who required comfort, not the woman who had orchestrated half the mess. I remained standing where I was, a deliberate act of defiance. Let them feel my presence rather than dismiss me into silence.

My father was the first to break the quiet.

“Did that woman put you up to this?” His voice was sharp, but beneath it lay something else, an edge of genuine concern. “Arden, you have to know when you’re being used. I thought you better than that.”

I exhale
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  • Tempting the Wrong Prince   122 A Crown Built on Other People’s Sacrifices 2

    Richard’s POVA ripple of outrage ran through the court.Ivana snapped, “Richard, ”I lifted my hand. Not at her. Not in defiance. Just… a boundary.“I’m speaking,” I said quietly.For once, she fell silent. Not because she respected me, but because the room was watching. And she knew that pushing too hard would expose her.One minister rose abruptly. “So we are meant to accept starvation because Prince Arden refuses to sacrifice himself?”Arden’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t speak. He had said his piece.Another voice cut in, this one sharper, more strategic.“And yet,” the minister said, “Prince Arden spent the night with Lady Nala. If he doesn’t do right by her, we may face a cold war with Belmont. We cannot afford an economic war right now.”The room stilled.That sentence changed the shape of the argument. It turned the discussion from marriage into damage control. A forced overnight stay wasn’t simply scandal, it was leverage. It was a story Belmont could twist into an insult if

  • Tempting the Wrong Prince   121 A Crown Built on Other People’s Sacrifices

    Richard’s POVThe court was loud before I even entered it.Not the ceremonial kind of loud, the sort that came with trumpets and rehearsed announcements and polite applause. This was uglier. Bitter. Ragged at the edges. The noise of men who’d built their lives on order and influence and were now watching the ground shift beneath their feet.The famine rumours had started as whispers. Then the drought had stretched longer than anyone wanted to admit. Now the riots had given everything a face, angry crowds in the streets, broken windows, shouting in front of ministerial homes, food prices climbing like they had no ceiling. You could smell fear on people now, even in gold-trimmed halls.And they were blaming Belmont.Belmont, the quiet giant with long pockets and longer grudges.Belmont, whose “wedding gift” was expected to feed our people and keep the palace from collapsing under its own arrogance.Belmont, whose aid we would not receive, because Arden had refused the union.That was th

  • Tempting the Wrong Prince   120 No One Bleeds for Free 2

    Arden’s POVThe silence between us wasn’t angry. It was heavy. Like the room had filled up with everything we’d been carrying for years: the brothers I loved, the brother I’d failed, the woman wedged between us, the parents who treated all of it like land to be claimed.Then, softer, he spoke again.“What about the people?” he asked. “What about the hunger?”He said it like a prayer. Like if he said it gently enough, it would become my burden by default.I laughed, not bitter, not cruel. Just tired. The sound you make when someone asks you to save a house that’s already burning and then blames you for the smoke.“If I die today, they’ll move on,” I said. “If I marry Nala and live a miserable life, they’ll move on. Tomorrow they’ll forget the sacrifice and be the first to crucify me.”I didn’t mean it as contempt for the people. Hunger made monsters out of decent men. Fear turned crowds into storms. But I also knew how quickly the public rewrote heroes into villains when it suited them.

  • Tempting the Wrong Prince   119 No One Bleeds for Free

    Arden’s POVThe moment the door shut, he hit me.Not hard enough to knock me down. Not wild with drunken rage or a loss of control. It was measured. An exact strike from a man who knew his strength and wanted the message to land without making a scene.My head snapped slightly to the side, more from shock than pain. For a second, I just stood there, staring past his shoulder at the wall, trying to place the sound in my mind. The dull thud of knuckles against bone. The quiet that followed. The way my heartbeat stumbled, like it hadn’t expected violence to be part of this conversation.He had never hit me before.Not as a child, when my tutors complained about my mouth. Not as a teenager, when I stopped attending his prayers for obedience. Not even the first time I disobeyed him publicly, when he dragged me into a study and tried to suffocate me with words until I apologised for wanting a life outside his script.That was always his weapon: language. Decrees. Lectures. Public silence th

  • Tempting the Wrong Prince   118 The Truth Turned on Them

    Arden’s POVNala had regained some colour, but her eyes remained too wide, too alert. Her hand clenched the edge of her robe as if it were the only thing holding her together.“As for the footage, all you would see is her,” I said. “She was the one making all the moves. I didn’t touch a hair on her head.”Silence.The palace held its breath again.I saw the way her uncle’s eyes shifted, calculating. Saw the way my father’s expression tightened as he realised the narrative might not be as clean as he wanted. Saw the way Nala swallowed, her throat moving too hard.“You can ask her,” I added. “Or I will release the footage from the bedroom and the living room.”I looked directly at Nala.“Choose.”Her composure wavered.A beat passed.Two.Her lips parted as if she might argue, might cling to the script.But fear is a stronger force than pride, and for all her ambition, Nala wasn’t brave.She broke.Not in tears.Not in confession that sounded noble.She broke the way people break when th

  • Tempting the Wrong Prince   117 The Script Broke in Daylight

    Arden’s POVNala walked out of the corridor behind me wearing a pale sleeping robe, the fabric soft and flowing, cinched at the waist as though she’d woken and thrown it on in modest haste. Her hair was loose and artfully disordered, as if she’d spent the night in a bed she belonged in. Her face was bare enough to look innocent, but her lips held a tint of colour that hadn’t happened by accident.She moved like someone who belonged there.Like someone who had been invited.Like someone who owned the place.The performance was meticulous. The robe, the hair, the timing, appearing exactly when my father asked for her, as if summoned by the script.The palace liked scripts.Nala loved them.My father… my father depended on them.She walked straight up to us with a soft smile and looped her arm through mine before greeting the King and her uncle.My jaw tightened.I did not pull away immediately.Not because I accepted it, but because I was watching my father’s reaction.His shoulders rel

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