Page 126 of Mortdale

“She’s dead,” I sighed, moving my bishop to take one of his pawns. “Her older sister—a royal guard officer who has been training under my command—has succeeded him. It was voted by the parliament just before we were called here by you.”

Audrey and I had not met by pure coincidence. Immediately after Heath died, I had tracked down as many of Ulric’s bastards as I could find, already aware of Ulric’s plans for me. Audrey was the daughter of a palace maid, one of many of Ulric’s victims. She was a woman twice the man I was. Thrice the man Ulric could have ever been. Not only was she finely educated, but she was a master of war and politics. I’d taught her to fight, to strategise, to keep herself alive. She would be the best queen Mortdale had ever had. And I would be there to see her become just that. As I’d given the parliament my word in exchange for their support in electing Audrey and booting the exarch back to the holy walls to do what he did best—pray to unyielding Saints.

The old human king sat in silence for a long while. “I take it that Ulric had very little say in it.”

“I can stretch a threat a very long fucking way.”

The last gift the cosmic entities had gifted me was those last breaths Ulric had held onto—he’d stayed alive long enough for me to break the news. That a woman would succeed him. A half witch, nonetheless.

“Vampires and their politics will always fascinate me.” With a sigh, he tipped over his king, resigning the game. “There will be no surrender today. My army will kill yours tonight whether that is by force or not. You should understand I am here for vengeance. This will be the last thing I do before I die. It is time I die; I’ve been alone for some time now.”

“What happened to your daughter was—”

“Slaughter. A massacre that’s gone too long unavenged.”

“Not by the hands of vampires. My people had nothing to do with her death. There is no record of her passing through our borders, Ignatius. You know Ulric was lying; I know you’ve always known that.”

He took a long gulp of his liquor and set the glass down with a heavy thud. “I’ve read your letters. I know what you claim.”

I put a document on the table. “We might have no record of her passing though Mortdale, but I did manage to find proof of passage through Greyvale. She was killed almost near your borders, Ignatius. She was nowhere near Mortdale at the time. Ulric lied.”

His harsh eyes dropped from mine to the document on the table. “You’d do this to a dying man. You’d lie to a dying man?”

“I’d do worse things to a dying man. But you’re not dying. The alpha is trying to locate her burial site. If you cooperate with him instead of initiating this useless war, it would happen thrice as fast.”

He shot to his feet, anger boiling beneath his skin as he grabbed me by the collar before immediately pulling back, staring wide-eyed at my chest.

He pointed a shaky finger at Willow’s necklace around my neck. “That…that belonged to my daughter.”

I clutched the white stone in my fist. “It belongs to my wife.”

He shook his head. “That exact stone was passed to my daughter by her late mother. It was a mourning gift.” He reached a shaky hand in my direction. “May I?”

When I didn’t move, he added, “There is an inscription at the back. Sorrow—”

“Is a white dove,” I finished, and his eyes went wide. “The necklace was left to my wife by her human mother.”

“And your wife is—”

“Her name is Willow Rose Duncan. A Meridian witch.”

The old king stumbled a few steps back until he dropped back on his seat, clutching the back of his head. “Impossible. Agnes sent news that Eudoria’s child had died. Killed by vampires along with her brother. She corroborated Ulric's claims. I had no reason not to believe either. She wrote to me that her corpse had been unrecognisable and had buried my granddaughter in Meridian. She let me visit the grave.”

Saints. My eyes widened. Agnes had substantiated Ulric’s lies about vampires being the ones to have killed his daughter? I quickly shook my head, trying to focus on what he’d just told me about my wife. “Agnes’s brother?”

He nodded. “Roderic Briar was married to my Eudoria. The child would have been Agnes’s niece.” His hands and voice shook as he stared at me wide-eyed. “And you’re saying…you’re saying the child who gave you that necklace is alive?” His thin, wrinkled mouth trembled. “Willow, was it not?”

I nodded, still trying to process the fact that Agnes was Willow’s blood relative.

He stood, pacing the tent while tears settled in the corners of his hollow eyes. “It seems there will be no war today, after all.”

He sat on the rock at the edge of the battlefield, watching our armies lay at rest side by side. His shaking fingers rolled over my wife’s whitelock.

A pale tear rolled down his sunburnt face. “It is impossible. Why would she do this? Why wouldn’t she tell me the child is alive?”

“To bring us here. Initiate this war. Why eliminate us herself when we could do it for her? Willow has also figured Agnes was to be blamed for the Madness that has been plaguing my kind for years now. Something else that she’d stirred around to make us blame you for.”

He shook his head. “What is she even planning?”