CRELLA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crella stood, dumbfounded, looking at her husband who lay unconscious on the floor, blood slowly pooling from the broken skin on his head, pieces of a large vase scattered around him on the porcelain tile of their anteroom.

He was no Sir Stormblade, the dashing knight fawned over by all Adeltian girls prior to the war. Yet when held up against the other Rivervalian invaders, when held up against the men—Adeltian or otherwise—who remained alive after the best had been culled in combat, Alther was perhaps the least offensive. Fault him though she may for his timidity, she could hardly have wished in earnest for him to be a more assertive man. And forced to contemplate a life without him, she realized this man did not deserve the death she’d secretly prayed would befall him since they had been married. That he had taken her baseborn daughter, Ethel, as his own and kept her safe from harm should have been reason enough for Crella’s appreciation, an appreciation she had never shown.

Crella knelt at her fallen husband’s side and was relieved to hear his breathing was regular. The bleeding from beneath his hair was just a trickle.

“What were you thinking?” Crella demanded under her breath.

Lank and noble, her son stood before her. Her unyielding nature toward Alther had seen its way even into the heredity of their only offspring, as the young prince was almost her twin in appearance.

“I was thinking of your safety. I—”

“This could be seen as treason,” she interrupted. Things had escalated with such immediacy she had no time to think. Moving to Westport suddenly seemed like it would not have been much trouble at all.

“He was going to kill you,” Stephon replied, much too loud.

Crella knew her son to be hot tempered and defensive of her, but she had never expected him to be witless enough to strike the heir to the throne. She thought she’d raised him with more sense than that.

“Lower your voice.” Crella let her anger be heard in her voice as she rose to face her son. “He was not going to kill me.” Though that may be the story of necessity. “Now what can we do about this?” Crella posed the question to herself. She fought back the worry that was consuming her from the inside. I must be strong for Stephon’s sake.

“Is he dead?” Stephon asked.

“No, his chest still rises and falls with strength.”

“Should we kill him?”

Crella slapped her son across the face for his idiocy, though the blow seemed to illicit more shock in Stephon than discomfort as he recoiled.

“He is your father!” Crella felt as though the world she had constructed had shattered along with the vase that struck her husband. All of the posturing, all of the effort to always look her best and act in a way that would not draw the ire of these Rivervalian invaders, but also not allow them to think that they could do with her as they pleased—all of it was being undone by one action, made by the one she strove most to protect. “I will say that it was a burglar or a jealous woman or some like.” A moment’s reflection revealed she much preferred the former. “We will hide you until this misunderstanding is resolved.”

“Mother, that is foolish.”

It did seem an outlandish story, but less plausible things had happened within the walls of the kingdom, and she could think of no alternative.

“Just do as I say,” she said.

“Cassen trusts me. I will go seek his aid.” Stephon boasted as if she would be impressed that he had made Cassen an ally.

“Absolutely not.” The thought that he would seek Cassen’s assistance over hers nearly drove her to slap him again. “Cassen is the king’s vile pet, and you have just struck the king’s son. Have some sense. Cassen will only use this to his own advantage and to our detriment.”

Crella paced, the hem of her dress catching pieces of the broken vase, making a scratching noise on the tile that threatened to wake Alther. She forced herself to stand still.

“I have friends who bear no love for Alther or his father, Adeltian nobles who are still rich and powerful. I will send you to them for safekeeping.”

Stephon frowned, still not grasping the seriousness of the situation. It seemed he was still thinking only of the punishment that would come from his father when he should have been concerned far more about the king. Lyell would not tolerate the half Adeltian prince striking Alther, no matter the story.

“I do not wish to go live with those I do not know.” Stephon rubbed his brow as if exhausted by this unnecessary exercise.

Crella scowled at him. “How many people do you know in the dungeons? You will be living with them and for much longer if you do not obey me and do so with haste.”

At the mention of the dungeons Stephon’s demeanor changed. His face became more serious.

“Pack some things. It must look as though you had been staying with them since yesterday. Make a note of anyone that may have seen you here today—I will need to know. I will write a letter for you to bring to my friends, and you will travel to them in secret as soon as can be arranged. Now hurry!”

Stephon snorted the last of his defiance and obeyed.