Secrets of the Throne
Author
Raven Flanagan
Reads
16.4K
Chapters
47
River elf princess Freda Vale is promised to the cruel forest king, Haakon Asvaldur, in a political move to bridge the gap between their kingdoms. When she finds out the king prefers the company of men and won't consummate their marriage, the king forces the princess to sleep with his brother Prince Viggo to ensure there is an heir to the throne. Freda and Viggo find comfort in one another during those illicit encounters while fearing the threat of forces outside the kingdom.
Chapter 1: Choreomania
FREDA
The moment I slipped away from my father’s envoy, the festival’s noise became the sound of freedom.
Excitement shivered through the immense, multitiered pavilion. Infectious smiles spread across every face, and delighted conversations overlapped with animated chatter.
Radiant beams of midday sunlight slanted through the pillars and glinted off jewels, baubles, and precious silks being haggled over from one stall to the next in the fashion quarter of the festival venue.
The rowdiness of the gathered crowds, the sights and smells of the goods on display titillated the senses and distracted me from the rest of the world.
I was swept up in the drifting tide of bodies until we careened toward another tier, taking in the displays from one elven culture to the next. Everything dazzled and inspired, taking my breath away. I flounced from cart to stall, inspecting goods and wares, getting lost in a sort of hypnotized exploration.
There were glass beads forged by the Kalasahari elves from the western dunes, which were purportedly stronger than diamonds, with each bead taking ages to perfect. Yet they had dozens of them on necklaces, strung up on display for purchase, costing no less than a small fortune.
“What’s your best price on these?” a woman asked. “I’ll take it if you throw in the earrings.”
Cinnamon sweet buns, a specialty from the woodland elves, perfumed the area, distracting me from the accessories and leading me toward baked goods next to stalls full of ancient books from the Hinterwood forest.
A merchant had trunks full of weathered tomes he claimed held ancient knowledge and mystical mysteries, and I wondered how true it was.
“That vendor over there has the same book for a lower price!” someone grumbled after paying, and I chuckled to myself.
Like a leaf in a creek drifting downstream, I floated on a natural course through the heaving, crowded market. I moved on, too eager to stop in one place for long. A towering stall of flower arrangements drew my focus, and I spent a decent amount of time studying different buds and blooms not found in the Riverlands.
“That’s the final offer!”
“I need time to think about it before…”
Social decorum wavered between chaotic and polite. It astounded me to watch different classes mingle and haggle over various goods and decor from all over the continent. I could have spent hours or weeks observing everything unfolding around me.
At a higher pavilion, I briefly examined swaths of red and gold silk from the eastern Hin-Shan storm elves. My eyes had just caught on a grand display of jade hairpins when music lilted from the other side of my current pavilion.
The multiple tiers, built of swirling white and blue-gray marble, spilled over one another, sloping down a colossal mountainside in a neutral territory between the kingdoms. A safe space to host such a united festival that came only once every ten years.
The flowing, towering layout mimicked the horizontal crevices and overhangs, mirroring the visual edge of a cliff’s face.
I stopped perusing the pins and turned to search the crowd, looking over hundreds, if not thousands, of heads to find the source of the song. It was hard to tell at first, but I saw a small cluster of musicians near the central pavilion, huddled together around a fountain and playing their lively tunes.
Something jaunty and enticing that made your feet itch to move.
The faces blurred around me, and I found myself swaying to the music. A joyful grin stretched across my face, and I spread my arms, leaning my head back, relishing the song plucking at the cords of my muscles and moving me along with the rhythm.
I stepped in time with the beat, humming along despite the observers.
Several children noticed and flocked to join me. I took their hands, encouraging them to dance, to spread joy no matter who witnessed the silliness. We spun in a circle until we were dizzy, laughing and smiling without a care. It made me so ridiculously happy and glad that my father let me accompany him to the festival.
The tune and momentum kept me going and going, breathlessly twirling with tiny hands in mine tugging me along. Faster and faster, my skirts swishing around my legs, spinning and spinning as if gleeful madness compelled me.
A set of dark moss-green eyes cut through the haze, snatching up my attention. Across the pavilion, a man wearing an intensely broody expression stared at me. Even so far away, separated by dozens of others, his attention sent tingles across my skin.
An odd feeling shivered through me, like warmth pooling in my stomach.
I stumbled, untangling myself from the children’s dancing ring before I might accidentally trample one of them. Out of breath, shoulders heaving, I pushed a curtain of wavy hair from my face in search of the man.
Rapidly looking around, I barely caught sight of him. Just the barest glimpse of dark hair falling to wide shoulders, and vibrant green and rich-brown leather woodland elf armor on a warrior’s build, before he vanished into a Hinterwood envoy marching into an adjacent pavilion.
Louder voices cut through the fading music. “It’s odd he’s here at all. He’s never been known to attend a festival since he ascended—”
“I heard it’s because he’s a brute. Absolutely cruel to…”
Hushed whispers followed the path of the Hinterwood envoy. Dozens of heads turned, peering over one another, not even trying to pretend they weren’t being gossip hounds. The frenzy grew the further the woodland elves went, paired with curious glances and not-so-subtle conversations exchanged behind hands.
“—But you saw who was with him? There are so many of them. No wonder there are rumors of…”
“—The succession of their line is allegedly in jeopardy.”
Illogically focused on the magnetic tug of those moss-green eyes, I continued coasting after the woodland elf envoy. A discordant thread had tied around one of my ribs and pulled me after them. Perhaps it was only a sense of curiosity, but I couldn’t help being carried along like an unwilling magnet.
A hand caught my wrist the moment I turned a corner.
Startled, I nearly tripped. A yelp blurted from me, and I tried to snatch my hand away. The grip loosened instantly, and a soothing voice followed, hushing me.
“Princess, please. People are looking!” The warning clamped down on my throat and sufficiently shut me up. As did her use of my title.
Hand slapped over my mouth, I looked up at my handmaiden, who was glaring at me, a properly deserved expression after the stunt I’d pulled that morning, sneaking away from her.
“Again, Freda, really? And at the festival too!” Marishka threw her hands in the air, grumbling with exasperation. “Wait until your father hears about this—”
“No, please.” I clasped my hands together and shot her a pleading look.
It usually worked on her for my smaller offenses. Sneaking away from my father’s envoy might not be a small offense to her, especially since she’d been tasked to keep an eye on me. A close one.
“Oh, don’t give me those big violet, pleading eyes. It won’t work on me this time.” Marishka crossed her arms, giving her best impression of a sterner woman.
I whined. “Come on, please. I had to! Otherwise, I would have been cooped up in the castle with Father and the other leaders while they bickered and negotiated. It was my only chance at freedom to come down here where the people are and…and feel like I’m one of them.”
And not a bird in a silver cage.
“Up there, I’m not a person. I’m ‘the King of Naiadale’s daughter,’ a bargaining chip to be discussed while they manage foreign relations. But down here…” I gestured to the fading music, a grin touching my lips despite myself. “When I was dancing with those children, they weren’t smiling at a princess. They were just smiling at me. It was my only chance to feel like a person, not just a title.”
Marishka sighed, her shoulders dropping before she rolled her eyes. “All right. I understand why you ran away without me.” Then she pointed a sharp, severe finger at me. “But the next time you want to go traipsing off, you must tell me. It could be dangerous for a princess to run around by herself with no chaperone, Freda.”
“Yes, I understand,” I said, already looking between the many directions in the rotunda between pavilions. There was the fountain, and there were the musicians preparing for another song. So the woodland elves went—
I took a step in their direction, unsure why I felt the urge to follow.
Marishka snuck her arm through mine, jerking me away from my intended path to hiss in my ear, “Freda! No! He went that way!”
A throng of elves circled us, cutting me off from the pavilion the wood elves had vanished down.
“Wh—who did?” There were plenty of influential and wealthy elves among the crowd. I couldn’t understand why my handmaiden would stop me from following my curiosity for anyone. All the leaders were up in the castle at the top of the mountain with my father.
Weren’t they?
“Haakon Asvaldur,” she rasped, her bright eyes glazed with fear just uttering the name. “The king of the Hinterwoods.”
All thoughts of trailing those mysterious mossy eyes flew out of my head, and my heart thudded in revolt. “King Haakon?”
The whispers suddenly made sense. From what I knew of the ruler, the king of the Hinterwoods hadn’t attended a festival since before his ascension to his family throne. He rarely attended events that weren’t wild hunts or entirely private.
The king was also further along in years, nearly as old as my father, yet unwed. No wife, and no heir to speak of.
No wonder the crowd had buzzed wilder than a beehive when his envoy passed through the pavilion. The Hinterwood king was arriving late to meet with other kingdom rulers.
The air shifted, and my stomach shriveled into a withered thing as dread slithered in like a prophetic plague.
Marishka took my clammy hands in hers. “Come, Princess, let’s enjoy some more of the festival before heading back to the castle. We’ll tell your father you were with me all day.”
The gentle reassurance didn’t wash away the odd smear of anxiety staining my insides or the strange magnetic pull I’d felt from across the pavilion. Not while my mind raced with a sea of questions, and I feared I might drown before getting a single good answer.
Her words were a distant hum beneath the one question that echoed in my mind, chilling me more than the mountain air.
Why did it feel like seeing that stranger, then losing him in the crowd, mattered more than anything else at the festival?
