The Devastation (Unexpected Circumstances #7)(25)

Well…and sometimes when I held him and rocked him slowly back and forth.

Ida and Sunniva gathered up many of the gifts and began to prepare for our short journey back to Silverhelm. We had been in Sterling a week and needed to return to our own castle.

“I have no idea what made you think bringing all these things here just to take them back home again was a good idea.”

“They are gifts from your subjects, Branford,” my adoptive mother said, chastising me. “Cherish them. I do not think I need to tell you why.”

I nodded, unable to argue with her words. Were it not for my people’s love of their queen, my situation would be drastically different. I could not even allow myself to consider exactly how.

“Is everything else ready to go?” Alexandra asked as she came out of the bedroom. Prince Branford let out one half-hearted cry before he gave up and snuggled into the crook of his mother’s arm.

“I believe that is it,” Sunniva said. “Ida and Parnell have already left.”

“Are they going back to Sawyer?” Alexandra asked.

“No, they will return to Silverhelm first,” I said.

“Good. I did not get the chance to thank Ida for all her help. I would not have managed through these first few days of motherhood without her and you too, Sunniva.”

Sunniva laughed and wrapped her arms around Alexandra’s shoulders, hugging her tightly.

“I am sure you would have survived,” Sunniva said, “but I am happy I could help.”

The women embraced, and Sunniva left in her own carriage with Greysen and Edith. Alexandra carried Prince Branford in her arms and followed me as I took one last look around my parents’ home.

“I wish I knew why they did this,” I said for the tenth time in the past day. No one who lived seemed to have any idea what Edgar sought or why he would tear apart the entire tower. It was where the four traitors lived when I was a child, but what could Edgar gain by tearing their quarters apart?

Perhaps we would never know.

“Will you hold him?” Alexandra said as she held our son out to me.

I took him from her as she bent down to remove a bit of rubble stuck in her shoe. She held her hands out to take him back, but I turned away, holding him against my cheek and inhaling slowly. The scent of him was calming, and I found having him in our rooms helped me sleep these past few days. Alexandra looked at me sideways and smashed her lips together to keep from laughing at me. I feigned anger and walked a little ways toward the castle wall and the debris that was once the tower.

“Between you, his aunt, and his grandmother,” I told her, “I have barely touched him since yesterday.”

Alexandra could not argue but stood at my side and looked over the piles of broken furniture, stone, and wood strewn across the ground. I was about to relinquish little Branford when I saw Alexandra’s eyes narrow just before she took several quick steps forward and bent down.

When she stood again, her hand held an intricately carved bowl.

“Look at this!” she called out as she turned it around in her hands. “Is it familiar to you?”

“It does look like the one you brought with you when you came to Silverhelm,” I said. “The way all the wood pieces fit together is amazing.”

“I wonder if this one is like the one I have,” she said softly as she turned the bowl upside down. Pushing with her thumb, she slid one of the short rectangular pieces on the bottom of the bowl to one side, revealing a hole.

“What is this?” I asked.

“I found it by accident,” she said. “I dropped my bowl, and a piece fell out. I thought it was broken, but when I put the piece back, I realized it had been made that way purposely.”

She tilted the bowl to the side, and we both heard and saw the movement of something inside the hole at the bottom.

“Oh!” Alexandra suddenly exclaimed. “There is something inside of this one!”

She reached her slender fingers inside the small cavity and pulled out a piece of parchment. It was old and crumpled, but the red seal in wax was still obviously the seal of Hadebrand. I held out my hand and Alexandra gave the item to me.

VR—

Duke Branford has refused the betrothal. It is time to move against them. Once you have disposed of them both, his heir can be raised here. The forests around the castle will fall into my hands; it will just take a little longer to get the reward you four have earned.

-KE

Despite the cryptic qualities of the brief note, it was still clear to me. The note was to Yagmur, one of the men who had mentored and raised me, and it had come from King Edgar. Even with the broken seal, this was enough evidence to have been brought before a council of royals. This would have been enough to have even a king tried for his actions.

And that is when I knew for what Edgar had searched.





Chapter 5—Peacefully Exist


The next few days flew by in comparison to the last few. My family was safe, and those who had threatened us were practically eliminated. I would deal with the two remaining perpetrators in this plot against me and my family—a plot that had apparently gone on for decades—when that time came to pass. Though the treachery was still on my mind, it did not consume me as it once had. Between my wife and my child, I was at peace for the first time since my own childhood.

The way Alexandra took to motherhood astonished me. It was as if she was simply born for the role. Whereas I felt awkward those first few days with my newborn son, she held him, cooed at him, and calmed him almost instantly. I strived to soothe him as well as she did, but I lacked one primary advantage when it came to ceasing Prince Branford’s cries—milk.