Chapter 14: The king's back story

“You asked if I attended the royal school earlier” he reminded as they reached the waterfall garden where water fell from a high mountain down to a stream where it flowed down to where the eyes couldn’t see past. Larissa tears her amazed eyes away from the beautiful scenery to look at the king “I did not attend it, because just like you, I was raised outside the palace”

Larissa was shocked at that, and had a lot of questions to ask, but she keeps silent so the king would continue, enchanted by how his hair flowed with the wind.

“My mother was a queen who was deposed of because she wasn’t able to conceive, a month after being thrown out, she was discovered to be pregnant. Everyone had their opinion of it, they said it wasn’t the king’s, oh she must have slept around because she was desperate. They wanted her dead, or exiled, sent away to a place where she would suffer and eventually die”

Patrick began to walk again and Larissa followed

“The king played merciful even though he himself was doubtful with all the lies he was being fed. He let her stay with her parents until the child was born”

They walked to a small pond that had a bridge across it, and there they stood as they watched the setting sun’s reflection on the still water

“Most children born to the royal family usually had a birthmark that proved them one, but the child she bore had none”

Larissa breathed out a small gasp but said nothing, reassuring Patrick that she was still following

“Luckily though, the baby looked so much like the king, and so the royal court decided to let me live and grow up before they would accept the king’s ‘misguided claim’. I did not get to enter the palace until I was eighteen years old”

“Why so long?”

“A war was waging against the kingdom, the king was sick after having lost four of his sons to the war. It was just me and the son of the queen at that time, the crown prince that were left, and I was called back into the palace to be killed in the same way the others were”

“Was your mother not reinstated back to her position?” Larissa asked, concern laced in her voice, making the king chuckle as he looked at her

She looked back at him

“Guess all that talk about you reading the books of law was a bluff”

“How dare you mock my words, I would have you know you unlearned one that every kingdom has their own laws, yours might be different from my country’s or the general world law”

Patrick laughed at the genuinely angry look on Larissa’s face. How easy it was to spooke her

“She was reinstated as a mistress but wasn’t allowed back into the palace either”

“So you went to war?”

“I was proud my father could trust me with something like that, how stupidly naïve I was. Once I stepped into the battle field, I was captured by the savage soldiers of the Mahovia kingdom and they only agreed to a treaty if the king would allow his son be held hostage. The official agreed without delay, it would be like killing two birds with a stone; getting rid of me who was the only threat left to the throne of their favored prince and ending a war that seemed endless”

He walked down the end of the bridge and Larissa followed, they had gotten enough view of the pond and moved to the next place, which was to be the last since the sun was already going down

“Luckily for me though, the crown prince at that time came to like me and for that trained together, he was like a teacher who impacted a lot of knowledge and skills to me, a man of great insight. Five years of my stay there and he became king when the king died and to celebrate his ascension to the throne, he granted wishes of those who had found favor in his eyes”

The couple reached in front of a huge gate with equally huge walls by the sides and golden placard that read ‘Most beautiful place for one so fair’

“So?” Larissa urged when the king took too long to continue, his careless attention on the servants as they pushed the huge door open

He breathed out a sigh

“I wanted home, I missed my mother and really wanted to see her again, the letters she sent did little to quell my longing to see her. The king had looked disappointed at my answer but gave a condition if I must go”

“What was it, the condition?” Larissa asked as they stepped into what was an open field of flowers, with a monument at a far end of it.

“I was to serve in the army of his lordship for two years. I obliged. Killed anyone that needed to be killed, won every battle that needed to be won just so I could return. The Mahovia kingdom and the king begrudgingly let me go, they wanted me to stay, but when I arrived back here at Evergreen, my supposed home, I was treated like a monster, apparently, I was loyal to the Mahovian king who I had befriended and was there to spy on the kingdom on his request”

“Woah!” Larissa exclaimed as they entered the field, her eyes shining with awe at how beautifully surreal the place was but she didn’t move a muscle, still very much interested in Patrick’s story

“My mother had died a year before, no one informed me and my father could only welcome me back on his sick bed, he died the next day and my brother, the queen’s son became the king”

Patrick turned to look at Larissa who held her breath as she looked into the penetrating amber eyes of the fiery looking man with a beautiful aura

“I wasn’t given time to even mourn my parents, when the king seeing me as a potential threat to his throne tried to eradicate me” Patrick scoffed “me who the people feared and despised, I was never an option and I never wanted it from the beginning” the king lets out a breath, remembering everything as if it had all happened only but yesterday. “I killed him instead, and everyone who shouted treason I killed too, usurped the throne like they feared and became a king feared by his people”

“So you’re the bad person in this story?” Larissa asked as she picked a rose carelessly, hissing softly when a thorn pricked her finger, she turned to the king just as she licked her finger, her eyes looking hooded “that’s makes two of us” she walked over to him and threw her arms around his neck “you’re not alone anymore, you have me now” she whispered

“It may seem so at the moment, but your place here is under threat” the king said moving away from her making her release a small scoffing sound as she folds her arms under her breast

“Not with you as king I don’t believe so”

“My mother was deposed”

“Her king was not as powerful as you”

“It is the word of the people that rules Larissa”

Larissa frowned at that. Her hands falling to her sides as she stared at the king’s broad, strong back as he now stood in front of a monument under which it was engraved in stone ‘QUEEN LILY’.

A solemn look occupied his face as he placed his large palm on the lush grass growing over the monument.

“So what am I supposed to do then? I do not intend to leave here, to leave you” Larissa whinned

“You need a queen maker” Patrick declared, a sheepish smile on his face which he hid well from her since his back was still turned to her

She cocks her head to the side “What’s that?”

“A person… who’d make you into a proper queen in no time”

Flashback

“You think she’ll agree my lord?”

John asked as he wrote the letter according to the king’s instruction

“She’s not that wild a beast to tame, physical fights against this one is pointless, she’s a very emotional person” Patrick answered in reply as he got ready to join the queen for a tour “a little play on emotions and I’ll have her in the palm of my hand, you just go ahead and deliver that letter”

John sighed massaging his creasing brows as he watched the king walk out

“You’re just as emotional too my lord, and I’m afraid you may end up being the one tamed instead”

“A queen maker huh?” Larissa tapped at her chin in thought “fine let’s do that”

Patrick grinned victoriously at the answer.

“Tamed”