Page 54 of Pregnant at the Palace Altar

He had believed them. He hadn’t had a doubt in his mind that they were telling the truth. He had followed, like a lamb to sacrifice, but not slaughter.

That had been for everyone else.

“We heard gunshots before we got to the basement, but they said I would be meeting my parents and the children down there. Everything would be fine.”

He could still remember how afraid he had been, because he’d been so certain he was being led to join his family in a place of safety where they already were.

“When we arrived downstairs, no one was there. No one would explain. They just told me I was safe and locked me in a room.” He still remembered the dark. The soft echo of gunshots he could only barely make out. The feeling of not knowing what was going on, or where his family was.

Left alone and in the dark.

Katerina slid her arm over his back, rubbing from side to side. “I suppose they were trying to protect you.”

“I thought so. It was Marias who found me, who let me out. He cautioned me to stay where I was, not wade into the chaos, but he could not tell me where my family was. I had to find them.”

Then you must take this. To protect yourself.Diamandis had not questioned why Marias was carrying a gun. He’d questioned nothing because he’d only wanted to find his brothers and sister. For some reason, in that moment, he’d been so certain his father would be fine. He was strong and invincible, and Diamandis was like him, so he would go and save his siblings like their father was no doubt saving his mother.

But he’d only found death and blood in the boys’ room and nothing in Zandra’s. “The boys were already dead.”

Katerina rested her head on his shoulder and said nothing. In the silence it felt like the only option was to go on. To see it through. To tell Katerina what he’d never told anyone.

“Zandra appeared to be missing, so I set out to search for her. I thought maybe she was with my parents, so I doubled back to their rooms. I heard...” It haunted his dreams. His waking hours. His everything. “I heard my mother crying. Sobbing. Begging.”

Bang.

Then nothing. Just what had felt like an endless moment during which Diamandis had not been able to move. Maybe if he had...

“A man all in black, carrying a large gun, stepped out of my mother’s room. He turned the gun toward me, but... I shot him first.” Sometimes, in his memory, it didn’t make sense. The man had paused, giving Diamandis the opportunity to best him. “I shot him.”

“He was going to shoot you,” Katerina said.

Sometimes I wish he had.

“I left him to die.”

“What were you supposed to do?”

He stood abruptly and paced away. “You do not understand.” She didn’t. She couldn’t. If it had been anyone else, perhaps...

But Katerina was so calm. “No, I do not understand. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be forced to take a life, but youwereforced. No one would have blamed you for this. Why would you turn this into a secret?”

But he could see Marias’s face as he’d pulled back the mask of the gunman. The shock. The horror. It hadn’t been just anyone.

It had been Diamandis’s uncle.

Everyone will blame you for this, Diamandis. They will think their king is a murderer. This will not do. Your father never would have done something like this. He was weak, but you...

“It was my uncle. My mother’s brother. I killed my own uncle.”

“That does not change the circumstances around it, Diamandis. You defended yourself against a man who was going to kill you. Who killed your parents and was part of the group that killed your brothers. I’m sure that was... Of course you would feel guilt, confusion. I understand your feelings at having been forced to do such a thing, but I cannot understand why you would blame yourself for this?”

This must be our secret, Diamandis. For the good of Kalyva. For your father’s name and legacy.

“Marias...” He hadn’t been able to find the words. The memory seemed to have changed on him, turning Marias—his savior, the man who’d led him away and told him what to do when he’d been lost—into a villain.

Katerina’s expression immediately changed. “Do not tell me that old fool had something to do with this. Oh,thatwould make sense. The ridiculous hold he has over you!”

“He has no hold over me. He did not lock me in that basement room. He let me out. You do not understand. I later learned,fromMarias, that a few council members used the coup for their own gains. They could have stopped it, but instead my uncle gave the violent mob the means to invade the palace thinking he’d have some sway over me. Those council members who’d claimed they’d saved me, who placed the blame on Lysias and his parents, they didn’t want the monarchy to be overthrown, but they wanted someone they could control. A boy. Me.”

---