Chapter 198
Lena’s POV
June 6
Something’s wrong with me. I don’t know what it is. I’ve been feeling weaker lately, and I’ve had headaches all the time. Daniel is worried. Ivan too. George has been too busy to pay much attention. The war with the north has started again. He’ll be leaving soon for a while.
Victoria thinks I’m making this all up. She’s become meaner lately. She always had something of a temper, but in the past, she would quickly apologize for any outbursts. Now, she just yells at me.
“Stop faking it for attention. George is still leaving no matter how pathetic you act.”
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I have been too mopey lately.
But I’m starting to feel like she might just hate me. I have no idea why.
June 8
I can barely get out of bed. I don’t think I’m faking this, despite what Victoria says.
June 9
I managed to stand, wanting to be strong to say goodbye to George.
As I went into the hallway, I saw Victoria trying to kiss my husband! He shied away from her, scolding her, “I’m happily married, Victoria. I’m sorry.”
As he walked away without seeing me, Victoria turned back to me and glared.
June 10
I always feel worse after tea with Victoria. Could it be…? No… I don’t want to accuse the woman who was once my friend, even if I suspect she has feelings toward my husband.
She’s been with me the past year. A daily companion.
Surely… no. I won’t even write it down.
June 14
I think I’m dying…
I have no proof, only suspicion… but… Victoria…
I think she is trying to kill me…
June 15
Claire… I’m so sorry…
I don’t want to go…
Claire’s POV
My wounded heart crawled up into my throat as I read and re–read my mother’s final message to me. Her beautiful flowing
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Chapter 198
handwriting had devolved into chicken scratch here at the end. It was barely recognizable to how it had once been.
The truth now was damning. Even my mother in her final moments had suspected. Victoria was killing her.
Victoria had killed her. And then she had taken her place, becoming George’s wife and the new Luna Queen of the kingdom.
Tears welled in my eyes. My mother’s fear was in her words, her pain in the scribbled words and the tried teardrops that had warped spots on the page.
Gods, she hadn’t deserved this. She just wanted to be in love. She’d lost her mother. She’d had me.
My hatred for Victoria grew tenfold. I forced myself to lightly close the book to keep from crunching the pages in my anger. I wasn’t ready to lower the book itself though, the connection to my mother in her final days. I held it closely to my chest, even as I stood from the bed.
I couldn’t stay here. I felt like I was pulling myself apart, ready to shoot off into a hundred different directions without any goal. I had no idea what to do now, no idea how I was supposed to feel. I only knew that I didn’t want to be alone.
My feet took me from my room and to Gideon’s door before I even realized I was moving. Still clutching the diary to my chest with one hand, I lifted the other and knocked.
Fast footsteps sounded beyond the door, then Gideon opened it.
He looked at me with worry, then opened his arms.
I fell into them.
As he closed his arms around me, he eased me deeper into his hotel room, closing the door behind us. He cradled me close, and I pressed my cheek tightly to his chest. Under my ear, I could hear the steady thump of his heartbeat. I focused on it, trying to get mine to match, but mine was racing so very fast.
“She did it,” I whispered. “Even my mom suspected. Victoria was poisoning her.”
Gideon pressed a soft kiss to the top of my head. Only his arms around me held me together.
“My mother trusted her. They were friends. And she… she…”
“Victoria will face justice,” Gideon said.
“How?” That was where I was stuck. “She’s the Luna Queen. My father gave up his feelings for Lena and replaced them with feelings for Victoria. He wouldn’t doubt her.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Gideon said. “Lena was his first love. Men don’t just forget.”
I wanted to believe that. I so wanted justice for my mother. “Will you help me?” I asked him.
“You don’t have to ask,” he said. “Whatever you need, I will be there.“/
“It won’t be easy.”
“No, not at all. Standing against a Luna Queen will be a tall order, especially without it leading to a war. But I’m determined
to try it. For you. For your mom. For the entire kingdom. We shouldn’t have a murder sitting on the throne.”
I curled impossibly tighter against him, soaking in his warmth and his strength, allowing it to refuel my own.
Glancing over at his bed, I saw that he had brought the box with the other items into his room. I’d been so caught up the diary that I had lost track of what had happened to it. I could see it there now.
with
“Was there anything else in there?” I asked Gideon.
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Chapter 198
He followed the length of my gaze. “A couple of things. A few knick–knacks. But also this…” He released his hold on me to go over to the box. There, he held up a strange sort of wooden cube. It was a puzzle box, locked tight with some kind of code.
Accepting the box, I flipped through the available letters. The code was 6 letters long, but not all the alphabet was there.
“I messed around with it a little,” Gideon said. “But I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Six letters. It could be anything.”
I flicked through the letters a few times, making some impossible words, before the last three felt right.
1–R–E.
I knew then, and likely so did Gideon from the way he stilled.
In a rush, I flicked through the other letters and finally spelled my name: C–L–A–I–R–E.
The box clicked open. Gideon inched closer as I pulled back the top, revealing the inside.
In there was a bundle of hair wrapped around itself and bound with a bow. The hair was quite long, though it matched mine in color.
“You don’t think…?” I started to say.
“Could it be…?” Gideon said at the same moment.
We looked at each other.
“Lena’s,” I said.
“If it’s hers and she was poisoned, this would prove it,” Gideon said. “We have to get this evaluated at once.”
I nodded, a small spark of hope rising in my heart. With enough proof, maybe we would be able to convince my father of Victoria’s treachery. If he wouldn’t believe me, he might believe the facts from a toxicology report. And if he didn’t believe that, maybe he would believe Lena’s own words, voiced from beyond the grave with her journal.
He couldn’t turn his back on all of it.
He must have loved my mother back then, when they had their whirlwind romance. Hopefully, some part of him loved her still.
Enough to want to see her death avenged.
