Page 26 of The Orc's Princess Bride
She folded the letter carefully and slipped it into her desk. Tomorrow, in the light of day, with Ulric by her side, she would unravel this mystery.
For now, she needed rest. She banked the fire, climbed into her cold, empty bed, and tried not to think of the warmth she had left behind in Ulric’s chambers. Despite her resolve to wait until morning, one question kept circling in her mind, keeping sleep at bay:
What had Lasseran done to her father to make him send this message?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The fragile peace of the night shattered at dawn. Ulric woke after the most restful sleep he’d had in years. The memory of Jessamin’s gentle touch still lingered on his skin, and he found himself replaying the previous night—the softness of her lips, the trust in her eyes when he’d confessed his deepest fears about the Curse. For those few precious hours, he’d allowed himself to believe in something he’d thought impossible: a true partnership with his queen.
The sharp knock at his door destroyed that illusion.
Rook stood in the doorway. His spymaster’s face, normally an unreadable mask, was grim, and the look in his eyes sent a cold spike of dread through his gut.
“My king, I would not disturb you if it weren’t urgent.”
He pulled on his tunic, the wound in his arm protesting the movement. “Speak.”
Rook entered, closing the door with deliberate care. “One of my shadows was patrolling the eastern corridor before dawn. He found this.” From within his leather jerkin, he withdrew a foldedparchment. “It was on the floor, dropped, outside the queen’s chambers.”
The seal was broken, but he recognized it immediately—the stylized sun and sword of the Priest King of Almohad. Jessamin’s father.
“Read it,” Rook urged, his voice uncharacteristically gentle.
The parchment felt oddly heavy in his hand, as he took the letter, a sense of foreboding crawling up his spine. He unfolded it and quickly scanned the elegant script. Each word hammered into his skull like an iron spike.
…Lasseran’s reasonable terms…
…your safe return to Almohad…
…wisdom of compliance from Norhaven…
…a loyal servant awaits your response…
The world around him receded,narrowed to the damning words before him. The Priest King’s signature at the bottom was flawless, identical to the diplomatic correspondence he had received when negotiating for Jessamin’s hand. He stared at it, a cold void opening in his chest where warmth had been just minutes before.
“The lower chambers,” he said flatly. “Where exactly?”
“My men are searching now,” Rook replied. “But discreetly. We don’t want to alert anyone.”
His mind worked with brutal efficiency, fitting this new piece into the puzzle that had been tormenting him for weeks. Thecoded messages about grain shipments. The missing silk used to bribe the stable hand. The sabotaged patrol route that had nearly killed him.
And now this—a letter revealing Jessamin’s father was negotiating with Lasseran, offering his daughter’s return as part of the bargain.
It was the final, damning piece of evidence. All of it pointed to Jessamin as the linchpin of the conspiracy.
Jessamin. His wife. The woman who had tended his wounds with gentle hands. The woman who had sat beside him in the darkness, accepting the terrible burden of his Curse without flinching. The woman who had looked at him with such tenderness that he had allowed himself to hope.
The intimacy of the night before felt like a cruel trick. His confession, his vulnerability—was it all a lie for her to exploit? Had she been playing him from the start, using his feelings for her to blind him to her true purpose? The memory of her gentle hands on his wound, her soft lips against his, her body nestled against him—it all twisted into something sinister. Was her tenderness just a performance to lower his guard? Her concern for his injury a way to assess how close he’d come to death?
His Beast roared, a storm of betrayal and pain that threatened to tear him apart. He crumpled the letter in his fist, his claws tearing holes in the parchment.
“When was this found?” he demanded.
“Just before dawn, my king.”
Before dawn. After she’d left his chambers. After he’d confessed his deepest fears to her.
“And the queen? Where is she now?”
