History Revealed

King Alessandre had allowed an audience with the Khethover clan.

News like these always have a tendency to spread like wildfire. And ablaze the news had gone. Everyone in the kingdom spoke of it. Adults were worried, while children pictured how the King would defeat the enemy through a well-thought trap.

In the castle, when the day finally arrived, Lord Karthremith stood in front of King Alessandre sitting lazily on his throne. Alessandre was actually quite excited about discussing something like a peace treaty, but because he’d heard some officials speaking behind his back about how he would most likely be trampled by the visiting Lord he decided to act uninterested. Lure the other party in first, and then win them over.

He wanted them to be desperate.

“What is your reason for seeking an audience with me?” said the King.

“I seeked an audience with the royal family. Pardon my direct way of speaking, but I wish for all the members to be present.” said Karthremith with one hand on his chest as he slightly bowed down.

Alessandre raised an eyebrow. He glanced at the workers standing to the sides, no one dared speaking but they were all intently listening to the Lord’s threatening voice.

“Very well,” he agreed.

The King waved his hand and one of the workers scattered away to gather the complete royal family. There was the King himself; The Queen, who wasn’t very keen on being inside all day so she was often found in the royal garden; Prince Colinus, while still young, he was often found to be beside his mother or playing with a particular aristocrat’s son; And there was also the King’s brother, Lucius, quite the scandal maker.

They weren’t a particularly big family, but they had plenty of people in the castle so it rarely felt like that.

The first to walk in was the Queen, Raina. She had a long bright yellow dress with flower patterns on the ends and sleeves. Her black hair was put up in a simple bun with a family heirloom holding it. ‘Beautiful’ was the most common way of describing her; with sunkissed skin, red lips and bright eyes, many men had tried to get her but she had fallen in love with the King, despite their terrible first meeting.

Let’s just say it involved a bag of flour, a shoe to the head and a proper earful about why you can’t walk down the road however you want. Reina was not the one that had left looking like a ghost.

She walked in with graceful steps, the room quieted as they saw the sleeping child in her arms.

“Ah! My darling, Raina,” said Alessandre, reaching out his arm for her to come to him.

She shushed him, but smiled as she sat down on the smaller throne next to the King’s.

“Your Majesty,” Karthremith welcomed.

She looked up from the child, “Are you Lord Karthremith?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Then, you’re aware of our dislike of your clan?”

He nodded again.

“How come you are here then? In enemy territory? What could possibly be important enough that you would seek an audience with us? Are you looking to sign peace between us?” she demanded.

The King noticed the Queen’s temper and placed his hand on hers.

Karthemith gazed at them, then he said, “No.” Several heads turned to the King, “I’m not here for peace, but to share some fun news I happened upon recently.”

“What news?” the King asked impatiently. If peace wasn’t on his mind then he wouldn’t bother with it, however these “fun news” interested him immensely now.

“I can’t tell yet,”

“How come?”

“The audience is not complete yet,”

Alessandre turned a questioning eye at his wife. She shook her head, equally confused. Everyone in the room began wondering. Even the maids outside, who had been quietly leaning closer to the door for a scope of gossip, started chattering between themselves.

“Maybe the King cheated on the Queen!” one of them gasped.

“Don’t be ridiculous, he would never dare, Her royal Highness would end him before he even had the chance,” the other one said.

The first maid bobbed her head in agreement, then she lit up as another speculation stepped forward in her mind, “What if the Queen cheated? And Prince Colin is actually-” she was hit in the head by the second maid.

“Oh come one now, you need to stop talking,” she whispered. They were both about to lean against the doors again when a servant walked past them. Behind him followed a dishevelled looking man.

They entered the room, all eyes fell on the rough man being escorted through the room. His hair was greasy to the point where you could barely tell his hair colour was actually a golden blond. It seemed more brown.

The clothes he wore were luxurious, but stained with dark red on the chest and left leg. He looked like someone who had chugged fifty bottles of beer in five minutes. He probably smelled like he had chugged fifty bottles of beer in five minutes as well. Which he had, but not in five minutes.

The King sighed and looked away.

Lucius, the fifty bottles man, saw his brother’s disappointment and with some alcohol still running through his system he shouted out, “Don’t look like that. Like you’re better!”

Alessandre glared at him.

“Yeah, that’s better,” Lucius continued. He swayed forward, placing himself next to his brother but with a reasonable distance between them. Clang. A bottle fell from his pocket.

“Not mine,” he said. “Anyway’s! What’s all ‘bout now then, I was trying to sleep!”

“Now that you are all here, let’s share the wondrous news!” Karthremith voiced, there was an ominous feeling in his tone. He glanced at his right-hand man, and clicked his tongue.

The man stepped forward from the group of Khethovians who were stationed farther back in the room. He muttered, “Just use your words, don’t click your tongue at me…” as he stopped next to his leader.

All the eyes were on him as he revealed a rolled paper from behind his back. Verthral unrolled it and cleared his throat as he held it up. “Here we have a document proving as evidence for the fatherhood of one of Luria’s royals,”

The King went stum. For a second he actually thought it was real, but he knew for a fact that the only child that was his was Colinus. Unless, of course, Raina was pregnant once more but he was also aware that her pregnancy hormones showed themselves early. So the man was telling lies.

However, the rest of the people in the room let out gasps. They all turned to the King now; it was like watching a game of tennis, always turning one's attention back and forth. Behind the doors, two maids held their mouths as they looked at eachother. One whispered, “I told you!” while the other responded with disbelief, “To think he’d do that…”

Alessandre felt a glare bore into his back, clearly someone wasn’t happy upon hearing her husband might have been fooling around without her knowledge. He quickly turned to the Lord’s right-hand, “What lies you spew! The document in your hands is false. You have come here-” he scowled, but was cut off by the man with the document.

“No one said it was you,”

“Huh?”

And all the eyes fell onto Lucius who stood with his hand covering his face. He raised his shoulders as he squealed out, “I didn’t think she’d keep it…”

“Lucius!-” the King brusquely said.

“If I may continue-”

“You have said enough,” Raina sneered.

Karthremith moved closer, there was a smirk in his eyes, but not on his face. “I don’t believe he has,” he gestured for Verthral to continue reading the document out loud.

“The mother of the child,” he said, sighing as if this whole ordeal was boring to him, “is of the Strigoi.”

The King froze. He knew what it meant for a royal to conceive a child out of wedlock. It meant this was one of the biggest scandals the Kingdom of Luria was to get for hundreds of years, and to top it off, the child was half Lurian half Strigoi. An abomination.

Raina had given Colinus to one of the maids. She walked up to stand in front of everyone and she stomped the floor so hard the staff were lucky she was in slippers or there surely would’ve been a hole to fix. “Get out of here. You’re not here to sign a peace treaty nor are you here to play friendly. Know that you have initiated a war with this Kingdom. Guards!” she shouted.

The Khethovians, all of them present in the room, had gathered to stand against one of the walls. While the fiendish looking warriors held their swords, or as one of them had one, clubs, they grunted and threatened the guards surrounding them. Verthral and Karthremith were watching the King yell at his brother. As much as Verthral really didn’t care, Karthremith felt proud.

He had started a war. That had to mean they were satisfied.

They retreated. With one motion of his hand, Karthremith created a dome of flashing purple lights. One second they were there, the next they were gone. And the dome had disappeared.

After this day, the Kingdom of Luria loathed the Khethover Clan. They began a war.

Liam stared at Colinus. He was still a bit confused, but more and more was setting into place. Colinus’ hatred for Karthremith was justified. But it really didn’t sound like the Karth he knew. Not that it mattered. He would never see him again.