Chapter 14 - The Viper's Last Strike
The wind howled across the crenelated battlements of the Western Tower, carrying the scent of incoming snow.
Elena stood atop the stone parapet, peering out into the darkening northern horizon.
Beside her, Rowan was examining a black-fletched arrow retrieved from the bodies of the slain escorts.
"Mountain clans," Rowan muttered, turning the barbed iron point in his fingers.
"The tips are dipped in viper venom from the southern swamps," he identified.
"This is the mark of the Iron Fang, the deadliest mercenary band in the border mountains," Rowan warned.
"Victoria Langley did not escape to hide in a ditch," Elena said, her voice sharp as an ice floe.
"She has nothing left to lose," Elena reasoned.
"Her husband is executed, her wealth is seized, and her house is disgraced across the continent," she reflected.
"A woman who has lost everything is more dangerous than an army of fifty thousand men," Elena noted.
"Where would she go, Your Majesty?" Rowan asked.
"The mountain passes are guarded, and the sea ports are closed to all outgoing ships," he added.
Elena closed her eyes, remembering her years scrubbing the cold stone corridors of the royal residences.
"She is not running away from Eldoria, Rowan," Elena realized, her eyes snapping open.
"She is coming back here," Elena stated.
Rowan frowned, perplexed by the thought.
"Coming back to the palace? That is madness!" Rowan protested.
"She would be recognized and arrested before she crossed the outer moat," he argued.
"She knows the catacombs, Rowan," Elena explained, turning away from the battlements.
"When my parents were murdered twenty years ago, Victoria and George used the Old Crypts beneath the Chapel of St.
Valeria to smuggle their assassins inside," Elena recalled.
"Those tunnels were sealed with iron grates thirty years ago," Rowan countered.
"Iron grates rust in damp earth, Rowan," Elena replied.
"And Victoria has held the keys to the municipal works for two decades," she pointed out.
"She knows tonight is the Grand Inquest for Chancellor Vane," Elena continued.
"All our guards will be stationed around the Great Hall and the lower perimeter to manage the public crowds," she deduced.
"The royal private chambers will be almost empty," Elena warned.
Elena walked quickly down the winding stone stairs, Rowan keeping pace at her side.
"What are your orders, Your Majesty?" Rowan asked.
"Leave the regular guard deployments exactly as they are," Elena commanded.
"Do not let Vane’s supporters suspect that we know Victoria is near," she instructed.
"I want six of your best veteran scouts hidden behind the tapestries in the Queen's Bedchamber," Elena directed.
"And Celestine?" Rowan asked with concern.
"Place Celestine in the High Scriptorium under your personal guard," Elena ordered.
"Victoria hates me for taking her power, but she hates Celestine for abandoning her," Elena noted.
"If she reaches Celestine, she will kill her out of pure spite," Elena said.
Two hours later, total darkness blanketed the palace of Eldoria.
The wind blew fiercely, rattling the heavy leaded windows of the Queen's Bedchamber.
A single candelabra burned on the bedside table, casting flickering shadows across the crimson velvet draperies.
Elena sat in a high-backed wooden chair facing the grand fireplace, an unread book resting upon her lap.
She wore a simple dark tunic, her broadsword resting against the side of the chair within arm's reach.
The silence stretched for an hour, broken only by the crackle of burning pine logs.
Then, a soft scrape of stone against stone sounded from behind the heavy tapestry of the ancient kings.
A narrow gap opened in the masonry.
A figure draped in a stained, ragged travelling cloak stepped silently out from the dark passage.
The hood fell back, revealing the hollow, mud-streaked face of Lady Victoria Langley.
Her former beauty was completely erased, replaced by gaunt cheeks, bloodshot eyes, and lips drawn back in a feral snarl.
In her right hand, she gripped a long, thin steel stiletto that gleamed dully in the firelight.
"You should have looked behind you, little queen," Victoria whispered, her voice rasping like dead leaves.
Elena did not turn around immediately.
She took a slow, measured breath and closed the book upon her lap.
"I have been waiting for you, Victoria," Elena said, turning her head slowly to meet the intruder's gaze.
Victoria froze for a heartbeat, surprised by the lack of fear in Elena’s tone.
Then a crazed, bitter laugh broke from Victoria's throat.
"Waiting for me?" Victoria hissed, taking three creeping steps across the woven carpet.
"You think because you wear a circlet of gold, you are invincible?" Victoria sneered.
"You took my husband’s head!" she shrieked.
"You took my estates! You turned my own daughter against me!" Victoria screamed.
"George took his own head when he plotted against the Crown," Elena replied calmly, rising from her chair.
"And Clarissa chose a life of repentance over your poisonous web of greed," Elena added.
Victoria raised the poisoned stiletto, lunging forward with desperate, blinding hatred.
"DIE, SCULLERY SLUT!" Victoria screamed, thrusting the blade directly toward Elena’s heart.
Elena did not step back.
She deflected the thrust with her left forearm, using the heavy iron bracer beneath her sleeve to knock the blade aside.
The steel glanced off the metal with a sharp, ringing spark.
Before Victoria could recover her balance, Elena drove her right palm upward into Victoria’s chin.
The duchess stumbled backward, crashing violently against the carved oak bedpost.
The stiletto flew from her hand and clattered across the hearthstones into the roaring fire.
Victoria scrambled across the floor, hissing like a cornered beast, trying to reach for a broken piece of firewood.
Elena stepped forward and drove the heavy heel of her riding boot down onto Victoria’s wrist.
Bone cracked beneath the pressure, and Victoria shrieked in agonizing pain.
Six royal guards stepped out from the shadows of the alcoves, their crossbows cocked and leveled.
Rowan followed, his massive broadsword held low and ready.
Elena looked down at the fallen duchess, her face a mask of absolute, unyielding coldness.
"Your reign of terror began with a slap in the Great Hall, Victoria," Elena said softly.
"And it ends here, crawling on the stones of the family you tried to destroy," Elena declared.
Victoria looked up, spit and tears mixing on her dirty cheeks, her eyes hollow with the finality of her defeat.
"Curse you...
curse the blood of the dragon..." Victoria wheezed.
Elena signaled to the guards.
"Take her to the lowest oubliette," Elena commanded.
"No trials, no crowds, no grand speeches," Elena decreed.
"Let her name be erased from the archives of Eldoria forever," she ordered.
As the guards dragged Victoria away into the cold dark of the catacombs, Elena turned back to the window.
The snow had begun to fall, dusting the ancient towers of Eldoria in a clean, pure white.
May you like
The past was finally buried.
The future had arrived.
