“We cannot bring Archer back from the dead. If I could I would just for Ilana and Lionel’s sakes,” he said.
“Your highness, if I may interrupt,” Conan cut in. “You and Xander seem to get along well. Remember that soon we will be in war and we will need the men to have confidence in you. They respect Xander. Think about it, you and I alone cannot win a war.”
“Lionell and Randi will be with us. They will give us the numbers.”
“They too will need to protect their people. Doran wouldn’t allow the King to take such a move,” Conan reminded him.
Adalia thought back to what Archer said to her when they first met. She asked him what he thought of them being forced to marry and he spoke of duty. She murmured the same words. “I was bred for duty and responsibility. My Kingdom and my crown are more important than my desires and personal needs.”
“What?” Gabrielle was straining to listen to what she was mumbling.
“If I am to marry I will marry Conan. What do you say old man?” she stuck out her jaw as if daring him to turn her down.
“I don’t think my wife would appreciate that. And besides you are like a daughter to me,” Conan dismissed her with a smile.
Adalia thought hard, trying to figure out which one of Randi’s rascal’s friend could make a good king. Of course he wouldn’t have any powers, but he still had to look good and inspire confidence. But no one came to mind. How could she betray Archer like this? Please forgive me my love. “I will do it. I will marry Xander, for the crown, my kingdom and for the safety of my people,” the tone in her voice was emotionless. “Tell him to come and see me as soon as possible,”
Adalia felt like running out of the room. She gave her parents a weary smile then left, straightened her spine and marched out.
“I don’t think we are doing the right thing,” she heard Liora say as she left.
Adalia ran into her room the urge to cry coming over her. She blinked her tears back. She had to be firm, strong and to an extent a robot. She couldn’t allow herself to feel for one second or she could break down and go back on her word. She sat on her desk and stared at her diary. Her fingers traced the spine of it. She flipped it open. Closing her eyes she tried to make sense of her most recent, most impulsive decision of her life.
She picked up her pen and right beside the words ‘I love Archer’ she wrote. “I was bred for duty and responsibility. My Kingdom and my crown are more important than my desires and personal needs.”
Adalia closed her diary when she heard a knock on the door. Xander walked in a beaming smile on his face. She stood up, her hands folded behind her back. She took a couple of long strides towards him.
“Judging by that silly smile on your face I assume that you have been offer of marriage,” business deal not a marriage, she kept on telling herself.
“Yes, we will be happy,” Xander tried to assure her.
“We aren’t marrying to be happy,” she chuckled. “You are my pawn and you will behave like one. Never assume that you have any say or any power in this kingdom. You will stand by my side like a lovely wife, and draw your sword to defend me like a royal guard should,” she couldn’t resist the wicked urge to goad.
Xander felt insulted and made a fool of. “If you don’t want to marry me then why accept your father’s proposal.”
“He’s ill. At this point if he wanted me to marry an ogre, or a hobbit I would. Leave me, a week from now you will be a royal,” she pushed him out of the door and locked it behind him. Then shouted. “Get used to the sound of a key turning in the lock, you are going to be hearing it for the rest of your life.”
***
“We will see about that,” Xander echoed in a low deliberate voice. “You have a strong will but so do wild horses, but they are broken and trained.”
***
Archer was struggling to lift his left hand for more than a minute. He needed it to hold his bow up. Frustrated he broke the wooden bow over his knee and tossed the pieces into the tree.
“That is the fifth one in ten minutes,” Samson pointed out. “We might live in a forest, but I am afraid we will run out of trees before you can reel in your temper.”
Archer kicked up the dust. “I can’t do this.”
“Can’t is a word that a prince should not know,” he picked up his bow and handed it to Archer. “I love this bow. If you break it, I will shatter your other wing.”
Archer handed it back to him. “I like having a functioning limb. You better take this back.”
“Archer, this can’t be solved by a magic trick. You need to work hard,” Samson pressed his fingers into Archer’s wounded side.
He groaned in pain but didn’t move away. He kept telling himself that he needed to be pushed. Archer wanted to get out of the forest and go home as soon as possible. But Samson was yet to find out who the traitor in the Southern kingdom was. And he was yet to know if his attack was just a rebel who had found his luck or an actual planned assassination attempt.
“Do you really think someone is trying to kill me?” Archer turned to face Samson.
“Who isn’t?” he chuckled, but then his voice when serious. “You say that neither your brother in law nor your sister was harmed.”
“Neither was my father or Gabrielle,” Archer had regurgitated that day’s events to Samson the best he could. He could remember everything that happened to the point where he thought he was dead.
“He left the two premiers and went for you. Don’t you find it strange? He had a clear shot to all four of you. He didn’t need to drive a sword into you. With just a bow and arrow he would have sat in a tree and taken down all eight of you,” Samson moved his hand as if he was shooting something down. “The two kingdoms would have been crippled. The eldest children dead, the two commanders dead leaving just the wives and the youngest children with no army commanders.”
“I get what you are trying to say,” Archer understood that with all of them dead the rebels could easily take both kingdoms. The confusion, grief and lack of military leadership would weaken both kingdoms. While Liora and his mother tried to understand the deaths of their children and cope with the kingdoms that the deaths of their husbands would have left them with, they would be too weak to create a defense against any intruders.
“But why me? What does my death have to offer?” he still couldn’t understand that part. Samson had tried each and every scenario but with Lionell still alive there was nothing their enemies could do.
“Adalia,” he finally understood it. “Could it be that they just want to take the South and not the North. With me dead there would be no marriage.”
“But Gabrielle-,” Samson snickered. “Gabrielle is ill. With both of you dead it would just be Adalia and Liora.”
“But Randi-,”
“Randi is in the North with his bride,” Samson put in.
Then it came back to him, the agreement their father’s made. “If I died Randi would go to the North and rule and Adalia would be free to marry whomever she chose.”
“It’s a plan against the North by the South. If their Prince rules the North and then their princess retains her crown they could bring both kingdoms together. Your family would be cast aside,” Samson was seeing a conspiracy unfold before his eyes.
“Adalia wouldn’t do that to me,” Archer refused to believe that the woman he loved could do that against him. He heard how she cried for him when he was dying. He felt her kisses and could still feel how her loving gazes warmed his soul. There was no way she could betray him.
“Have you ever heard of Jezebel? She’s a woman Archer. They are able to make you feel unimaginable things. With just one kiss they bend your will and make you forget everything and turn you into a drooling idiot,” he said then added. “Don’t tell my wife I said that.”
Archer dropped the bow and arrows to the ground and strode into the forest. He was sifting through the kisses, embraces and the words trying to find a hint of deception in any one of them. He was trying to calm the shock running through him and hush the voices in his head. But the seed had already been planted and it was fast growing. “That’s is why she changed her mind all of a sudden. Why she decided to make her vows to me and not Xander. She’s been playing me for a fool.”
“She thinks you are dead.”
He drove his fist into the wall. The pain reminded him of the first time Adalia had him punching into things. He cursed himself for falling in love with her. Knowing very well that it was his love that would bring down his family and his kingdom.
“I was bred for duty and responsibility. My Kingdom and my crown are more important than my desires and personal needs,” he murmured.
He went back to the colony and found Samson huddled together with a group of his scout. There was news and he hoped it was good things from his home. He stood aside and waited for them to disperse before he went to Samson.
“What did they say?”
“Adalia is getting married,” he paused. “She is marrying her guard Xander.”
“Xander?” his gaze gave a dark flicker.
“I’m such a fool,” Archer condemned himself every chance he got.
“Hold still,” Fiona was trying to dress his new wound. “Only mad men hit things that don’t hit back.”
“Cowards,” Archer corrected. “I am a coward. I should be home trying to get Randi out of my place and bring down his sister. But instead I am here hiding out.”
“Don’t you want to be here?” Lola asked as she played with the leaves dressing his wounds.
“Of course I do,” he lied to her angelic face.
“How sure are you that she is in this?” Fiona asked. “Do you think she would be capable of killing her own father?”
His throat closed at the thought. “The hunger for power is a dangerous thing,” he said.
“Are you going there? Are you going back?”
“Yes,” he felt at home here but he had to protect his real home.
“We leave at the end of the week. With the vow ceremony taking place they will be too preoccupied,” Samson told him later that night. “Your family will also be in attendance so we can unmask Randi before them.”
“The vows cannot take place. We need to attack before the vows take place,” Archer wanted not just to foil their plans to take his home, but also their plans of marrying.
“Alright then,” he handed Archer his bow and a bag of arrows. “You better get to work we only have five days.”