Chapter 151: Tick tock 3

LYSANDER

I studied his face, searching for some flicker of hesitation I hadn’t yet found. "That frightens me, if I’m being honest with you right now."

"It’s the only way out of this particular corner," he said. "You cherish how your uncle ruled. He was loved by a great many people, and rightfully so. But even... goddess bless his soul... Alpha King Cornelius had to make difficult choices during his reign. Choices considerably harder than the one currently sitting in front of you."

"Like killing his own subjects," I said.

"Yes."

That single syllable hit harder than the entire speech that preceded it.

"Not long ago," Bradley continued, "an entire group of Omegas and healers had to be exterminated on his direct orders."

"What?" I stopped walking entirely, my whole body going rigid. "W... Why would my uncle do that?"

"I don’t question my King unless I see clear reason not to trust his judgment," Bradley said. "I asked him, once. He wouldn’t tell me the full reason. All I knew was that it had to be done, for the stability of the Alpha King’s seat."

I stared at him, something cold spreading through my chest that had nothing to do with the corridor’s temperature. "You just carried out an order like that without ever knowing why?"

"That’s the job," Bradley said, simple and unapologetic. "I serve the crown. Not my own curiosity about its reasoning."

"That’s not loyalty," I said. "You are not a High sentinel. You are a Beta. A second in command. What you just told me...That’s blind obedience, and there’s a difference."

"Perhaps," Bradley allowed. "But it’s kept this house standing through worse storms than the one currently gathering around us."

I dragged a hand down my face, trying to steady the thoughts spinning faster than I could organize them. My uncle. The same man who’d apologized to me in a library moments before his death, who’d handed me a throne he believed I deserved, who’d spoken of Bonnie’s kind with something that sounded, at the time, almost like reverence. That same man had ordered an entire group of healers and Omegas killed, and Bradley had simply carried it out without ever demanding the reason why.

"Do you know who they were?" I asked. "The ones he ordered killed."

"Not specifically," Bradley said. "Servants, mostly. A handful of healers among them, all low-ranking, nothing that drew much attention at the time. It happened quietly, the way these things are meant to happen when they’re necessary."

Necessary. The word again, wielded like it excused everything attached to it.

"And you want me to authorize something similar," I said. "Right now. Tonight."

"I want you to protect what you’ve already sacrificed so much to build," Bradley said. "Your throne. The healer Bonnie’s safety. Everything currently hanging by threads thinner than either of us would like." He stepped closer, his voice dropping further. "If word of what happened today reaches Edelina before we control it, she will use it. You know she will. She’s been waiting for exactly this kind of opening since the moment you made that deal in front of the Elder Circle."

"There has to be another way," I said.

"I’m listening," Bradley said, though nothing in his tone suggested he believed I’d find one.

I turned away from him, pacing a tight line in the corridor, my mind racing through every option I could construct and discarding each one as fast as it formed. Bribery. Threats. Reassignment to some distant outpost where their testimony would carry less weight. None of it felt solid enough to bet a kingdom on, and Bradley knew it too, standing there patient and silent, waiting for me to arrive at the same conclusion he’d already reached minutes ago.

"What if we bind them somehow instead," I said finally. "A witch’s oath. Something that prevents them from speaking of it at all or betraying me, without ending their lives over it."

Bradley considered that, his expression shifting slightly, something almost approving crossing his features. "That could work, provided we find a witch skilled enough to craft a binding that thorough, and willing to do it quietly, without word reaching anyone we don’t control."

"Maybe Madeline Blossom can do it. Reach out to her before she leaves the estate. If she cannot... find one," I said. "And ensure it is today. I won’t authorize murder to protect a throne I’m not even certain I want most days, Bradley. I won’t become the kind of King who solves every problem by making witnesses disappear."

"Even if it costs you everything you’ve fought for since your uncle died," Bradley said, though it wasn’t quite a question.

"Even then," I said. "I have to believe there’s a version of ruling that doesn’t require me to become exactly the kind of man I’ve spent my whole life trying not to be."

Bradley studied me a long moment, something unreadable passing behind his eyes, and then he nodded once, sharp and final.

"I’ll find a witch," he said. "Today, as you’ve asked. But Your Majesty..." He paused, and for the first time since I’d known him, something almost like worry crept into his voice. "I hope you understand that mercy has a cost too. It simply asks for payment later, rather than now."

"I’m aware," I said.

"Are you?" he said. "Because your uncle believed the same thing once, before he learned otherwise. I watched that lesson cost him more than he ever admitted to anyone, including me."

We stood there a moment longer, the weight of everything unsaid settling heavy between us, before he turned and continued down the corridor, already pulling his phone free to make whatever calls this new plan required.

I stayed behind a moment longer, staring at the space where he’d been standing, and thought about my uncle giving that order, about whatever reason had felt important enough to him that he’d taken it silently to his grave rather than explain it to the one man loyal enough to have carried it out without question.

I wondered, not for the first time since this nightmare began, exactly how many more secrets were buried in this family’s history, waiting for me to stumble across them one horrifying revelation at a time.