Capture the Crown (Gargoyle Queen #1) -Jennifer Estep Page 0,63
her pampered Glitzma persona and supposedly charmed, carefree life. I’d seen the toll being a bastard prince had taken on my uncle, Lucas Sullivan, and I could imagine how much worse it would have been for Leonidas—and Maeven too.
After she had murdered Maximus during the Regalia Games roughly sixteen years ago, several of the legitimate Morricone royals had tried to take the throne from the bastard queen. Maeven had killed everyone who had openly challenged her, but the ones who were smart enough to submit to her rule supposedly despised the queen. So did many of the wealthier nobles who’d wanted the crown for themselves, and I’d heard more than one rumor about assassination attempts, both against Maeven and her children.
More needles of sympathy pricked my heart. Leonidas’s daily life at Myrkvior was probably more fraught with danger than mine had ever been on any of my spy missions. Except for this one, of course.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That things have been . . . difficult for you.”
He nodded, accepting my condolences, although he didn’t look at me.
We walked in silence, moving through the hallways before stepping through some glass doors and emerging onto a third-floor balcony. Leonidas led me over to the shadows that were pooled around a column, and I peered over the railing. Instead of some interior section of the palace, this balcony overlooked an enormous open-air courtyard with an archway that led out into the city of Majesta beyond.
“And this,” Leonidas said, sweeping his hand out wide, “is the true heart of the Morricones.”
In the courtyard below, butchers, bakers, and other merchants manned wooden carts and stalls, hawking everything from cuts of meat to loaves of bread to bolts of cloth, while shoppers meandered along, admiring all the goods. Servants, guards, nobles, commoners. Men, women, children. People of all shapes, sizes, and stations moved through the busy marketplace, and a hundred conversations buzzed in my ears. My gargoyle pendant grew warm against my chest, but we were high enough above the crowd that people’s thoughts were soft whispers that didn’t overwhelm me.
The pendant heating up against my skin reminded me that Leonidas had to have seen it, along with the gargoyle crest embedded in the dagger still hidden in my right boot. And yet, he hadn’t said anything about either one of them. His lack of interest made me even more suspicious about what he truly wanted from me.
“What do you think of Myrkvior?” Leonidas asked, pride rippling through his voice.
“It’s wonderful,” I said, and meant it.
He glanced around, as if making sure we were still alone and hidden in the shadows. Then he turned to me, his face serious. “I know that Mortans don’t have the best reputation, especially in Andvari and Bellona, but we really are just people who are trying to do our jobs and support our families and live our lives in peace.”
Peace was most definitely not the word that came to my mind when thinking about Mortans. As a child, I had often pictured the Morricone royals holed up in creepy candlelit chambers, gleefully cackling as they plotted the destruction of my family, along with their other enemies.
But Leonidas was right—the people below were going about the business of running their kingdom just like Andvarians, Bellonans, and everyone else did. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. About seeing the Mortans as actual people instead of nameless, faceless enemies who wanted me and my family dead. It was a bit disconcerting, to say the least.
“I wanted you to see this,” Leonidas continued. “Before you go.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Go where? To the palace dungeon?”
Leonidas’s face crinkled with confusion. “Home, of course. I would never throw you in the dungeon. Especially not after you saved my life.”
He seemed sincere, but he had also seemed sincere in the woods when we were children, right before he had handed me over to a turncoat guard.
“Rescuing me from the mine was one thing. You owed me for saving you from Wexel. But why bring me here?”
He shrugged. “The best healers in Morta are in Myrkvior, and you were still more dead than alive, even after getting partially healed in the mine.”
“So you brought me, an Andvarian spy, to the Mortan royal palace, and now you’re going to let me go? Just like that?” I didn’t bother to keep the suspicion out of my voice.
“Just like that.”
“Well, I suppose I should take you up on your offer—before your brother murders you.”