Behind The Wooden Door (13 page)

If I couldn’t have Tristan released, at least I would die with him. In life or in death, we would still be together.

“You need her, Thanos! How else are you going keep an end to this war?” Tristan said from behind me.

I wanted to scream at Tristan. To tell him to shut the hell up. My death was not his choice, it was mine, but I couldn’t find the words to say.

My father stared at Tristan for a moment then his eyes came back to me.

“Guards! Take her out of here!” my father yelled.

The metal hands of the guards wrapped around the tops of my arms and pulled me away. I begged for them to release me. I yelled for Tristan. But nothing helped. I struggled against the holds, but it was useless. My throat burned from my screams.

My father snapped his fingers and gave the command. Two more guards grabbed Tristan and forced him down onto the large metal table. Tristan’s eyes met mine, and I could see the tears in them, but he never fought. He was ready for this.

The executioner raised the axe high in the air above Tristan. But all I saw was the wood of the door as it slammed in my face. The guards laughed at my uncontrollable sobs as they dragged me down the corridor.

They shoved me into my room and locked the door. I was a prisoner in the place I had for so long called home. And Tristan…was dead.

CHAPTER 17

Three days. Three days since I watched the guards burn the severed pieces of Tristan’s body. Three days of constant crying and objecting to leave my room. I refused to eat in the same room as my father. I didn’t care if I starved…then I could be with my love.

Cormac was the only one to come and try to reason with me. To console me. Why he would come to help me, I do not know. I had been the reason for his cousin’s death. Tommy hated me because of it, and he had every right to. I deserved no kindness from anyone. And no one gave it to me other than Cormac. He was the only one who seemed to care if I lived or died.

But he and the men would leave tomorrow. Right after the wedding.

Everyone in the kingdom knew about Lady Lanie the Whore. But then again they knew nothing. They didn’t know the feelings I had had for Tristan or the love he had for me. They knew only the lies King Thanos spread.

Knock, knock.
Pause.
Knock, knock, knock.

Five knocks. It was Cormac.

I opened my bedroom door to let him in. His brown hair stuck out at odd angles, and his face was swollen from crying. His eyes were red from lack of sleep and a thousand tears.

“Hello, M’lady,” he said as he walked in the door.

He walked past me and lit the candle on my bedside table.

“You can’t keep yourself in darkness, Lanie. It’s not good for you,” he said.

I remained silent. He had done most of the talking the past two days. I didn’t have the right to talk to him or at least I felt that I didn’t.

“Lanie, Tristan wouldn’t want you to just sit here. He’d want you to live life. He gave his so you could keep yours, remember? Ask yourself, Lanie, what would Tristan do if he w
ere in your position?”

I closed my eyes tightly to keep from having to look at him. Yes, I remembered. I would never forget. Ever. But what
would
Tristan want me to do?

“Lanie, trust me, I know how hard it is to lose the person you’re in love with. You have no desire to continue living. You want to hide away from the world. But believe me, it does get better. Not soon. But you’ll see, trust me. You can’t let yourself waste away like this,” Cormac said.

Cormac was right. I couldn’t sit in my room and mope. I had to live. For Tristan. But I couldn’t do that in Rattonim.

Not with my father still alive.

…not with my father still alive…that was it. As long as my father was alive, I was a prisoner, but without him, I would be queen.

I walked to my window and looked out at the sky. Midday. Perfect. He’d still be having lunch.

“You’re right. I need to live, but in order to do so, I’m going to need your help,” I said. My voice sounded strange. It was raspy and forced.

“What do I need to do?” he asked.

“Gather all the men you trust most. We’re going to need them,” I told him. I looked in the mirror. I looked nothing like myself. A mad woman stared back through the glass. “And wait for me outside the castle.”

I walked to the door without giving him a chance to say anything. It was time I started living. Time to avenge my fallen soldier. And time for King Thanos to die.

CHAPTER 18

Three long red candles were placed along the long oak table. Their wax dripped slowly to the table as if it was the blood of Tristan taunting me. Drip. Drip. Drip. A giant turkey lay in middle of the table with a massive knife jutting out of its stomach. My reflection shone in the steel blade.

My father tore the skin from the drumstick of the bird with his teeth. He stared at me from over his lunch and waited for me to break the silence.

“You were right, Father,” I said with a smile.

My father cocked an eyebrow at me but didn’t speak.

“I haven’t been behaving like a princess. I don’t know what got into me,” I said with a hint of a laugh.  “Tomorrow I will take my true place by Artair’s side.”

Crack! My father tore the other leg from the turkey and bit into it. Had the executioner ripped Tristan’s body apart with a quick snap like my father had the beast on the table? No, I doubt it. The executioner had never been known to do a quick job of killing his victims.

“I’m glad you’ve finally come to your senses, Lanie. I thought you might after we disposed of that trash. Maybe you’re not as much like your mother as I thought you to be,” he said with a laugh.

I bit my tongue at my father calling Tristan trash. He would never insult me or Tristan again.

The candles melted quicker. They flooded the table with their mocking red wax. Like blood seeping from a wound, wax flooded over the wooden plates and the food that was placed upon them. The flames rose high above my head, and I knew it was time.

I slid the knife that lay beside my plate inside the sleeve of my red and gold dress. I knew not whether it was my mother or Tristan who gave me the signal, but I knew it was now or never.

I stood from my seat and smiled.

“You’re right, Father. I’m nothing like my mother,” I told him.

I walked behind the large wooden seat that he sat upon. He couldn’t see the bloodlike wax spreading on the table and dripping down onto the floor, but I could. And it gave me all the encouragement I needed to pull the large knife from my sleeve.

I bent down close to my father’s ear and whispered, “Because she didn’t kill you when she had the chance.”

I plunged the sharp blade into his neck and jerked it across his throat. A strained gargling sound came from deep in my father’s throat. His blood sprayed from the hole in his neck and poured like water from his mouth. His eyes rolled back inside his head before he fell onto the table. The blood mixed with the wax on the table and floor. His life was over, and mine was now beginning.

The knife fell to the floor with a high pitched ding.

“Good night, Father,” I whispered into his ear.

I left him at the table and made my way to the balcony that overlooked the castle grounds. The soldiers stood below awaiting whatever was to come. Cormac and Tommy stood at the front of them. The new leaders.

I placed my hands on the railing of the balcony and saw the blood on them. I could feel the sticky redness on my face and clotting in my hair, but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if the men had never seen blood before.

“My father is dead!” I said loudly.

They all looked up at me.

“I am the only heir to the kingdom of Rattonim. And I plan to keep it that way. I refuse to share my land, my home, with a narcissistic prince! But I cannot fight him alone. You all came to fight a war, but my father tried to ruin that. He ruined everything. I wanted to sit and wait to die, but someone asked me something that made me change my mind. He asked…‘What would Tristan do?’”

The men whispered amongst themselves. They knew just as well as I did what Tristan would want them to do. He would want them to fight. I just had to ask the right question and pray they would fight alongside me.

“Come daybreak I want to take Artair’s castle. I want to make him pay for his sins just as I made my father pay. But I will need an army! Will you fight with me!?”

There was silence. It seemed that no one even dared to breathe. They were followers, and their leaders were dead… Except for…

“I am with you, Princess...
Queen
Lanie,” Tommy said as he stepped forward.

Right then, I knew we could do this. He may not have forgiven me for his brother’s death, but he would fight ruthlessly just like Tristan. He’d win this for Tristan. We would be forever unstoppable.

Cormac smiled and stepped up beside his cousin. “As am I!”

One by one every soldier stepped forward to take their place in the new army. They all had something or someone to fight and die for, and they all had a new home.

“Thank you. All of you. You’ll need rest, be ready before you see the first ray of sunlight.”

This must have been how Tristan felt when he looked out at these men. They weren’t just dirty, hired assassins. They were warriors who would fight to the bitter end. They were the underdogs of the world, but they would soon be famous as the greatest warriors in this land. In the world.

“This is our war now!” I shouted.

Loud cheering filled my ears. This was it. We would fight and take what belonged to us. I smiled and began to walk away but instantly stopped. The loud battle cries turned into a chant.

“Long live the queen! Long live the queen!”

CHAPTER 19

The cheering ended and my soldiers went back to their camp. I could feel the adrenaline in the air. They couldn’t wait for Norric’s last sunrise, and neither could I. Thunder shook the castle as the storm clouds grew blacker. Rattonim had fallen into darkness the night Tristan had given himself to the executioner, and I didn’t know if it would ever find its way to sunlight again.

One soldier remained below the balcony.

My dress scraped the cold stone as I made my way down the steps. Tommy waited patiently for me at the bottom.

When I reached the last step, he knelt on one knee. “Orders, Your Highness?”

Orders. There was only one true order that I wanted fulfilled.

“Do you know who betrayed me and Tristan?” My voice sounded as hard as the stone I stood on.

“There have been rumors around camp,” he said standing at full height.

He believed the rumors. I could see it in his eyes.

“Who was it?”

Lightning streaked sporadically. It was like a heartbeat in the sky. Inconstant and stopped whenever it wanted. It was soothing, yet powerful.

“Rueben,” he replied.

Rueben. I could still see the man in my head. Tristan had trusted him enough to let him lead a regiment at the attack on Norric. He’d trusted Rueben enough to make excuses for him in the forest the day of the first attack. The day Rueben sliced open Tristan’s shoulder. That had been no accident. He’d been waiting for Tristan to die. Waiting for an excuse to have him killed. And I had given it to him.

“Find him,” I commanded. “I’m putting the castle on lockdown. No one is coming in or going out. Take him to the execution chamber and make him suffer. I want every person in this kingdom who thinks of betraying us to hide amongst the shadows in fear for their lives. Make his screams echo throughout these halls.”

Tommy nodded. The dark storm clouds filled his eyes and hid the innocence that so often shone through them.

“And Tommy, if anyone tries to stop you, kill them,” I said.

“Yes, Your Highness,” he replied. Tommy placed his hand on the hilt of his sword and ran toward the black tents.

I knew nothing about leading these men or how to invade a castle. I had hidden behind Cormac and the others the last time we had been in Norric. I didn’t even have a sword this time.

Tears threatened to fall like the rain that loomed within the darkness. Everything was insane. The world. Love. War. It was unfair and stupid. And I had become a murderer.             

My feet followed their own path to the last place I had been with Tristan. The garden didn’t seem so decayed anymore. It too would have a new life and something to live for.

I stopped suddenly. Cornelia was right. She was right about everything. It seemed impossible that the fortune teller had been so accurate, but here I was alone in the garden. My hands bloodstained. Tristan dead… All of this could have been prevented if we had only believed her.

I ran my fingers over the grey walls and looked to the spot where Tristan and I danced just four nights ago. When nothing mattered but me and him. When we thought we had a future together.

The first raindrop fell from the sky and pattered softly against the dead leaves. I closed my eyes and imagined I was back at the night of the ball. My dress swayed like the dancers did. The rain began to pour harder, but I didn’t care. I spun around the garden like we had our last night together. My feet never missed a step as the lightning struck around me. I could see him so clearly as if he were right in front of me. Smiling that damn crooked smile of his. His green eyes hard yet hopeful.