XXIV

AN: So I edited this a little more than I have the other chapters so far. Not in spelling or grammar wise, but in content. I loved the original version, but I really wanted to add another depth to it, so I hope you like the change... Not that you'd know the difference, but yeah... yay! Another chapter out before a month has passed! Actually, I think even a week... haha!

Endymion and Serenity fell asleep later that night and Serenity slept with her head upon his chest and his arm wrapped around her shoulders. Much later that night Serenity woke up and realized it was time to do as she planned.

She pulled out of Endymion's embrace and he didn't even seem to notice, only missing the warmth she gave off, he pulled the covers a little higher. Serenity pulled out the small dagger Adam had given her not so long ago and returned to Endymion's side. She climbed onto his waist and sat, so she could drive the knife deeper with only one downward motion. She tried but the knife stopped above his chest only a hair's distance away. She frowned at her lack of conviction and tried again. The knife didn't even reach it that far. She laid the tip against his chest and tried to make it go in, but her hand wouldn't budge. She pulled the knife to her, letting it rest in her lap with her hand still around the hilt. She started sniffling, she couldn't do it, memories of everything she'd learned about the King went through her head. First the angry ones, the ones that told her she must end his life, then the ones that told her, no, he was loved by so many people, so many people depended on his fair, kind and just rule. There was no better king than the one sitting below her and she knew it if she looked hard enough. A single tear splashed onto his cheek and she viciously wiped away the rest. She loved this man, she really did, she loved spending time with him, loved his thoughts and loved the way he looked at her.

Endymion felt a warm liquid drop onto his cheek and he stirred. He opened his eyes to see Serenity looking down at him. He was surprised she managed to do so without his notice. But something was wrong. He sat up and pulled her into a hug. "Hey, what's the matter?" He questioned, rubbing her back, she only shook her head.

He pulled away and looked down at her hands and noticed the blade. He grew suddenly angry and he dumped her off of him. The knife went scattering to the floor and Serenity toppled to the ground, sliding a few inches. She grunted, but that was the only acknowledgment of pain. "What do you think you're doing? You were going to try and kill me?" Endymion roared.

She shook her head.

"I should throw you into the dungeons this instant!" He jumped to his feet and towered over Serenity. "Let you rot in your own misery!"

She started bawling. "I meant to kill you!" She screamed up at him through her tears. "I had plenty of opportunity and I almost did twice, but I couldn't go through with it! Everybody loves you too much to do it!"

Endymion stopped for a moment, not expecting this reaction and then his anger returned and he stared down at the head that had collapsed again to her heaving chest. She looked pitiful sitting there in an awkward position, completely naked and crying into her hands, her hair askew in every direction. "What the hell would possess you to try and kill me after all that I've done for you?"

"Done for me?" She shook her head bitterly. "It doesn't matter. I was meant to kill you, that's why my father wanted me to marry you, why he suggested it." She managed to pull her head up to look at him after he reached down and pulled her shoulder in his harsh grasp. "I thought you were to be an overbearing horrible man, which was a mistake. I had agreed to it so I could get out from under Father's thumb. If I killed you, then I could leave his kingdom and go anywhere I wanted, a free woman. I never would have thought to go through with it if he hadn't threatened killing my mother. He did it anyways. I wasn't going to, but then you started all these other wars, and I thought maybe, maybe I was wrong about you, maybe you were a horrible war hungry king. I couldn't let you continue sending troops out to kill more innocent victims, casualties of war, I couldn't let you keep killing all the fathers, sons and husbands who fought to keep you at bay. I thought it would be best to kill you! Save them from your cruelty. But I couldn't do it! I couldn't kill you! You are too good of a man to die!" She babbled and her head dropped back to her chest again.

Endymion knelt beside her, staring at her for a long moment. She didn't know why he didn't just grab the knife and slit her throat, it would be in his right to do so. All she wanted to do was lay on the ground and beg for his forgiveness, plead for him to spare her and to understand. But she couldn't do that either, she was too proud for her own good. She'd spat out her words at him, letting him know the truth, but not groveling. She was not her mother and he was not her father. She wouldn't beg to save her life, she had made her choices, and she was to either die or live with the consequences. The ball was now in his court and even if he listened to her, it didn't matter, she was on the long walk to her death now.

"I should have you beheaded for even thinking to kill your king and husband." He said roughly, but quietly.

"I deserve worse than that." She agreed.

His hands on her shoulders flexed and squeezed just a little bit harder before he returned to his firm hold. "Why must you say things like that?"

"It is the truth. I have made the biggest grievance a person could possibly make. I have threatened the life of my sovereign and husband. I deserve to be punished severely and slowly."

"No, you don't."

Serenity's eyes widened and she stared at him confused.

"You deserve to be beaten, yes." He agreed. "And you will be punished. But no one will lay a hand on you." He held a finger under her chin so she couldn't look away. "In this country, to harm the wife is worse than the husband. The King is the third worst crime someone could commit, their soul would forever be damned. However to hurt a woman is worst than even the King and to hurt the Queen..." He died off, for such a crime was unspeakable to him.

"I am not the Queen." She whispered. "I am a foolish, foreigner who happens to share your bed and a contract between two countries. I am less than a woman, I am a foreigner. What happens to me does not count."

She saw his facial muscles tighten fractionally and she wondered if he was pondering that idea. If he could use that to his advantage, and it would be no less than she deserved. "Let me understand the things you just shouted at me. I am not sure I understand all of it."

"It doesn't matter." She cast her eyes downward. "It doesn't change the fact that I sat over you with a knife in my hands. And the original intention to carry through with its purpose."

His hand was removed from her chin and the other one released her shoulder. She looked out of the corner of her eye to see what he was doing. He stripped the cover off of the bed and wrapped it around her shivering form. "Let me hear all you have to say, and then we will discuss the matter of your actions and what we will do with you." She could see that his lips were pressed tightly together, making them rimmed with white. She urged to reach up and smooth away that tension, but she dared not. He obviously wasn't pleased to be sitting there with her rationally and discussing her attempt of murdering him.

Her heart was pounding as she waited for his next line and she realized that he was waiting for her to speak. "Why aren't you trying to kill me? Why am I still sitting here? Why are you so calm and rational?" She didn't realize she had intended to spew out so many questions at him.

"Because I knew it was coming. I just hadn't realized it would." At Serenity's blank eyed blinking, he sighed and reached out and she flinched, thinking he would backtrack on his words, after-all, they were just that. He sighed and lowered his hand. "You were so innocent when you came to me. I had hoped to save you from making a life and death decision. I thought I had. In the end, I now understand Nephrite's warning about how it was unclear whether or not you would betray me. It wasn't something I could avoid or choose for you, and it wasn't even a choice you had to make. It would have always come down to this. You would try to kill me and whether or not you succeeded was up for discussion. That's where the stars were unsure, not about where your heart resided."

"I would have succeeded." Serenity mumbled and flinched back thinking he'd strike her. He didn't even stir at her words and she saw a heavy weight resting on his shoulders that hadn't been there that morning. She supposed he was trying to decide whether or not to kill her and deal with the consequences of another war that he had just returned back from. "You would have been dead had I been able to do it. If you weren't who you are, you would have been."

Endymion snorted and it was the first time she'd seen him do anything other than fairy-tale prince-like. "I highly doubt that."

"You were immune to me, I was able to sit on you without your knowledge."

"I am not doubting your capability to get close to me, you have succeeded where all others have failed, but immune to you, I am not. Nor am I brushing aside your ability to do as you pleased while I slept, it is in fact your ability to kill that I am degrading. You are incapable of it." Endymion's hand stirred but he thought better of it, and so it remained by his side. "I've seen you brush off the bug that was biting you instead of swatting it. You are incapable of physical harm, unless it is your own."

Serenity didn't respond at first, even though his point was rather valid. "It doesn't change the fact that I attempted it."

"About that..." He sculpted his sentences before he finished. "Tell me why exactly. One more time. I heard it the first time, but now I want to understand the pieces."

Serenity nodded though she knew this was only drawing out the inevitable conclusion he would make, and that would be to sentence her to death. "What do you want clarified?" Her voice caught as she readied herself for a night full of defending herself and her actions. Catching her trying to kill him was one thing,but the story of her parents and her poor breeding was another.

"The thing about your mother, for starters."

Serenity sniffed before she started in on her tale. "My father called upon me when the war started to turn sour. I knew it must if he was offering me as a piece token. I was the last thing he would hand over to the enemy, a mark of his disgust and weakness but yet I was his daughter and as such, I still held a little leeway over a foreigner who could not know the extend of his shame. I would not have agreed to it. Not even if he threatened my death. But he did not threaten mine, never even attempted it, rather going for the one I could never refute before all else. Thinking of it now, you must have really scared him, if he manipulated things as much as he did. He would be terrified to lose his land and any control he has over the people."

"So he threatened to kill your mother, and he did anyway?"

Serenity could not look at him, this part of the story shamed her almost as much as admitting to who her father was. "He discovered her affair after I was already married to you for awhile. I do not know how he found out and despite it all, I think he would have honored his agreement with me, had she not infuriated him as she did. He had to kill her, least word came to you and you started to suspect I may not in fact be the princess you believed me to be. Though I am, she spat it in his face when he demanded to know who the real father was. That of all the horrible and cruel jokes there were in the universe, my being his was the worst.

The affair had only started after I turned ten. He was furious that she was not being the good little wife, waiting and pining for his return in the castle that he called his residence, and yet only attended to a few times a year. I do not know what he was angrier over, the fact that she was having an affair or that she left the castle that he had provided for her, to return back to the place she had come from, and had to distance herself so far from anything remotely related to him."

"So how did she die?" Endymion asked, and it burned in him that he could not touch her, that she would still think of him as capable of being violent on her person.

"Her words ignited his anger, and from the way I hear it, it was worse than any he had before. He beat her regularly, but this was something he'd lost control over, ending her existence within a few minutes. He went too far."

"I imagine you found this out through a reliable source?" At her nod he pressed. "And who might that have been?"

"Adam." She said simply.

"And he brought you the knife too?" Endymion questioned. "You didn't have any of your original items remaining by the time he came to visit, no way for you to carry a knife with you." He explained as her eyes grew wide with fear for her friend, now that she had failed in her mission, she hadn't realized suspicion would be cast upon him.

"He had nothing-"

"Do not worry for your friend. I am not as ignorant as you suspect of me. If you had a knife, I'd have found it; I had your first dress searched. I imagine it is only under orders that he even brought you a weapon, perhaps knowing that if anyone would be injured, it was likely to be you, playing with it."

"I am good with a sword." Serenity gritted out, he was casting her too far into the damsel in distress and ignoring who she really was, what she was almost capable of doing.

"Regardless of that, I will not punish him for that incident. I understand direct orders and I understand his secondary, perhaps primary reason for doing so in the first place, to be away from that environment and be here with you." When she breathed a sigh of relief his eyes sharpened on her and she knew this was far from over. "However the latest development he's had in your intentions cannot be as easily overlooked. He did not only give you the weapon but he plotted the assassination as well as the escape of the culprit. That he will need to answer to."

"He did not-"

"I can tell when you are lying to me." Endymion cut her off and took her head into both of his hands. "It is high time I started paying attention to what I already knew. It was a mistake to marry you. You had been too fresh and innocent. I recognized that for what it was, but I ruthlessly shoved it aside to claim peace among our kingdoms. Has I stopped to think of what I was going to be doing to you, I may have faltered in my choice. I apologize for not paying closer attention to you and the position not only I was putting you in, but also your father. I forced a girl to not only become a woman that night, but also a wife. I should never agreed to such an arrangement the moment I first laid eyes on the weak fairy that stumbled into my camp." She did not dare contradict him on his opinion of that situation.

Serenity gave a sharp nod. "So what are you going to do now?"

"Well first, you are going to continue answering to me, three questions actually." Endymion lifted Serenity off the cold marble floor and returned her to a seated position in bed. He pulled a chair closer to her, but didn't touch her while he sat in it. "First, you tried to kill me?"

"Yes." Serenity wouldn't lie, she had and he'd caught her and she'd already admitted to as much.

"But you didn't, why? I know you had plenty of opportunity and that knife very well could have." What he wanted wasn't just the affirmation that she could not be violent, but rather the reason why even if she attempted it, it failed.

"I tried, but every time I swung down I'd see faces of your friends, and stories about what a great man you were and how much you cared for the people who you commanded and the countries you brought into your control and your allies."

"This is not one of the three questions, but did you know I didn't start the war with your country?"

"You didn't burn that village?"

"No. Quite the opposite really. I tried making peace with your father, saying that we could work better as partners than as one unit or separated. I had no interest in acquiring your land. Your father was insistent that he was the ruler of ours. He attacked us. He sent troops and kidnapped all of the women in a village two hours north of Mina's home and brought them back to the Hu property had them raped and brutally displayed and posted along the border. The first thing I did when I retaliated was to take down all the women and bury them. They were dead by the time we reached them. The next thing I did was set out to find the men that did it and slaughtered them and put their heads in a basket and sent it to your father."

Serenity shivered. "Why are you telling me all of this?"

Endymion sighed. "I just wanted you to know the truth before you got any more ideas in your head about why I go to war with whom I go to it with. I will never again tell you war stories or of the brutality that goes on in this world. I just needed you to understand the difference between your father and me. To know the whole story and the real one."

"Now that I do, I understand your position better, but why take me for a wife? Wouldn't our kingdoms eventually join together as one?"

"No. It will be a real partnership because when your father dies, your eldest brother will inherit the kingdom and won't want to wage war on his baby sister unless he's like your father."

"In nothing more than looks." Serenity responded instantly.

"Good." Endymion still didn't touch her but lent forward. "Now, for my last question, and this one will decide your fate. Do you love me?"

Serenity turned her face away. "How can I answer that? For if I do love you, what would it matter? Either you'll kill me anyways or I'm stuck here with you."

"Serenity, look at me." Serenity looked and Endymion took a deep breath to reorient his thoughts. "If you don't love me, I'll let you go. I'll say you died and I'll marry another woman. I'll manage to make it seem believable and you'll never have to deal with me or your father again. You can live that life you've dreamt of, unrestricted and free to live and do as you please. But with that, you'll no longer have any contact with me and if your father happens to find you in another country he's decided to go to war against, then I can't do anything about what he wants to do if that happens. The same goes for anyone you meet and get in trouble with. That's all up to you.

But if you love me, then you can stay here with me, you'll still live that life without many restrictions. Being queen does mean a few responsibilities, but not too many to being felt like you're in a cage and can't do anything. I'll protect you to the best of my ability from anything and everyone. And I'll try to make you the happiest woman alive. I can't promise that I won't hurt you but I can promise I'll never physically hurt you and I'll never cheat. You will have to deal with me and my tendencies whatever they happen to be that day. You'll have to deal with the court and my bratty sister and all of my friends. You will be forced to deal with a lot of issues that wouldn't ever crop up in a more normal life. We can't go live anywhere we want, pretty much just this country. I like it better here anyways. As king I can't very well pick up and move to Egypt and live there and neither can you really. If we join in a partnership with them, then perhaps I can invest in a hide-away home there for vacations.

So what is your response? A life free of responsibilities, or do you love me?"

"Even if you loved me, why am I still breathing?"

"Have you not been listening to a word I said? I love you. I could never harm a hair on your head. That's what true love is. I am even willing to disregard your actions tonight."

"But why? Why aren't you angry with me? You were furious when you first found out, it seems unlikely you'd forgive me this quickly."

"Oh you'd still be punished, but I have a more appropriate punishment in mind. Yes, I was horrified and filled with rage at the idea that you would betray me like that, but I could never lay a hand on you and your words were flung at me too quickly for me to even do more than listen. The idea of hurting you had taken all the wind out of my sails and I could not stand the idea of losing you like that. Perhaps I am still a little angry and you may need to eventually make it up to me, the trust will be a little weaker than it has ever been, but I would rather take that path than push you away and never have the chance. You haven't answered my question, and this is where you really should, while its still on the table and I don't rethink my offer. Otherwise, who knows, you may yet end up in the dungeon." Hew as trying to break the weight of the moment, trying not to let her see how much he put himself on the line waiting for her words, waiting for what he most wanted to hear, something he had not yet heard pass through her lips.

Serenity's bright blue eyes filled with tears and she flung herself at Endymion who caught her easily.

"Hey, that's not an answer!" He said as he stroked her shaking back.

"I love you so much!" Serenity moaned. "I physically felt ill at the thought of trying to kill you. I probably would have killed myself first before even marring a single inch of your flesh."

Endymion growled and pulled her away. "Don't make jokes like that. I will not have you saying anything about killing yourself." He was so intense that Serenity bowed her head and Endymion pulled it back up. "I couldn't stand the idea of something happening to you - I could have hurt you when I pushed you off." He realized with a start. "There was a knife in your hand and you could have fallen onto it."

"It didn't happen." Serenity said softly, resting her hands on his cheeks in return, and trying to show him that it was true, that she was fine and that he had not almost caused her any form of injury.

"The matter still remains that while I'm protecting you from everything that wishes to break us up and hurt you, you can't go behind me and kill yourself! I love you too much and your death would probably lead into mine."

"You love me?" Serenity didn't care about anything else, except that.

Endymion nodded and rubbed a hand down the back of her head, bringing her flesh up against him. "I think it happened while we were at Mina's, you were sitting in the garden after that night when you'd gotten drunk and you were just so happy at something I had done with you that it melted my heart a little to think such a small thing would cause that reaction."

"Your words did mean a lot to me."

"Hell Serenity, you were pretty then, you're beautiful now, I was concerned about your weight. I thought every time I forced myself onto you, I was going to break you in half. That night was the first time I didn't feel that way and every night since."

"You wouldn't have broken me, but I think it was your patience and kindness in the act that opened my eyes to your true nature and not the scary man I was forced to wed who led all those horrible men grabbing at me. I had been petrified of you that first night I was at your camp before we were married."

"I'm so glad things changed." Endymion stood up. "It really is time to let these things go and put them once and for all behind us. It is time to sleep." He'd deal with figuring out her punishment in the morning.

"Endymion?" He looked down at her and she wrapped her arms around his neck. "I'm not tired."

"Oh."