WebNovels

Chapter 33 - Found out

"What would I do?" he said again, this time with a hint of amusement that was far more terrifying than any rage. He walked past me, stopping at a small writing desk near the fireplace. His fingers idly trailed over a stack of correspondence tied with a ribbon. "I have my own ways of dealing with spies."

He didn't need to look at you to know your eyes had darted to the letters, to know a wave of cold fear was now washing over you. The correspondence was clearly stamped with your family's crest.

He picked up a letter, his touch delicate, almost reverent. "But we're not talking about you, are we, Princess? You're a pawn. A piece on the board." He turned, the letter held aloft between two fingers like a captured butterfly. "No, we are talking about your father."

The air left my lungs. The room, which had just moments ago felt oppressive, now felt like a vacuum. I could hear the frantic beat of my own heart, a hummingbird trapped in my chest.

"I imagine he's quite proud of you," he continued, his voice a casual, conversational tone that made the words a thousand times worse. "Brave daughter, risking her life for her kingdom. A noble pursuit." He smiled, a flash of white teeth in the dim light. "But what he doesn't know is that your little mission was compromised from the very beginning. He thinks he's a master strategist, sending you here to get information and end me"

He took another step closer, his eyes fixed on my face, a morbid curiosity shining in their depths as he watched me unravel. "The trouble with master strategists, though," he said, his voice dropping low again, "is that they don't anticipate how much damage they can cause when they're proven wrong."

He held out the letter to me. My eyes dropped to the words, my father's familiar script bold and clear. 'You are my final hope. Have you found out what I sent you? We are running out of time, you have to end him soon.

He held it there for a moment, letting me read the incriminating evidence. "Your father has powerful enemies within his own council," he said, pulling the letter away before I could snatch it. "Men who would love nothing more than to see him exposed as a traitor. A man who sends his only daughter to a fool's errand, only to have her exposed. The public would see it as cowardice. The kind of cowardice that gets a man... removed."

"My power is in the history books, Princess. In the stories they have told and will tell a hundred years from now." He paused ""My father's line, you see," he began, his voice a low, resonant hum, "was founded not on conquest, but on a prophecy. A very specific prophecy. And you thinking you could end me is foolish."

The room was silent again, but this time it was a different kind of quiet. A silence filled with the echoes of unspoken threats, of futures shattered, of a world that was suddenly a fragile thing in the hands of a madman..

He slowly and deliberately placed the letter on the small, flickering flame of the oil lamp. It caught fire instantly, the edges curling and blackening. I watched, mesmerized by the destructive beauty of the flame, a mirror of my own world now burning to ash.

"You see," he said, watching the letter burn. "I don't need to hurt you. I just need to remind your father that his fate—and yours—is entirely in my hands." The letter was gone, a wisp of smoke curling up towards the high ceiling, taking my hopes with it. "I am capable of anything. And now, you know it too."

He never raised his voice, but the message was louder than any shout. 

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