‘Believe me, I wanted to.When I realised what he was doing I wanted nothing more than to lock him in a room until he starved to death, just as he did to my people.’He pressed his fingers together.‘But the valley has been on the cusp of revolution ever since I returned, and Juri has been the only thing keeping everyone in line.He hates me, obviously, but we both know if he overthrew me Vienna would retaliate in kind, and he’d lose his power too.If I killed him, they would revolt, and I would have to kill them anyway.Or else flee the valley and let the Emperor send an army in.Keeping Juri alive was the only thing I could do to keepthemalive.’
‘But you found a way to punish him.’I realised I was digging my nails into my palm.‘That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?Thiswas what you were punishing him for.’
‘Clara …’ He reached for me.
‘Please just answer my question,’ I begged, hating the note of desperation that had seeped into my voice.It was the only conclusion I could draw.A crime so terrible that Father would rather sell his only daughter to her mother’s killer than let the truth emerge.
Raleigh pulled away.He let out one drawn-out sigh, delaying the inevitable truth.‘Yes,’ he breathed.‘You were obviously the thing he cared about most, and I knew that removing you from the picture was the one punishment that might affect him without any more death.’He sighed again.‘And I needed a bride.’
The reality was harsher than I was prepared for.To think that the few drops of joy I’d found in this castle had fallen from the blood my father spilt.Nothing had changed.And yet everything had.
‘I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t murder me like my mother,’ I said bitterly.
Raleigh reeled back.‘Do you still think that?’He looked so genuinely horrified that I doubted my own words.‘Have you believed all this time that I murdered her?’
I couldn’t look at him.
‘I never kill anyone who isn’t ready to die.Youknowthat.’
I never would have let her choose to die …
I thought back to the weeks leading up to Mother’s death.Her long melancholic days in bed.The days she only rose when I begged her to.She still always smiled for me.‘Mother never would have abandoned me like that.’
‘There’s a difference between wanting to die and being ready to.’
‘So, you’ll kill anyone struck with a bout of melancholy?’
‘She wasdying, Clara.Your father explained this to you.’Raleigh studied my expression, his frustration easing.‘Didn’t he?’
‘He explained enough,’ I said.
‘Juri,’ Raleigh hissed, fingers curling as though he was imagining my father’s throat between them.He took a deep breath, smoothing his frustration before starting again.‘We agreed he would explain this when you turned sixteen.Heagreed.Your mother chose to have her pain eased.There was a growth in her lungs that was killing her before I returned to the valley.I could sense it on her.Death … lingers.I made her the same offer I make everyone, to stop the pain before it can worsen.She knew she’d die either way.Your father agreed too.’
The world narrowed, then tilted.I felt unbalanced, strangely light.Mother wasn’t murdered.Raleigh didn’t murder Mother.Father lied.About Mother.About Orlfen.About the famine.
Then what of Raleigh’s letter?The one Father had showed me years ago, found beside my mother’s body.But as I opened my mouth to ask, I remembered I’d already confronted him about it months ago.He acted like he’d forgotten, and I’d thought him a liar.Or if it was the truth, that the murder of my mother and threat to my father meant so little he hadn’t thought it worth remembering.What if he hadn’t forgotten at all?
Father lied about everything else, why not that too?Without that letter, we would have assumed Mother had simply died of a mysterious illness.Not one soul in Orlfen would have connected her to the returned prince.Perhaps we would have eventually, years later, when more had bled to death, but not after just one victim.Raleigh could have kept his nature a secret.He could have really been our ruler.
Rebuild the dam– that was all the letter said.Three words were so easy to forge.So easy to repeat in whispers.All Father had to do was show a certain housekeeper prone to gossip, and three words could spread faster and more effectively than if he’d taken to the streets raving of vampires.And Father forbidding the rumours he spread only gave them legitimacy.The prince returned, but Father never lost the power he’d worked for.No matter what Raleigh did, from that day on everyone in the Orlfen Valley knew he was evil.
‘I don’t expect you to forgive me,’ Raleigh said, breaking me from my thoughts.‘You have every reason to hate me.I just want you to know the truth.’
‘I …’ My mouth felt dry.All of this was too much to process in one day.Everything I’d thought I knew about Father, everything I’d built my life around, all of it was a lie.And through all the horror, the spiralling disorientation that surrounded me, the one glimmer of light that held me afloat was that Mother never suffered.
Forgive him.Those had been her last words.I’d always thought she meant Father, but she couldn’t have known what was to come.
She meant Raleigh.
The room began to blur.‘I’m sorry,’ I said to him.‘I need time to think.’
He didn’t stop me as I moved to the door, but I hesitated anyway.I couldn’t leave it like this, not when he had left himself so vulnerable.
‘Raleigh,’ I said, hand hovering on the doorknob.‘I …’ How could I convey to him how much emotion was stewing within?The pain, the relief, the strange buzzing in my chest that I still didn’t want to acknowledge.Seeing Raleigh so defeated made me want to throw my arms around him and hold him tight until his arrogance returned.Half a year ago I would have given anything for the sight of him clutching his arms to his chest, face lowered dejectedly.Now I couldn’t stand it.
‘I don’t hate you,’ I said.
And before I could see his response I slipped through the door, leaving us both to wonder what exactly that meant.
