“Why? Why trick them all into competing for the throne? Why kill so many of them? For revenge?”
Nicolas scoffed and shook his head, as if disappointed with her reasoning. “If I just wanted revenge, I would have killed my father and Reynauld from the beginning and been done with it. No one knew I was alive. I wanted to make a mess of things on the way to reclaiming my throne. So I gave my father a taste of his own medicine—or poison, rather—so he could watch his kingdom crumble but be helpless to stop it. And with the royal family tearing itself apart from the inside out, I would be the perfect, obvious solution to who should inherit the throne.”
Of course. He wanted his crown.
“So King Mervyn didn’t really fall ill?” Jade asked, her mouth hanging open. She’d wondered about it before, but she’d thought Grannam had been the perpetrator. “Youpoisoned him?”
“And had to keep him under just enough of the toxin to paralyze him without killing him.” Nicolas answered so calmly, so complacently, that it was hard to believe he was confessing to poisoning his own father. “I had to entrust someone on the inside to continue dosing him.”
Jade’s eyes widened in alarm. Someone in the castle was working for Nicolas? He hadn’t been in the castle as a private guard to the king, as he’d claimed, but he still had someone helping him.
“Entrusted, or influenced with your magic?”
“I have the support and trust of someone who appreciated me and my magic even as a child, if you must know. Which also made it easier to get letters to the members of the royal family.”
Jade could barely keep up. He was revealing so much...too much. “So you sent the letters convincing all those royals and nobles to vie for the throne only so they would erupt into chaos and you would step in as the hero?”
He shrugged. “More or less. But some of those nobles threw their names in of their own accord. I guess they thought they would take their shot at it too.”
“And why did you kill them? For more chaos?”
“To frame people.” His broad form appeared to grow in the flickering candlelight as he came closer to her again. “To have them all point fingers at each other, which they did. I planted false information sometimes as well, to really throw them off my scent.”
A light flicked on in Jade’s mind. “Like the letter from Grannam in Arthur’s study. That was you.”
He nodded slowly, the corner of his lip twitching.
“Why have me bring it back to you? Why make me think you believed the killer was Lord Grannam, or even Theo?”
Nicolas clasped his hands behind his back and turned to pace. The path to the door was clear. Theo was undoubtedly on the other side by now. But Jade couldn’t leave. Partially because she needed every piece of information he was telling her, and partially because, for whatever reason, she didn’t want to.
“For one, to challenge you. I was curious how long it would take you to come to the correct conclusion, even with distractions. Remember, you came to me with the assumption that Grannam Venemer was the architect of the murders, and I used that to my advantage.” His eyes shone with malice, though a slight grin stretched across his face. “That, and I don’t like Redman.”
Jade ignored the comment about Theo. “But you’re ready for me to learn this now.”
He stopped pacing and turned to face her, tilting his chin up in admiration. “I wanted to see how long it would take for you to figure it out on your own.”
Jade shifted her weight on her feet. Hewantedher to figure it out? He’d given all of this up too willingly. He’d handed her everything she needed to report to both Commander Matherson and Grand General Devereaux and to have Nicolas taken into custody.
But she didn’t have all the answers she wanted. Not yet.
“Why Alanna?” Jade tried to keep her voice from cracking. “She wasn’t involved.”
A muscle feathered in Nicolas’s jaw. “She’d discovered I was alive. That I was behind this. She was sure to tell people. But that wasn’t the problem. Everyone will know I’m alive soon enough.” He let out a heavy sigh as though releasing a weight that had been plaguing him. “She and her sister knew my secret. They knew I was—Iama sorcerer.” His gaze turned intense, and he raised a hand to point a finger vaguely in Jade’s direction. “Andthatis not something that anyone can find out. It led to an attempted murder before. It will again.
“Too many of them were getting too close. Alanna. Arthur. Aubergine.” Nicolas swallowed hard. “I couldn’t let any of them live once they’d discovered the truth.”
Arabella. She was on his list, then. Her cakes had likely been poisoned too, if Jade had to guess.And Reynauld. At least the two remaining Fellsrin heirs were clearly Nicolas’s targets. And with the two of them out of the way, he would have no one to oppose him when he revealed himself to claim his throne.
The mention of Count Aubergine brought Jade’s mind back to that night when she’d first encountered the assassin, not realizing he was also her informant. She remembered the fire that had been burning in the fireplaceof Aubergine’s library, unusual for the sweltering night. A book had been thrown inside, and Jade had only caught the name of the dead prince before it turned to ash. Nicolas had been covering his tracks, removing any evidence out there to prove he was a sorcerer.
“But it’s almost over now,” he said, returning to Jade and breaking her from her thoughts. His countenance once again softened, and it made Jade uneasy to see his demeanor change so rapidly. But as soon as her nerves went on edge, they were settled again.
“Very little stands between me and my throne. I shouldn’t have to fight for it, but here I am.” He took one of Jade’s hands in his own, his eyes piercing deep into her soul. “But once I take my rightful place, I’ll still be missing one thing.”
Jade couldn’t pull her gaze away from him. “What one thing?”
Nicolas descended to a knee as his hand dipped into a pocket, then he raised an ornate gold and ruby ring in the space between them. He searched Jade’s face with his eyes as he answered her in two words. “My queen.”
