Chapter 20 THE QUEENS MAN
Rylan stumbled through a side passage, blood trailing behind him.
He couldn’t stay, not with the guards hunting him. He had to flee and so he did.
He ran until the palace disappeared behind him. He climbed a wall he had put a rope to earlier on and escaped but the guilt followed.
And now, back in his dim chamber, Rylan stared at the queen’s letter with his wound still bandaged and his conscience raw.
Only now did he understood:
There was someone else pulling the cards and Prince Eric had been a target. The person had planned every detail. Rylan whispered into the empty room:
“I should have warned the queen. I should have protected the king and the prince.”
But regret didn’t rewrite history.
Outside, the bells rang and it was the sign that the investigation and the council members were gathering again.
Rylan rose slowly towards his window. A dove came towards him with a paper tied to leg.
You must stay out of sight. The investigation is intense. I shall recall you.
It was from the queen and he knew what he needed to do.
Rylan picked up his cloak, braced his injured side, and stepped into the cold air away from the palace, toward the city gate with a truth he could only carry alone.
The queen’s chamber was quiet especially for a night when the palace had barely recovered from the chaos of Prince Eric’s attempted attack on the king. Outside her balcony, the moon shone on the courtyard in pale blue, yet Queen Elizabeth sat unmoving beneath the soft glow of her lantern.
Her hands rested upon the carved armrests of her chair, but her fingers tapped the wood restlessly.
She hated silence for it forced her to think.
And tonight, thinking was dangerous.
The queen’s private chamber was enormous, draped in soft crimson curtains, perfumed with sandalwood and illuminated by a dozen small oil lamps. But beneath the softness lay tension that was heavy and unseen, like a storm that refused to break.
Queen Elizabeth leaned forward, elbows on her knees, as she whispered into the empty room,
“Who was the second conspirator?”
Her voice trembled only slightly but just enough to betray her unease.
She had planned everything meticulously, or so she believed.
The paralysis of Eric as a temporary incapacitation that would place Adrian nearer the throne.
Rylan’s involvement was carefully chosen and quietly pressured.
The instructions were delivered in secret and letter was sent discreetly by a dove nights earlier.
Yet something had happened she never intended.
A second player had interfered and probably hired who she had not hired. Someone she had not even guessed existed. Probably a ghost in the shadows.
She rubbed her forehead slowly as her eyes narrowed.
“No… who are you?” she whispered to the air. “Who dared step into my plan and frame my son?”
A soft breeze from the balcony rustled the parchment papers on her table. It was filled with maps, intelligence reports, old letters, and the ripped remnants of Rylan’s first message.
Her mind wandered back to him.
Rylan.
A loyal guard who was quiet and obedient.
He was unremarkable enough to be invisible until she needed him.
She remembered their meeting vividly. It replayed over and over in her head like a broken memory shard.
The queen had chosen the secluded garden behind the eastern wall, where the rose vines grew high and the guards rarely patrolled. Only two lanterns burned there, flickering against the leaves.
Rylan stood waiting, posture firm, expression neutral. When she approached, he dropped to one knee.
“Your Majesty.”
“Stand,” she commanded. Her voice held authority, but not cruelty.
He stood.
Queen Elizabeth studied him. “Do you know why I summoned you privately?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“I was told you are a fine healer,” she said. “You fame is quite vast.”
Rylan kept his face expressionless. “Thank you, your majesty.”
“I feel aches and it's been long like my legs could seize walking after a while .”
Rylan hesitated only slightly.
“Your Majesty… this is…”
“A threat to my life. Does that mean I won't walk soon?,” she finished for him.
He blinked. “Your Majesty, I understand. But with a little work, you'll be fine.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” she replied, tone tightening. “The kingdom needs healers like you who will aid the people in securing health and stability for this realm.”
Rylan shifted uneasily, but bowed his head. “Thank you, your majesty. You flatter me.”
Her eyes softened. “I do not wish to flatter you but I'm merely saying the truth.”
He nodded again and left.
They never noticed that a third person had been hiding among the garden shadows.
Lena, the queens handmaid.
A quiet girl who knew how to move too silently.
Queen Elizabeth hadn’t even known she was there that night.
But Lena heard every word. And the other discussion when he revisited the queen after the king’s attack..
And Lena died days later, shot by an “unexpected arrow” from the west tower.
The queen wasn’t certain whether her death was natural or silenced by someone else.
And that bothered her more than anything.
Queen Elizabeth sighed, sitting back in her velvet chair.
“Lena probably died with secrets,” she whispered. “Which means one of two things: she threatened someone… or someone used her death to hide their own plans.”
Her gaze fell upon the wooden perch near the balcony, the one where the palace doves landed.
It was empty now.
After the interrogation, she had tied a letter to the leg of her favorite white dove and sent it through the night air to Rylan.
Her message had been short, yet deliberate.
Leave the city. Stay silent. Wait for my summons and trust no one.
Yet Rylan had not appeared nor responded, but had simply… vanished.
But what troubled her more was that Rylan had not followed her plan completely and had revealed himself by trying to stop Eric.
The queen knew that attack was someone else’s doing. Someone else had sprayed the perfume and had sent the guard who slipped the knife into Eric’s hand. And that person had forced the king’s near-death.
And now the queen found herself unable to untangle the strands.
She rose from her chair and walked to her mirror with a polished silver bordered with gold. Her reflection stared back at her with lips tight and eyes tired.
“A queen should never look uncertain,” she murmured to her reflection. “And yet here I stand… confused.”
She pressed her palm to the glass.
“Who are you?” she asked her unknown enemy softly. “Who walks in the shadows?”