The Offering

Chapter Forty Nine - Demwyn

I feel the strain in my shoulders as I rip at the collar of my jacket and loosen the shirt I wear. Gods I hated this suit.

"Your Highness, guards have been posted around the Queens wing and the chosen's wing as ordered. More guards have been posted around the palace gates. Is there anything else?" Rhaeven, one of the captains, says as he stops near me while I continue to pace back and forth in front of the closed doors.

"Where is Varis?"

"On his way Your Highness." He answers with a nod.

"And my brothers?"

"Alvaryn was with your father when I last checked waiting for the healer, Aeris is with one of the chosen, the one that collapsed at the selection." He answers quickly.

"Daella," I mutter to myself, I suppose my words had not changed his feelings towards her and he was with her instead of with his family. "I want both of them here." I tell him and he nods with a stamp of his boots before he turns and leaves.

Guards stand at attention as I continue to pace and forth.

What the hell just happened?

Mother attacked Father, he was unconscious in his rooms and Daella lay fitting on the ground.

It wasn't a coincidence.

What had mother said before she attacked? We will not stand by and watch you ruin your Kingdom. We? Who was she speaking of? And why did they not want this selection to happen?

All I can think of is Arden and his adverse opinion on the selection and our choosing wives from the humans. But he wasn't here. He would be half way back to his Kingdom by now.

"Your Highness," Varis says a little breathless as he rushes into the waiting room with a bow. "Your mother?"

"She is in her rooms, still unconscious, The healer said he couldn't see what had happened, it was just darkness in her mind." I answer, looking at the closed doors to her room.

"But we all know she would never consciously attack the King, she refused to use her magic, let alone use it against her own husband." He says looking at the closed doors with an earnest and fearful expression.

"Of course she wouldn't," I snap. "But there were over a hundred fae in that room that just witnessed that exact thing happen." I say pointing back to the ball room where everything had just taken place.

I had been moments away from announcing who I had chosen to marry and now the palace was in complete chaos.

"Well, until your father wakes, you are acting King." Varis says with a nod of acknowledgement.

I take a moment and look at him, stoned faced he stands watching me, waiting for instructions or acknowledgement but I stand frozen.

Acting King. I knew this day would happen, eventually, just not like this, not here and now. I wasn't ready for this kind of authority.

"I assume you have already secured the palace and all its guests." Varis says warily and I nod stiffly, it was my role as general to maintain palace security, it was second nature. But King, acting King, perhaps it would be better to just see it as I did with being General, just another role I had to fill.

It would help to have my brother's here, instead of wherever they were.

"The palace has been secured, a healer has visited mother and another sent to my father, Alvaryn should be with him now." I look at the closed doors again, seeing my mothers' unconscious body looking so small and frail as I set her on her bed.