The Promise Rowan Never Told Her
Chapter 10 - The Promise Rowan Never Told Her
Elara carried the note to the window because the room had begun to tilt.
Raised her as my own.
Her mother had only one daughter.
Elara.
Rowan read the note over her shoulder. He said nothing, but his face confirmed what the words already had.
“You knew,” she whispered.
“I suspected.”
“How long?”
“Since I was sixteen.”
She slapped him.
The sound cracked through the empty music room.
Rowan accepted it without moving.
“Did you come back for me,” Elara asked, “or for the throne?”
“For you.”
“That is what everyone says before explaining why they lied.”
Archbishop Corren examined the marriage contract. The seal belonged to Queen Marian and the late royal physician. A midwife’s signature confirmed that the queen’s newborn daughter survived.
Varrick had announced the infant’s death and ordered the body buried before anyone outside the royal chamber saw it.
Lady Celeste smuggled the child away.
Elara touched the silver lilies embroidered on her gown. They were not only the Vale family crest. They had once been Queen Marian’s favorite flowers.
King Aldren was her father.
The man who had tried to marry her.
Corren went gray. “The ceremony would have been forbidden by blood law.”
“Varrick knew,” Rowan said. “That was the point.”
Elara looked at him.
“If the wedding had been completed,” he continued, “Varrick could reveal her identity afterward. The scandal would destroy Aldren, divide the council, and leave the chancellor as protector of the realm.”
The wooden mask had not only silenced Elara.
It had hidden the king’s resemblance to his own daughter.
Elara felt sick.
“Why did my mother never tell me?”
“She planned to,” Rowan said. “The night she gave me the key, she made me promise to protect you until Lord Vale could reveal everything safely.”
“And after she died?”
“Your father believed Varrick would kill you if he learned you knew.”
“He nearly married me to my own father because none of you trusted me with my own name.”
Rowan’s voice broke. “I know.”
“No, you know what guilt feels like. That is not the same thing.”
Guards appeared in the corridor.
King Aldren entered alone.
He saw the open strongbox, the contract, and the queen’s letters. His eyes settled on Elara.
For the first time, she noticed what others might see. The shape of their brows. The same gray-green eyes. The small scar along the left thumb, a trait she had inherited without knowing.
Aldren picked up Marian’s note.
His hands began to shake.
“My daughter died,” he said.
“No,” Elara answered. “Your chancellor stole her life.”
The king looked at her with horror, grief, and recognition.
Then bells exploded across the city.
Not wedding bells.
Alarm bells.
May you like
From the palace courtyard came the roar of thousands of voices chanting one name.
Varrick.
