Mark of Betrayal (77 page)

“
Jason?”

“
Ara?” he said. “Just come back to us.”

“
No. I see now,” I said, looking at David. “I can never tell him.”

“
Ara, you don't need to—”

“
What’s she saying?” David cut in.

“
Ara?” Jason reached out, as if he could grab me. “Please.”

“
No,” I said softly, touching David's face; he closed his eyes, feeling me there. “Tell him I love him. Tell him I always will, but I just…I can't be in this life anymore, Jase. Too much has been broken.”

“
Ara.” He stepped closer. “Damn it. Please?”

I looked over at the open, waving hands of the curtains across my balcony door, greeting me like arms of the soul-taker, and felt peace, somewhere out there, away from the sudden panic of everyone in the room.

“
Uncle Arthur?” Jase said, his quivering voice panicked. “She’s fading. Do something.”

I stepped away from Arthur. “Tell David goodbye for me.”

“
Ara, no!” Jase reached out, but time froze around us, leaving me free to follow the desires in my heart. I kissed my David on the head and stood by the ghostly arms of the soul-taker, looking back once more as time sped up again and darkness took them all away.

* * *

“
It’s not the first time she’s done it,” Jason said quietly.

“
I don't know that she’s even aware she can,” Arthur added.

“
She’s not. And it stays that way,” Mike said.

“
Talent like that could be dangerous if she’s left in the dark about it. I'm telling her,” David said, and my eyes flew open.

“
David?”

“
Ara?” He rose up from a chair beside my bed.

“
David? What are you doing here?” I tried to sit up, but he pinned me down by my chest.

“
I found you.”

“
Found me? I was lost?”

He looked off to the side of the room.

“
You had an accident,” Arthur said, appearing in my peripheral.

I rubbed my head. “What kind of accident?”

“
You don't remember?” Jason popped up on the other side of my bed and took my hand.

“
Um.” I looked at David then at Jason, trying to find any memory, but everything was just white—even what I had for breakfast. “No. Did I get hurt?”

“
Yes.” Arthur stood at the foot of my bed. “We suspect you fell from the lighthouse.”

“
What?” I sat up. “What was I doing on the lighthouse?”

“
We don't know.” Jason rearranged the pillows behind me, smoothing my hair down after. “We all thought you were safe in bed, until David came in screaming.”

Hot, silent air stopped my words like a golf ball in my mouth. “I don't remember going out there.”

“
Perhaps—” Arthur looked down at me, “—it was a case of
noctambulism.”

“
Huh?”

“
Sleepwalking.” David smiled.

I laughed a little. “Oh. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“
Yeah, well, because of your little brush with death, the whole kingdom knows David’s alive,” Mike said from across the room.

“
What?”

David looked at me, shaking his head. “I brought you back to the manor and came straight through the Great Hall.”

“
Yeah—” Jason reached over me and punched David softly. “You should’ve seen the look on their faces when
I
walked up to see what all the yelling was about.”

David rubbed his brow. “I just wasn't thinking.”

“
It’s in the past, son.” Arthur touched his shoulder then looked at me. “Everything has been smoothed over.”

“
What did you tell the people—about where you’ve been?”

“
The truth. We told them we were trying to conceive a child that could kill Drake—that we’d gone to great lengths to keep my existence a secret.”

“
Were they okay with that?”

David's face warmed with his smile. “They're rejoicing.”

“
So, are you home now, David?” I asked. “Since everyone knows about you?”

“
For a few days, yes. We just got word that Drake received our letter, offering war, and fled the country.”

“
What! Why?”

“
We don't know. All we know is that he packed up his entire army and just left.”

“
Where did he go?”

“
Paris.”

I frowned. “Do you think he's scared?”

Everyone laughed.

“
No,” Mike said. “He’s up to something.”

“
But, at least, for now, he's not at Elysium,” David said. “I plan to go there in a few weeks and free the prisoners.”

“
Free Pepper?”

He cleared his throat and nodded.

“
Can I come?”

“
No.”

“
Why?”

“
Because you don't need to be there.”

I folded my arms and huffed.

“
Oh, how I've missed this.” David motioned to my tantrum-posture, smiling back at Arthur.

“
Yes, she can be quite endearing at times, can't she?” he said rhetorically and wandered over to sit on a chair by the balcony door.

“
So, do we crown you king, now?” I asked David.

He nodded. “As soon as you're well.”

I smiled. “When you get back from Elysium then.”

“
No, we’ll do it before I go.”

Jason’s head slowly turned to look at Arthur then, his eyes changing. Whatever thought Arthur just had, Jason was clueless to it before. He sat back, his head dropping, and stared at the floor.

“
King David?” Morgaine popped her head in the door.

“
Morgaine,” David said in a very authoritative, kingly voice.

“
Walter asked that I—” She stopped dead and stared at me. “She’s awake.”

“
Yes.” David smiled at my hand. “What did Walt want?”

“
Um,” she stammered, pushing past Jason, and sat on the bed, taking my hand.

“
Morg?” David insisted.

“
He, uh…oh, Amara!” Her arms stretched out and she wrapped them around my neck; I grimaced at David from behind her hair, brushing it away from my mouth. “I’ve been so worried about you, Your Majesty.”

“
I'm okay.” I patted her shoulder.

She sat back, wiping her cheeks. “You were just so broken. I didn’t really know what to do. I was so scared you weren’t going to—”

“
Morg?” David said. “Message from Walt.”

“
Oh, um.” She stood up again, her eyes averted, back straight. “Sorry, Your Majesty. Walt asked if I could let you know that he’s calling the House meeting early today because he’s leaving for the weekend.”

“
Right.” David nodded. “What time is the meeting?”

“
Um.” She shuffled her feet and looked at me. “I'm sorry, we didn't know our queen was awake.”

“
Morg. What time?”

“
It’s now.”

David stood and kissed my hand. “I’ll be back.”

I nodded.

“
One of you stay with her while I'm gone, please?” He looked at Jason and his uncle.

“
I will.” Arthur sat beside me, taking my hand up gently in his.

“
Thank you, Uncle.” David gave a slight nod and turned on his heel, closing the bedroom door behind himself, Mike and Morgaine.

“
Did he just bow to you?” I looked at Arthur.

“
Yes.” Arthur chuckled. “Force of habit.”

“
Wow. I don't think I've ever seen David bow.”

Jason laughed. “He probably always will.”

“
So, what was up with Morgaine?” I tried not to laugh. “She looked like she was afraid of getting a lashing from David or something.”

“
He commands a certain amount of respect,” Arthur said. “As king, that has merely magnified.”

“
So, he’s slipping into his new role well then?”

“
Perfectly.” Arthur nodded once.

“
It’s so good to have him back.” I smiled over at my door, catching a strange shift in Jason’s smile as I looked back. “Jase?”

“
Mm?” He looked up from the ground.

“
You okay?”

He studied his hand, running the tip of his thumb over his finger, then stood up. “Yeah. I'm just hungry. I’ll be back in a while.”

“
Oh, okay.” I angled my cheek to his lips as he dropped a gentle kiss there.

“
Take care, okay, Ara.”

“
Okay. I’ll see you in a bit.”

He nodded and backed away, disappearing out my bedroom door.

“
The incredible shrinking bedside vigil,” I said, smiling at Arthur.

“
It’s been that way for days. Poor David has not had a moment alone with you.”

“
Really?”

“
Yes.” He patted my hand. “Your people love you. We’ve been very frightened for you these past days.”

“
Why?”

He sighed, looking at my quilt. “Do you truly have no recollection of the events of that night?”

I shook my head.

“
Do you remember the training hall?”

I looked into my thoughts again and tensed all over. “Did we…?”

“
No.”

“
What happened, then? I remember you leaving the room but…how did I get to the lighthouse?”

He ran a firm hand down his mouth, looking back at me with tears in his eyes. “Amara, tell me honestly, my dear…”

“
Arthur?” I touched my hand to his knee. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

His hand shook. “Did you jump, because of what I tried to make you do?”

“
Oh, God, Arthur, I really don't think so. Surely I’d remember something like that.”

“
Yes, but I'm not so sure you would tell me if that were the case.”

My eyes travelled slowly away from his face to the sitting room across from my bed. I squinted against the pain in my head, searching for something—any little thought that might give me a clue about what happened that night. But it was almost as if the event were a painting I’d heard about but never seen, because I couldn't even muster the slightest image in my mind. “I'm very anti-suicide, Arthur. There’s no way I would’ve jumped. I'm just not that selfish. Think about what it’d do to David—to my people, to my Mum and Dad if they lost me,” I said, taking his hand. “There’s no way I jumped.”

He nodded, his fingers gradually becoming tighter on mine. “I would not forgive myself if you had, Amara.”

“
I don't think I did.” I looked out to my balcony where a man was standing guard, and knew only too well that one of my knights would be right outside my door, too. I wondered if that meant I’d lost the argument about having no guards. “Didn't any of the Guard see me that night—at least walking toward the lighthouse?”

“
Perhaps. However, all we’ve concluded so far is that you came back to your room before you went down there.”

“
How do you know that?”

“
You were wearing a nightdress when David found you—not that there was much left of it.”

That painted a grisly picture in my head. “Didn't anyone report having seen me?”

“
No. Not since dinner that night. And the men in the Guard who line the halls are not permitted to divulge, even if they had seen you.”

“
Why?”

“
They swear a vow of secrecy, which protects you from infiltrators. Often, a simple thing like the whereabouts of the queen or the company she keeps can be enough to tear a monarchy down or see a traitor get the upper hand.” He eyed me for a few seconds. “I do find it awfully suspicious that you have no memory of anything after I left you that night, though.”

I rubbed my head. “Arthur. I fell down, like, four hundred feet, onto jagged rocks. I bet my brain was the first thing to die.”

“
Yes.” His gaze became shadowed then, his thumb brushing my right brow. “Your skull was caved in on one side.”

I touched my head, my eyes wide. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “David said you were down there for quite some time; he was, unfortunately, sitting on the lighthouse when he saw something strange against the rocks, but saw no need to investigate until a blue flash sparked from it.”

“
Well, what was he doing up on the lighthouse?”

“
Waiting for the manor to stir. He was here to see you—planned to tell you the truth about everything—ask for your help.”

“
With what?”

“
Getting the dagger.”

I grinned. “I’d never do that.”

“
For him, I believe you would.” He nodded once.

“
Not to send him to his death.”

“
Hm.” He nodded again. “Anyhow, it matters none, my dear. The issue has been resolved.”

“
How?”

“
I offered him the dagger.”

“
What?” I sat up.