Footsteps echoed down the long stone hallway, sending the rats scurrying back to their holes.
Delia sat up straighter, her stomach tightening. It was too early for the guards to change shifts, and far too late for her lawyer to be paying her a call. If the past seven months had taught her anything, it was that surprises were something to be feared within the prison.
The boots came to a stop in front of her cell. "Are you sure you want to go alone sire?" the voice of the warden was muffled by the heavy iron of her door. "She's a snake, that one. Allow me to leave you my personal guards, my lord."
"No, that won't be necessary," King Jonathan's warm, commanding voice rang out. Delia's stomach now roiled. She hadn't actually thought he would come.
"Very well sire," the warden replied. The door swung open, light from the hallways torches spilled into the room, making Delia's eyes water. In the doorway stood the tall silhouette of her former lover, now turned enemy.
Jonathan entered her cell, his face still hidden by shadows. Delia drew herself up as best she could, painfully aware that her clothes were ragged, her hair unkempt, her body rancid, and that the bucket in the corner made the whole room reek of shit. She had never before faced this man without an arsenal of feminine charms at her disposal, but now all her protections were stripped away. He, on the other hand, stood before her in his fine clothes and smelling of a fresh wash, power radiating from his every movement. How the tables have turned, Delia considered ruefully.
She had bribed the guard to pass on her message to Jonathan so long ago, back when she had been fresh to the prison. Her spirits were high back then, her fine clothing still in working condition and her dignity still salvageable. But as the months went by with no response to her note, Delia began to lose hope he would come. As even more time passed Delia resigned herself to her fate, accepted that she would never be the woman she once was again, that this was the end. How perfectly cruel then that he should pick now to come, when she had just finally given up hope.
They considered each other for a moment, across the dark cell. Before Delia could draw breath to speak, Jonathan thrust out his hand, a blue flame erupting from his palm and filling the room with bright light. The light burned her eyes, and she flinched away.
"Sorry," Jonathan said, his voice flat. "I would prefer to be able to see each other clearly." With that he nodded to the guard, who left, shutting the door behind him. Delia couldn't tell if he meant that as a kindness or a threat.
"Of course, my lord," Delia responded, her voice raspy from disuse. It was for the best- Delia suspected that trying her old tricks, her throaty purr or delicate laugh, would be a mistake with him now.
Jonathan's face was unreadable, a careful mask of disinterest. His body however, told a different story, his feet set in a battle-ready stance and his arms filled with tension. "You requested an audience with your king, did you not?" he asked. "Or rather, you requested an audience with this king. I'm aware I wasn't your first choice for the role." Contempt dripped from his voice.
For the first time in ages Delia felt the faintest sliver of hope rise within her. Anger, rage, resentment: these were emotions she could work with. It meant he still cared.
"You are my king whether I like it or not, that much is true. And as my king, surely you know that my sentencing is tomorrow," Delia began, trying to recall the speech she had spent so much time writing in her head all those months back.
"Your sentencing for the crime of regicide, you mean?" snarled Jonathan. "For conspiring against me, and those I hold most dear? For your complicity in the attempted murder of my mother, my lover, my friends? For your plot to destroy this entire country? You dare to ask me for leniency for crimes such as these?" Rage spilled out of the king, a cup filled to the brim and incapable of containing it anymore. The raw emotion stripped the regality away from his face, revealing someone much more reminiscent of that reckless boy she used to court. As a rule, Delia didn't much believe in regret, but this meeting was testing her.
Delia opened her mouth to begin her planned speech, then closed it again. Seeing him, hearing his rage, remembering the past made her reconsider. It occurred to her, perhaps for the first time in her life, that honesty might be the best policy.
"I haven't yet asked for anything, sire," Delia responded finally. Before Jonathan could interrupt she continued on. "But you are correct- I do wish to plead for leniency, just not for myself." She looked up at him now, her green eyes wide, hoping he could feel her honesty. "Please, please do not punish my family for my crimes. I acted alone, and did not conspire with them."
Jonathan's eyebrow twitched in surprise, or perhaps it was just a trick of the light. "Men wearing the Eldorne coat of arms tried to kill me on my coronation day. Do not try to rewrite history with me Delia, I remember that day quite clearly. I won't ever forget it."
Delia gave him as gentle a look as she could muster. "My lord, clearly you recall how I deceived you. Do you not think I am capable of deceiving my family as well?"
"I think a creature such as yourself is capable of almost anything," he shot back. "Though I must admit it is gratifying to hear you admit to being a liar and a snake."
"And so I am," Delia affirmed. "I won't tell you otherwise. But please, spare my family. They don't deserve the rage of the crown. Their only crime was in believing their daughter."
"And what exactly did they believe they were sending men for then, Delia?" Jonathan asked. "What need would there be if not for a coup?"
Delia had expected this. "They knew it was a coup, my lord."
"And yet you claim their innocence?" Jonathan growled.
"They believed that a coup was justified, and necessary for the survival of Tortall, because of lies and falsehoods that I told them," Delia replied firmly. "I told them things that made them believe you were fundamentally unfit for the crown, and that Roger was the superior choice. I made them believe that killing you was the only option that would ensure their own survival. I played on their fears, I encouraged their anxieties. Just as I played on your own pride and encouraged your entitlement to get you to do as I wanted."
Delia saw Jonathan's nostril's flare at the indignity of what she just said, but she couldn't let herself back down. Her family needed her to put them first, at least this one last time. Before Jonathan could stop her, she dropped to her knees before him, and pleaded, "I just thought of all people, you might most understand how cruel I can be to someone I have claimed to love. I beg of you, show my family your mercy." At this she bowed her head, unable to watch as he stormed out, taking her last hope with him.
To her surprise, Jonathan didn't leave. Instead he crouched down, until he was level with her. She flinched away. Delia had watched her prince on the practice courts enough times to know Jonathan didn't need weapons to be able to effectively kill. If a king kills a prisoner convicted of treason it's no murder, just an early execution.
But Jonathan's strong hands didn't reach for her. Rather the hand that was unoccupied by the flame rubbed his face tiredly. "Why Delia? Was it always a lie, even from the beginning?" his voice cracked slightly, betraying him.
Delia turned to him, drawing breath to deny it. But the look on his face brought her back to her earlier decision: she had to be honest now.
"It wasn't always a lie, but it was never fully true, at least not in the way you meant," she admitted. "I wasn't in league with Roger when we first met though. I was acting of my own volition at the outset."
"What do you mean it wasn't true, then?" Jonathan asked. The light from his palm sent shadows flickering at the corners of her cell. Delia had never seen the place so clearly before, and she wished she wasn't seeing it now. It was going to be hard to sleep there knowing how truly filthy it actually was.
"Well why do you think young ladies come to court, Your Majesty?" Delia responded. "To make the very best match they can make. You have your duties, and I had mine. No one ever inquired as to my feelings on the subject."
"No," Jonathan snorted derisively, standing back up again. "You don't get to act like what you did was the same as normal courtship. Other ladies did not do as you did. Lady Cythera never deceived anyone, she never seduced men with lies."
Now it was Delia's turn to snort. "Please. Cythera's family is one of the wealthiest in the country, and her father advised the King. The Court was just parties and fun and falling in love for her- she could afford it. That was not my position, nor the position of most other girls." At Jonathan's incredulous look Delia felt herself becoming impatient. "Are you really going to pretend to be this naive? Do you truly not understand what the Court is all about for young women? Your little plaything understood well enough, why else do you think that hedgecreeper was willing to risk everything just to avoid-"
"You will speak of Lady Alanna with respect, or I will leave now and Eldorne will see no clemency. Control your tongue mistress," Jonathan cut in icily. Delia turned away so he wouldn't see the rage she felt flash across her face, taking a moment to pull herself together. It still rankled her to have been bested romantically by someone who was barely a woman, who could waltz through the palace doing everything Delia was raised not to and yet still win her ultimate prize.
But this wasn't about Delia's ego anymore, stunning as it was to her to realize she still had one, she who lived in filth and ate more maggots than meal these days. It was about trying her damnedest to do just one right thing in her life, and so Delia drew breath to humble herself yet again.
"I beg your pardon, old habits die hard. I should not speak ill of my betters, nor of those who's quality of character outstrips my own," she looked up again at Jonathan, willing herself to believe in the words she had just said, hoping he felt her struggle towards sincerity as she looked him in the eye. "We, noble girls, are currency our families leverage to increase their status, nothing more. I understood my value and I did as was expected of me. My biggest flaw was my ambition, had I been content to settle down as the lady of a country estate with deep coffers neither of us would be here now. But alas I thought to better position myself to have more options in life. I wanted to be queen."
She had expected Jonathan to be angry with her, but instead he just looked profoundly sad. "I thought you loved me," Jonathan said softly. His sapphire eyes were wet, and for a moment Delia forgot the games, the sexual intrigue, the plots for power and domination. She saw not the king she tried to kill, but instead the young man she once spent a great deal of time with.
A memory came to her, unbidden, a night long ago after they first met. It was after he had bedded her for the first time, a gamble that had exhilarated her. The potential loss to her reputation could have ruined her, but she had sensed the young prince wasn't the type to use that against her and instead would feel closer to her for it. She calculated the odds such an action would work out in her favor to win the prince's interest, and well, Delia had always liked a little risk. Prior to that night she had readied herself for discomfort, pain, embarrassment, awkwardness, and general dissatisfaction, practicing coquettish smiles and moans of pleasure in her room alone to ensure she was ready to perform true love for the prince. What she hadn't prepared for was for Jon to have been kind, and gentle, for him to have been endearingly nervous and sweet. She wasn't prepared for him to have been worrying over whether she was comfortable, and wanting for her to enjoy herself. She hadn't prepared herself for him to be genuinely interested in her, nor for her to be taken by him. Afterwards, as she laid on his chest feeling him stroke her hair she felt absolutely terrified. The possibility of actually falling in love with Jon was not in her plan, would have meant a complete loss of her power. Delia may have been a risk taker but she wasn't willing to gamble with stakes that high. The next night she began to flirt with Jon's dumpy little squire, simply because she could tell the boy hated her and loved Jon, and it would cause the maximum amount of hurt to all parties involved, and well, the rest was history.
Now, looking at the man before her, she tried to summon a true response. She owed him that at least. "I liked you. What I loved was the idea of being queen," she replied softly, honestly. "I wish it could have been different, but that is what it was."
Jonathan looked at her with longing, but she could tell it wasn't for her. She had herself spent enough time longing for things just to be different somehow- better in some way, or easier maybe, or at least less cruel. She could recognize that look on someone else's face. In a different world, where she had made very different choices, perhaps Delia could have reached out then to hug him, and he would grip her back. Perhaps they could have eventually become friends someday, laughing about the follies of their youth as palace life went on around them. But they weren't in that world, they were in this one, where Delia had plotted to kill him and all he loved, they weren't on a palace veranda toasting to old times they were in her prison cell and tomorrow she was likely to be sentenced to execution. She would never see her family again, nor feel the sun on her skin or smell the scent of fresh cut flowers. In her last moments alive she would be filthy and weak, listening to jeers from a crowd of her lessers as a hangman slipped a noose around her once delicate neck. And she knew that was what she deserved. Today, she had only this moment to hold on to, and one last chance direct her fate towards that better, easier, kinder world.
"I have done wrong- to you, to others, to the very earth herself. There is nothing I can say for myself, I have done wrong and I must bear the consequence. I understand that the cost for fomenting treason is that of my life, and I accept that. But please, do not make Eldorne suffer unduly for my cruelty and deviousness. Please let my family live." Delia felt tears prickle her own eyes and to her own shock she ducked her head to hide them from Jon. She didn't want to manipulate him anymore, she just wanted him to have heard her out, and he had.
For a long moment they both were quiet, the regal king standing over the prone woman, with only the sound of scuttling rats to break the silence. Finally Delia heard Jon draw a ragged breath, and she wondered if he was crying as well, though she didn't dare look up to see.
"The crown has heard your pleas, and will consider them. Due to the heinous nature of your crimes, no other promises can be made. You will have your day in court tomorrow regardless." Jon's voice was closed, but not cold. Delia nodded vigorously, and before she could raise herself to look at him properly, he was already banging the door for the guard.
As the door creaked open, light from the torches in the hall spilled in and Jon closed his palm to extinguish his own flame.
"My king, I just want to, I- I thank you," Delia said, with meaning.
With the light behind him, his face was shrouded in darkness while Delia knew hers was illuminated. She looked at him with every bit of sincerity she felt, and repeated "Thank you. For everything." She could not read his face as he looked back at her, then without a word he strode off down the hall, his escort scrambling to keep up. Her door clanged shut again, and Delia was enveloped once more by total darkness.
Delia had no way of knowing how much time had passed in her cell, but she figured it had been many hours later when her door next opened. A bucket of foul smelling water and a truly disgusting rag was pushed through her door, along with what felt like one of her old gowns.
"Court day. Ye've been allowed the time to clean yerself and your family was permitted to send ye fresh clothes. Hurry, next time this door opens I'm taking ye out, no matter what state yer in," growled the watch captain.
Delia heeded his warning, and quickly scrubbed herself as best as circumstances permitted. The gown hung loose on her, and she was almost nauseated by the decadence of wearing something new. She could tell it was one of her temple gowns- something that demonstrated she was a woman of value but not ostentatious. Delia had to guess her mother had selected it, perhaps under the advice of their pompous lawyer.
True to his word, the captain came barreling in shortly after, just as Delia was clumsily tugging up her last stocking. As he slapped the irons around her ankles and wrists, she tried to use the weak torchlight to gauge whether she had pulled the dress on the right way round. Old vanities die hard, even under these circumstances.
The trip from her cell to the courthouse went by in a blur. Delia had thought to try to savor her last moments of fresh air and sunshine on the way, but in truth after months of being confined to a dank, dark cell the experience of being out was far too overwhelming for Delia to even take any of it in. Before she knew it she was being shackled to the defendants table in the courthouse.
Delia could hear commoners heckling from up in the gallery, and nobles muttering in disgruntlement behind her. The intensity of the light and noise was making her head throb, though she refused to show it. She could sense the royal box to her side was occupied, but Delia decided not to look. She had done all of the groveling her nature allowed her last night. Instead she stood, facing forward, waiting for her attorney to arrive.
Just as she was beginning to fear her lawyer had forsaken her, the man came jogging in with two of his legal assistants trailing after him carrying her paperwork in overstuffed boxes. "Apologies my lady. Your parents sentencing took longer than I expected, and the prosecutor and I were in chambers with the judge sorting out the details for quite some time. Your proceedings are running behind as a result," the man sniffed as he settled in to the table next to her.
For the first time in the courthouse, Delia dropped her stoic mask. "What happened to my parents, what did the Court decide?" she demanded.
Her lawyer continued to pull out files and books of law while his assistants helped arrange them into distinct piles on the defense table. None of them seemed to feel the same urgency she felt.
"My lady, I am one of the top attorneys this country has to offer. Your parents were able to get off relatively lightly, thanks to my expertise. Hefty fines for the foreseeable future- Eldorne will not know wealth again for at least a generation I suspect, but alas that was to be expected. But the real win was they were sentenced to time served! You can thank me for that one, my lady," the man sniffed again in a way that made Delia want to kick him in the shins.
"Time served?" she whispered, in shock. Relief filled her body, making her knees feel weak. She felt her resolve weaken and she was on the verge of turning to look at Jon when the judge entered.
"All rise!" called the clerk, and Judge Turomot swept into the courtroom. He commanded the court to be seated, and the deliberations that would decide Delia's fate began.
Delia's shock extended into her own proceedings, making it hard for her to even hear the list of charges against her. Time served? Fines? She couldn't believe it- they would keep their lives, they would even keep their estates. In poverty perhaps, but with titles still.
It took her attorney grabbing her by the arm and hoisting her bodily out of her seat for Delia to come to and realize her own sentence was about to be passed down. She thought she could feel at ease, knowing that Jon had fulfilled her final wishes, but as she realized her fate was about to be sealed her bravery and resolve began to waver. Delia leaned against the table slightly to keep her body stiff and upright, scolding herself for showing weakness. She was nearly a queen, twice over, after all.
"Delia of Eldorne, for these most heinous crimes you have been charged with, this court sentences you-" here Delia willed herself to keep her chin up as she readied herself to hear the manner of her death- "life in prison. She will be stripped of her titles and confined to her cell for the rest of her lifetime. The defendant has no chance of parole. If the defendant demonstrates good behavior after five years she may be eligible for visitation by family members. The Crown has shown great mercy on the defendant, and hopes she uses the rest of her life sentence wisely. The next time she is convicted of a crime, be it large or small, she will face the hangman. That is all." Turomot banged his gavel, and Delia reeled trying to comprehend what had just happened to her.
I get to keep my life? she marveled. And see my family again?
Delia now whirled to face the royal box. There sat Jon, looking utterly resplendent and wearing his crown. He looked born to it. Besides him sat his future queen, wearing a tiara as befitting her station as the King's bride to be. For a moment Delia and Jonathan merely looked at each other. Delia could feel the hate passing between them, the anger and the hurt and the rage. But she also felt the sorrow, and the acceptance. She knew this would be the last time they ever saw each other.
It was not in her nature to supplicate herself, even after everything else, and so she met his gaze squarely. She gave him a nod, and after a moment he returned it. It was no toast to old times on a veranda, but it was what they had. Then he and his chosen queen swept out of their box, to the fanfare of the court. Delia turned back to her attorney who was barking orders at his assistants, she just an after thought to his legal victory. She kept thinking about that last look at Jon- her lover, her victim, and her king. He had shown her more mercy than she had imagined possible, and she could not decide whether she loved him or hated him for it.