horse when you first refused to wager your stallion. Once you had won, his cousin-slave was yours and would be allowed into Silverhelm. She was to begin making the tea immediately to prevent your heirs.”
“Why would she do this?” I whispered.
“Sir Leland was to be placed as the head of Silverhelm’s army once Whitney was on the throne. Janet was promised Sterling Castle for her part in it all.”
Branford looked to Sir Rylan for a moment, then back at Nelle.
“You knew of this all these months,” Branford said. His voice was cold, and when I looked at his eyes, they were equally frigid.
Sir Rylan tilted his head to the side as Lady Suzette emerged from the castle walls, carrying something in her hands. She approached us slowly as Nelle continued to speak.
“Kimberly said once Princess Whitney was on the throne with you, we would be brought back into Silverhelm as nobles again. But I heard Princess Whitney telling Prince Gage that there would be no reason to keep us around after she was wed to Branford—that we would be a liability. Kimberly did not believe me, so I ran. I knew I could not come back here. You said you would have us killed if we returned to Silverhelm. I did not know what else to do! I had just enough to pay my passage to Seacrest.”
“Is that all?” Branford asked. “It never occurred to you to send me a message?”
“I…I did not know what I should do!” Nelle cried as she threw herself at Branford’s feet.
“You had many options,” Branford said. He stared down at her for a moment. “Get up.”
Nelle slowly brought herself back onto her feet.
“Will you burn me?” Nelle whispered softly. Her eyes dared glance up at Branford for only a moment before she looked back down to the ground.
“No,” Branford said quickly.
Before Nelle could utter a sigh of relief, the sound of a sword leaving its sheath rang out across the field, and Branford took a single step forward. He grabbed Nelle by her long tresses, pulled her head backwards, and slid the sharp blade across her throat, opening her vessels and spilling her blood over her chest and down to the dirt.
“But you will still die for it,” Branford said softly as the light dimmed from Nelle’s eyes, and he released her hair, allowing her lifeless body to fall sideways to the ground.
“I want Lady Kimberly and Sir Leland,” Branford said to Rylan as he wiped the edge of his blade across the thigh of his trousers. “I’m willing to offer a bounty to any mercenary who can bring them to me, preferably alive, so I may kill them myself.”
“I will put out the word.”
Branford placed his hand on Rylan’s shoulder for a moment and looked into his eyes.
“Where do we stand now?”
“Where we always should have been,” Sir Rylan said with a nod. “Allies.”
They clasped forearms.
“Forgive me for ever doubting you,” Rylan said.
“There is nothing to forgive,” Branford replied. “You see the light now—that is all that is important. Edgar has shown his true colors. He will lose followers who had always supported him before. To interfere with a royal bloodline…”
Branford glanced at me and then at Lady Suzette.
“Did you find it?” he asked. Lady Suzette nodded. “What was in it?”
Lady Suzette held a small pouch in her hands, and I recognized it as the herb bag Janet used when making tea for me.
“There is willow bark and ginger,” Suzette said, “which would likely not cause any issue by themselves and would help with any pain Queen Alexandra might have felt in the Women’s Room. But this”—she held up a small, feathery, dried set of leaves—“this is hemlock and quite deadly in large amounts. In smaller doses, it will kill a child before it can begin to grow inside of its mother.”
Branford stepped out behind me as I felt myself begin to swoon. His arms pulled me against his chest.
“She was killing our…our children?” I whispered.
“Yes,” Branford replied.
“She knew she was doing this?”
“Yes,” he said again.
My stomach churned again as I tried to understand what had happened during this day. At first, I had thought my worst fear was going to come to pass—that Branford would renounce me to take Whitney’s hand. Now I had discovered my own handmaid had been part of the plot to make it happen. I could not focus enough on the thoughts inside my head to know what to make of them.
“I will never allow anything like this