Lucia novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: The King's Failure
"Say that again," I whispered.
"Your mother saw our marriage the night before her twenty-fourth birthday."
My father kept his eyes on the portrait.
"She told me on our wedding night, laughing, because she thought a dream could not hurt us."
"What did she see?"
"A man who read petitions at supper. A man who patted her hand when she spoke and never heard a word."
"That was not you."
"It was me by the end." His voice shook. "I swore to look up. For fifteen years I did, Lucia."
"Then she died, and I read petitions at her funeral."
I put a hand over my mouth.
He had said almost the same words Corradin said in the granary.
Two men, a kingdom apart, and both had sat at a funeral with their eyes on paper.
"I cannot lose another woman," my father said. "That is all the treaty was."
"A marriage to a stranger is not safety."
"A stranger across the mountains is alive."
"Father, I stopped speaking in the dream. I died at thirty-four."
"You were alive for ten years first." He wiped his face with the heel of his hand. "I thought that was worth the cost."
"It is not."
"I know that now. I knew it the moment you named that boy in the hall and turned to me like a drawn sword."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Lucia are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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