Chapter 79 SAVING A QUEEN
"What?"
But there was silence.
“If you are lying...”
“I have no reason to,” Celine replied. “What more can you take from me if I do?”
Adrian studied her face. Without jewels and silk, she looked smaller, but her eyes remained sharp and calculating.
“You poisoned Athalia,” he said. “Why?”
Celine did not flinch. “You already know why.”
“Say it.”
“She was changing you,” Celine said. “Weakening you. You became careless.”
Adrian laughed once, bitter. “Carelessness by loving my wife?”
“By trusting the wrong people,” Celine countered. “You think Selene serves you? Or Athalia?”
Adrian’s silence was answer enough.
Celine leaned forward. “Selene serves herself. She always has.”
“She saved Athalia’s life,” Adrian said.
“So she told you,” Celine said calmly. “Tell me, did Athalia ever grow stronger after Selene began her treatments?”
Adrian’s jaw tightened. “She was ill.”
“Yes,” Celine agreed. “Ill because someone kept feeding her poison in small doses.”
Adrian’s gaze snapped to her. “You admitted you did.”
“I admitted to accelerating it,” Celine said. “Not starting it.”
The torch flickered.
“You’re lying,” Adrian said.
Celine tilted her head. “Ask yourself why Selene insisted Athalia be isolated. Why she alone can enter the tower. Why the runes respond to her voice.”
Adrian felt a chill crawl up his spine.
“It seems you've been investigating. But what does she want from doing all you claim?” he demanded.
Celine’s smile faded. “Power I guess. But I'm not sure."
"Maybe you're child.” she said after a realization.
Adrian stepped closer. “My child? You must be kidding.”
Celine looked at him steadily. “What if she never intended the child to live.”
The words struck like a blow“You’re trying to shift blame,” Adrian said, though his voice lacked conviction.
“I am telling you the possible truth too late,” Celine replied. “You can hate me for my methods, but I was trying to protect the crown.”
“By murdering my wife? It looked like you wanted to be queen badly.” Adrian roared.
Celine stood. “I only want to be queen by stopping anyone else apart from the king from controlling it.”
Silence fell heavy between them.
Adrian turned away, his mind racing. Every instinct urged him to dismiss her words. To label them manipulation but doubt had already taken root.
“If Selene is innocent,” Celine continued softly, “then confronting her changes nothing. If she is not… then every moment you wait might costs you something.”
Adrian faced her again. “Why tell me what you are unsure of now?”
“Because I am already ruined,” Celine said simply. “And if what I say is true, the people will only remember your ruin, not mine.”
Adrian left without another word.
He climbed the stairs two at a time, heart pounding. The palace seemed altered, corridors longer, and shadows deeper. He barely acknowledged the servants who bowed as he passed.
The tower loomed ahead.
As he approached, the air grew heavier, charged. The runes along the door flared brighter at his presence.
“Open,” Adrian commanded.
Nothing happened.
He raised his hand, hesitating only a moment before pressing it to the stone.
Pain shot through him, fierce and immediate. He yanked his hand back with a sharp curse.
It was filled with magic.
“Selene!” he called. “Open this door!”
The silence stretched.
He ordered the guards to break it down.
The guards rammed their shoulders against the stone again and again, boots scraping, armor clanging in sharp bursts that echoed through the narrow stairwell. Adrian stood behind them, one hand pressed flat against the wall, feeling the vibration travel through the stone and into his bones. Each impact sent dust raining from the ceiling. The runes Selene had woven across the door flared brighter with every strike, lines of light twisting and recoiling like living veins.
“Again,” Adrian said.
The captain barked an order. Four guards braced together and drove forward.
The door cracked.
Light spilled through the fracture, not torchlight, not sunlight, but something too clean, and too white, as if the air itself had split open. The runes shrieked, a sound like metal pulled too thin, and then shattered.
Then the door collapsed inwardly.
The guards stumbled back, shielding their eyes. The light rushed out in a blinding wave, swallowing the stairwell, the walls, and the air. Adrian raised his arm too late. For a moment, there was nothing but brilliance, a pressure behind his eyes that made the world dissolve.
Then the light vanished.
Silence followed, sudden and wrong.
Adrian lowered his arm.
They were not in the tower.
Stone walls were gone. The narrow chamber they had seen dissolved into open air. Before them stretched a barren slope of pale grass bending in a wind that had not existed moments earlier. The sky hung low and grey, clouds dragging across it like torn cloth with no walls, no runes and no door.
One of the guards whispered a prayer.
Another turned in a slow circle, his face pale beneath his helmet. “This… this impossible.”
Adrian took a step forward. His boot sank slightly into damp earth. He bent, scooped a handful of soil, let it crumble through his fingers. It felt real, cold and smelt faintly of rain.
“An illusion,” someone said. “A projection.”
Adrian shook his head. “No.”
He had seen illusions before in court tricks, defensive glamours, and spells meant to confuse the eye. They shimmered and they slipped when touched. They never held weight, never held smell, and never held wind but this place did.
“It’s not just illusion,” Adrian said slowly. “It’s displacement.”
The captain frowned. “You mean we were never at the tower?”
Adrian looked back. The stairwell and the palace walls were gone. Behind them lay only a narrow dirt path winding between low, unfamiliar hills, as if it had always been there.
“We were guided,” Adrian said. “probably led.”
A murmur passed through the guards.
“By magic,” one said.
“By who?” another added.
Adrian closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, something inside him had settled into a hard, unyielding shape. Rage still burned, but beneath it lay something colder: clarity.
“Whosoever did this didn’t just hide the tower,” he said. “They hid us from it.”
They searched the area until dusk bled into night. They combed the hills, followed the path until it dissolved into marshland, and called out Athalia’s name until their voices cracked. Nothing answered them except the wind and the distant cry of unseen birds.
When they finally returned to the palace hours later, muddied and shaken, the halls felt altered. Too open and exposed.
Adrian dismissed the guards and retreated to his chambers. He did not light the fire. He stood in the dark, staring at the place where Athalia’s chair still sat by the window. A shawl lay draped over it, forgotten. He lifted it slowly, fingers tightening in the fabric.
"Could selene really have lied about the tower and about the magic.?"
She had cured fevers others failed to understand. She had saved noble children from wasting sickness. She had earned trust the slow way, through results.
Adrian had believed in her because he wanted to and because Athalia had trusted her.
Now, the image shattered.