The Wolfless Queen

Chapter 1

“Don’t let them take anything away from you”

I didn’t understand my mother’s last words until now.

The entire kingdom is watching as I ascend the marble steps of the palace podium, waiting for the next words I will speak. Which could either make or break what my father had built. The crown on my head feels heavier than it should.

“They don’t need to like you. Fear is enough,” my father always said. But he somehow managed to have both.

I scan the crowd, nobles, pack leaders, highborn heirs with wolves under their skin and contempt in their eyes. They don’t like this arrangement.

A wolfless queen is a taboo—not written out, but it just is. It goes against everything they stand for.

But my father didn’t rule by tradition. And I was raised to do the same. He raised me to rule, whether or not I could shift was not important to him but I could take any of them here with just a pocket knife and they know it.

“Welcome,” I finally say, “to a new era.”

I hear half of the crowd scoff but somebody does it very loudly because they definitely want to be heard.

“You are not planning on ruling, are you?” a male voice asks.

He is expecting hesitation.

I smile. “Well, I already am, ” I answer. “Wolves don’t rule this kingdom, strategy and strength do and I learnt from the best.”

I pause.

“If any of you believe I am unfit to wear this crown, come take it. But I promise you won’t leave alive.”I smile again. Nobody challenges me.

“Good,” I nod once. “Welcome to my reign”

The crowd disperses almost as immediately as it gathered.

“He would have been proud,” Lord Thorne, my father’s closest friend tells me as I climb down the podium.

“Really?” I ask.

He nods with a smile.

“They don’t seem to like me though,” I tell him, fiddling with the pearls on the waist of my dress.

“It doesn’t matter,” He says, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Soon enough, they will see what your father and I see in you and agree that there is no better person to rule this kingdom”

“Are you sure you don’t want the reception?” He asks when I turn to leave.

“There’s no point. No one will come anyway,” I tell him.

My grandfather started the tradition of a coronation reception so he could spend time with the people on his first day as a king and actually get to know what they were going through so he could make things better.

“The Council will be there no matter what,” Thorne says this like The Council isn’t fighting for a front seat to see me fail.

“No. Thank you,” I walk back into the palace.

Somewhere within these walls, my father’s body is wrapped in ceremonial silks waiting to be buried. I have no time to mourn. The people would devour me if I did it in public.

That’s why I allow myself break the minute I am alone in my room. I muffle the sound by placing my hands over my mouth.

The floor is cold against my knees. I collapse. Not loud or dramatic. Just silent. Because they can’t know.

There is a knock on my door.

I wipe my tears hurriedly and breathe until the queen returns to my face.

“Enter”

One of the maids steps in.

“Damian has a message for you,” she says.

“What message?” I ask.

“He won’t tell me. Says it’s classified information,” she answers.

I follow her out of curiosity about what the head of the prison guards has to say.

I look at Damian and expect him to start talking but he gestures somewhere down the hallway.

When we are finally out of earshot he finally speaks. “The prisoner in the dungeon keeps requesting to see your father”

I frown.

What prisoner did the guards think was important enough to deliver a message for them?

“What prisoner?” I ask

”I don’t really know much about him. Only that your father asked me to notify him whenever the man asks of him,” He answers.

“Ok. Lead the way,” I tell him.

He tells me we have to walk through my father’s wing to make sure we weren’t being followed and keeps looking behind us. We climb down the stairs into the dungeon.

“Which of them is it?” I ask looking over my shoulder.

“His cell is the last one of this row,” Damian answers, pointing to the row to the left.

I walk all the way to the end. I see a man about my age sitting with his back to the wall. He seems different from the other prisoners. The cell opposite his is empty.

He is just sitting there while the rest of them grip the bars with murderous looks on their faces. Their moon-tempered silver shackles clanging with each movement. All of them are bound except him

For some reason, I feel the words he is going to speak are for my ears only.

“You may go,” I say to Damian.

He bows. “I will be outside the door if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” I say and he turns to leave.

I knock on the bars of his cell. Only then does he look up. I can swear I have seen him somewhere. He looks handsome in an unconventional way. He also has the look of someone who has seen way too much for his age.

“I asked for the king,” he says, looking me straight in the eyes.

He is not afraid, so that means I should be scared of him. He seems too sure of himself.

“He is dead,” I tell him.

He stands up immediately.

“What happened?”

“Suicide. A vial of wolvesbane was found next to his body”

“You don’t believe that,”

It is a statement not a question.

“Of course I don’t. But that’s what you would hear anywhere else. I am just keeping you in the loop,” I tell him.

“You must be Seraphina,”

“How do you know my name?”

“Your father talked about you half the time he was here”

“And what did he talk about for the other half?” I ask.

For a weird reason, I feel safe here. Maybe because he mentioned my father and made him sound like a person not just a king. The irony is I am surrounded by some of the most notorious criminals in Moonhaven’s history.

The stranger starts rummaging through a box of things in the corner. “He asked me to give this to you if something like this ever happened,” he says handing me a white envelope. “Don’t show it to anyone or tell anyone about it”

I must have a confused look on my face because he continues. “Those were your father’s orders”

I look into his eyes. “You said something about him telling you that something like this may happen. Did he seem strange to you the last time you saw him?”

“He didn’t drink wolfsbane. At least not willingly. Somebody was after your father and hopefully, there will be answers in the letter,” He answers

“Are you trying to say he was murdered?”

“Yes and you know it too,” He tells me and returns to where he was sitting wgen I walked in.

I want to ask what he had done to have him locked up because he doesn’t have the look of a criminal. He looks like he wouldn’t even hurt a fly. But I think better of it and leave.

Later when I am alone in my room, I turn the lock on my door and tear open the envelope… I just realized I didn’t even ask for his name… he gave me earlier.

There could be a bomb in it for all I know but I pull out the paper inside anyway.

The paper is so thin unlike the ones my father used to write me letters in the past. It says:

Dear Seraphina,

If you are reading this, it means they got to me faster than I could get to them but it also means I was close to finding out the truth.

I have not been honest with you. For a while now, the kingdom has been receiving threats from a rogue pack called the Hollowfangs.

You might be too young to remember but they were once a section within The Council. They were exiled because they committed treason and based on the messages they sent, they have an inside man.

Don’t trust anyone not even Thorne. I left you a few journals containing my findings in your mother’s room.

P.S.: I hope you don’t feel too lonely without me. I know you get bored when I am not around to entertain you ; )

Love,

Daddy Dearest.

I laugh at his sign-off because it’s the same way as when he has to write to me when he is off on royal duties. Even the postscript. So I let myself believe he will be back soon.

Don’t trust anyone, not even Thorne.

What could Lord Thorne have done to make my father decide he wasn’t to be trusted? For as long as I can remember, they have been very good friends and became as thick as thieves when my mother died.

Maybe my father was keeping his friends close but his enemies closer?

I wait for the maids to take back my dinner to the kitchen, because now that I know there is a killer in the palace I am paranoid, before folding the letter and placing it underneath my mattress.