Chapter 2

Serena

My family… are dead?

Dead?

Just two days ago, they were perfectly fine. Granted, they have been charged with treason, but even then, they have to be tried first. And even if the King had condemned them without a trial, an execution date would still have to be set first.

There should have been time.

Time to sort this whole misunderstanding out.

Days, at the very least.

So how could they-

The world tilts.

I shake my head, over and over again, as though the motion alone could unmake the words, could shove them back into the poisonous mouth they came out of.

Impossible…obviously, she’s-

“-lying! You’re lying!” The scream rips out of me, high-pitched and shrill.

My vision blurs and swims. The cell tilting sideways, and my knees give out beneath me. I fall to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

This isn’t real. It can’t be real.

No-

“Ask him if you don’t believe me.” Ava’s voice is honey sweet. “You might not believe me. But I’m sure you’ll believe him.”

It is only then that I notice the second figure standing a pace behind her, half-swallowed by shadow. It’s Sir Vincent, The King’s personal Knight Guard and righthand man.

If Lady Ava were telling any falsehoods, he would have offered a denial. Silence is confirmation.

“Sir Vincent?” I call to him, my voice shaking, eyes imploring him to tell me it’s a lie. Desperately needing it to be a lie- a sick joke Lady Ava had conjured up just to torture me.

His face gives nothing away- just quiet stoicism. But he doesn’t say anything.

“Tell me it’s not true!” I scream. He looks away. But still remains quiet.

No matter how much I don’t want to believe it. I understand then that its true…

My family… is truly gone. It’s only me now.

“But they were innocent! They are innocent!” I scream in anguish. “They would never do something like that! They would never betray the Kingdom!” frustration and despair burning my throat and choking my air.

Lady Ava bursts into laughter, face brightening up as though I had just said the most amusing thing she had ever heard.

“Of course they were innocent,” she coos after getting her laughter back under control. “Even a fool knows that.”

And the King is no fool.

The rest of her sentence goes unsaid. But she doesn’t have to.

My heart drops to the pits of my stomach even as chill suffuses through my limbs.

“Then why-?”

“Who asked your family to be such an eyesore.” she adds with a shrug.

I go completely still, her words running through my mind. Then a loud hysterical laughter bursts out of me.

What a stupid girl you’ve been Serena. What a stupid, stupid girl…

My hands come up to cover my face as my body shakes with laughter while hot tears flow down my cheeks.

Something is thrown into my cell. It strikes the stone floor with a delicate clink and rolls to a stop beside my knees. I lower a hand to look at it.

It is a small glass vial. Inside, a liquid swirls- silver threaded through a light green. The colour is nearly iridescent- catching the light in slow, hypnotic ribbons. It is beautiful. And just as deadly.

Wolfsbane.

Refined to its purest, deadliest form. I’d seen it once before, years ago.

“Silver wolfsbane”, her voice comes from above my head.

“I told you, I’m here to see you off. This is his Majesty’s last mercy to you,” she says gloatingly, “I hear its a truly painful way to go- one of the worst even. But it’s either this, or be dragged to the square at dawn to lose your head in front of all the commoners in the capital, while they spit and throw stones at the traitor Queen.”

“Either way, you end up the same. Dead. But at least this way, you leave with your dignity. Or whatever’s left of it anyways. It will be announced that you took your own life to atone for the sins of your family.

I numbly stare at the vial for a moment before looking up at Sir Vincent. He stares back at me with a cold, indifferent gaze.

I look back down at the vial again before giving a short deprecative laugh. And in one fluid motion, I reach out, pick up the small glass bottle, uncork it and throw my head back- emptying it into my mouth. I don’t even taste it. The entire thing flows down my throat and into my stomach in seconds.

In moments, excruciating pain begins to burn my belly, and then quickly radiates through my entire frame. Suddenly I cough and blood comes up thick, spurt after spurt, staining my hands and dress red. My body folds into itself as I curl, wrapping my arms around my midsection. A scream claws up my throat but I clamp down on my bottom lip, biting back the sound.

I would be damned if I give her the satisfaction of hearing me scream.

But Lady Ava is not done yet. She has to twist the knife to make sure I suffer even more.

“Since you’re going to die anyways, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you the truth now. The truth is that, the one His Majesty has always loved-“ she hisses, voice like poison, “-was me. It was always me. You were never anything but a shield, Serena. A pretty little decoy to draw the court’s poison and the other Companions’ jealousy away from who actually mattered to him. Me.”

I might not be able to see her, but the sneer is evident in her voice, “why else would he agree to marry someone whose family he is wary of?”

Something in my heart cracks, quiet and cold. My breathing grows heavy, each breath dragging torturously through my chest.

It hurts. It hurts so much.

I don't if its the poison or her words that hurt more.

There is a rustle of fabric as Lady Ava caresses her stomach.

“And now, I’m carrying his child.”

She waits to make sure the words sink in. They do.

My breath starts to slow.

“For all your prayers and physicians, you were unable to conceive. Eight years and still nothing.”

A soft, mocking tsk.

“He promised me I would be the first to carry his child. The one to bear his heir.”

The world tilts, and I don’t have the strength left to soften the fall. The side of my head hits the stone floor.

Somewhere above me, I hear another set footsteps. Unhurried.

My eyes blink slowly- vision already fracturing at the edges, darkness pressing in from every side. I see the boots first- fine leather, dark and polished to a shine. The cut of the black trousers above them, tailored in a way only one person in the entire Kingdom is allowed to wear.

I would know that silhouette anywhere. In darkness, in dreams. This is someone I had spent eight years of my life chasing.

The last of the light is going now, my body already growing distant from me. With a final stubborn thought in my head-

If there is another life, I will never love you again.