83: The Queen’s Gambit

Elara grinned. "Love is just a delusion of the feeble to validate their failures."

Alden's breath stalled in his throat. "You don't mean that."

She stood up and walked to Alden and draped her hands over his shoulders. "I mean every word, my king. And you — " her low voice seemed teasing — "you are still caught in your old ways. Your heart is too full of mercy."

Then he once again had her wrists and searched her face. "And what if mercy makes a true king?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "Then you will be devoured by those who are not as unintelligent as you."

Alden breathed sharply, staring at the woman who could once really have become everything to him.

He wants to believe her, he wants to believe this is temporary because someday she will wake up by herself again.

But deep down, he fears that who he is looking at now is an entirely different woman.

And she is not returning.

The air in the morning, cool, fresh with the scent of damp stone and the last embers of night fires. Light crept into the royal chambers through the high-arched windows of a midsummer sunrise. This put long shadows across the room. Alden stirred, and instinctively he groped for Elara; he found linen sheets cold to his touch only. The eyes flickered open.

She was not there.

Alden got up from his bed and rubbed out sleep from his eyelids. The silence in the chamber was almost unsound. Elara was always the first to rise, but she never left without a quiet word. This was different. Umbrage settled in his chest for both the swing of legs over the edge of the bed and the jolt from the cold stone floor.

He dressed in a hurry, fingers digging into the intricately shaped clasps of his tunic. As he stepped out into the corridor, he expected to see the usual morning bustle—servants preparing for the day and guards stationed at their posts—but the atmosphere felt off. There was movement, yes, but it was hurried, secretive. People whispered in corners, their gazes darting away when he met their eyes.

Something was happening.

Alden's jaw tensed as he walked with focus, already debating questions in his mind. The first course of action was to check on the council chambers, but something on the peripheral caught his attention. At the end of a little-used corridor, figures popped in and out of a doorway—the doorway leading into the old messaging center.

Seriously? He frowned. The messaging center had been pretty much abandoned for years. Messages were now turned into grand halls, where everything happens in transparency and under the council's watch. No good explanation in any range of need justified its use.

Unless someone had given orders.

Alden hastened toward the heavy thuds of the steel echoes pretty much too close ahead of him. However he stopped just inside the door because it wasn't the sight he was expecting.

The place had buzzed with messengers in deep-blue robs flying between a couple of long wooden tables, dripped sealing wax on parchment, and morphing a sharp noise of scratching from countless quills. Piles have neatly stacked high by urgency; runners dashed in and out bundling their loot.

And in the middle of it all stood Elara.

She was wrapped in deep emerald, with the color feeling even more in stark contrast with the golden candlelight and the chilly steel in her expression. Her usually neatly braided hair was hanging loose over her shoulders-in keeping with an ethereal air, she stood among the turbulence as her eyes swiftly flew over letters and ran through letters with deliberate speed.

These were not incoming messages.

They were outgoing.

Alden's stomach contorted. He stepped forward. "Elara."

She didn't look up.

"Elara," this time spoken more sharply.

Finally, her gaze shifted upward, her expression an unreadable green. "Alden," she said smoothly, rolling up a scroll and passing it to a waiting messenger. "You're up early."

Alden put aside politeness. "What is the meaning of this?"

Elara tilted her head slightly, then turned back to the letters. "You know," she murmured as if to herself, "there are fifty kingdoms still to be conquered." She paused, then made a correction. "Fifty kingdoms out there."

Alden stiffened. "And what does that have to do with us?"

Elara's lips curled faintly. "Everything," she said simply as she picked up another letter. "I'm sending invitations. Grand ones."

He stood taller now, lowering his voice. "Invitations?"

"Yes." She waved the parchment in her hand, still warm from the wax seal. "I am inviting them all to a feast."

Alden's fists curled into his palms. "And yet you have thought it unnecessary to discuss it with me first?"

Elara exhaled softly, as though his question amused her, and turned round to face him wholly. Her pose was proud yet unyielding. "I am queen," she said evenly. "I will do as I please."

Alden's jaws clenched. "You speak as if my voice matters no longer."

Her eyes sparkled. "If you have a problem with it," she said lightly, brushing past him, "maybe you should step down from the throne."

Alden's chest tightened at her words, but he kept his voice steady. "And if I refuse ?"

She cast a glance over her shoulder. "Then I guess you should just keep up."

Alden drew a sharp breath as the weight of her words settled like an anvil on his chest. He turned to the table before him, his gaze now raking across the sealed letters. Curiosity, twinged with apprehension, pushed him forward. He reached for one, then another.

The first was destined to the rulers of the Northern Isles.

The second, to the desert clans beyond the eastern borders.

The third—

His pulse quickened.

Every one bore that singleness of purpose.

"Bring your most powerful mage alongside."

He had tightened his hold on the parchment.

He turned to Elara. "This is more than a feast."

She didn't deny it. "You are right," she said as she handed another letter to a messenger.

Alden moved an inch closer, leaning down. "You are calling every mage from across the kingdoms."

Elara finally caught his eye, a sharp intensity in hers. "Indeed."

His mind raced. "Why?"

She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice so only he could hear. “Because power should not remain scattered. It should be gathered.”

Alden felt a chill run down his spine. “Gathered… for what?”

A slow smile tugged at her lips. “You’ll see soon enough.”

He clenched his fists. “Elara, if you are planning something dangerous—”

Her hand brushed against his arm as she passed him. “Dangerous?” she echoed. “No, Alden. Necessary.”

He turned, watching as she disappeared into the hallway, her emerald gown trailing behind her like a whisper of something inevitable.

Alden looked back at the letters.

Elara was moving pieces across the board.

And he had no idea what her endgame was.