The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 500

“The public is not on your side, Liora. They haven’t been for a while, but after today, you’ll only ever be known as the stilted ex-princess who couldn’t handle losing the spotlight. Who was out for blood. Who conspired with the headmistress, a witch, to assassinate me.”

I looked at the wall past her shoulder and ground my teeth together.

“You have one option,” she said. “Marry Ambrose, go to Falcon’s Reach, and stay there. Live quietly and obediently, and never come back. And if you do that, then everyone you care about will survive.”

She started to turn.

“Marcus will not be killed,” she said over her shoulder. “Callum will live a better life without you. Mia and Zane will be reunited. All you have to do is obey.”

With that, Bianca turned and left. I watched her go, each calm footstep like a gunshot bouncing off the walls of the quiet dungeon. Once she was gone, I leaned against the wall, my legs no longer able to support me, and slid down all the way until I was sitting.

Marcus was being tortured, at risk of death if I didn’t marry Ambrose. Mrs. Oakes was dead, allegedly. I didn’t know where Mia was, or why she had been taken. I didn’t know what was happening to Callum and Zane right now; for all I knew, it was just as bad as the rest of us.

And yet, if I obeyed, then the entire kingdom was at stake. Not just me and my friends.

As I sat there in that dark, musty cell, I began to wonder what they would want me to do. Marcus would want me to keep fighting. Zane would want me to find another angle, a way to weasel my way out of this. Mia would just want me to survive. She’d want all of us to survive.

And Callum…

He’d want to run away. With me. With Mia and Zane. All of us.

My hands curled into fists in my lap.

Just then, I heard quiet shuffling beside me. I picked my head up, having expected to be the only one in the cells. A small, familiar cough made me sit up straight, eyes going wide.

“Mia?” I called out.

I pressed my fingers against the tape over my eyebrow, thinking. The sun had started to go down, the light coming through my small window turning from yellow to a deep golden, and now the purplish hue of dusk. My head felt like it was on fire, and for now, all there was to do was wait.

“Get some sleep if you can,” I said. “I don’t know what tomorrow looks like.”

“You too,” Mia said.

I didn’t think I would. But the exhaustion had been sinking in since before the tournament even started thanks to the alcohol last night, and the adrenaline had long since burned out. Soon, my eyelids started to become heavy, and I felt myself nodding off with my head against the bars.

I woke at some point to the sound of footsteps. They weren’t the light, haughty click-clacks of Bianca’s heels, nor were they the heavy boots of a royal guard. These ones were so quiet they were almost silent, quick and efficient.

I hardly had a chance to open my eyes and lift my head, blinking through the grogginess, when a figure crouched down next to my cell. He wore a dark guard’s uniform, but it was a little loose on him, and the face peering out from beneath the brim of his hat was so familiar it made tears prick my eyes.

“Before you say anything,” Zane whispered, holding up a key, “yes, I know the hat is ridiculous.”