My Mother Forced Me to Marry a Stone Statue to End a War — On Our Wedding Night, I Felt My Dead Fiancée's Heartbeat Inside the Marble
The air still felt heavy with the smell of scorched metal when I returned to the castle. My mother would know I had intervened. The clock was ticking, not just for Clara, but for my plan.
As I walked through the rain-swept courtyard garden, a figure detached himself from the shadows beneath a dripping oak tree. Lord Julian Hawkes. Eleanor’s former secret advisor, a man I had always mistrusted but never truly understood.
He approached slowly, his steps hesitant, his gaze fixed on the ground. He looked thinner, his usually impeccably tailored clothes now rumpled. Guilt clung to him like the damp air.
“Your Majesty,” he began, his voice hoarse, “I must speak with you. Before it’s too late.”
I stopped, regarding him with cold suspicion. “Too late for what, Lord Hawkes? More of my mother’s machinations?”
He flinched, then nodded, his shoulders slumping. “Yes. And for my own soul. Three years, Your Majesty. Three years I have carried this burden.”
He pulled a thick, leather-bound ledger from beneath his cloak, its pages crisp and new, unlike the old, dusty royal accounts. He held it out to me, his hand trembling slightly.
“This is not a copy,” Julian said, his voice barely a whisper. “These are my personal records. The true ledgers.”
I took the book, my fingers brushing his. The leather felt cold and slick from the rain. I opened it to a marked page. My eyes scanned the precise script, the columns of numbers.
My breath hitched. Dates, payments, false invoices. The ledger detailed massive withdrawals from the royal coffers, specifically earmarked for “border defenses” and “military procurement.” But the recipients listed were not my loyal captains.
“These names,” I said, pointing to a list of obscure, foreign titles. “These are not our allies. These are mercenaries from the Northern houses. The very ones my mother claimed we needed to fight.”
Julian nodded, his face pale. “Indeed, Your Majesty. Queen Dowager Eleanor never truly sought peace with our traditional rivals. She secretly forged separate, lucrative treaties with those very houses. Not alliances, but agreements to look the other way.”
“Look the other way while she embezzled funds?” I finished, the pieces clicking into place.
“Precisely,” he confirmed. “She siphoned off a staggering 10,000 gold sovereigns from the state treasury over the past three years. This money, ostensibly for fortifying our northern borders, was paid to these mercenary captains. Not to fight, but to ensure their silence and to fund her personal ambitions.”
My jaw tightened. Ten thousand gold sovereigns. Embezzled. While the kingdom struggled, while I grieved, she was actively undermining our security, paying off rivals.
“The Northern Barons, like Lord Halstead,” Julian explained, “they believed their 10,000 gold sovereign loan was for strengthening our legitimate defenses. They believe they are securing their borders against our enemies. Eleanor sold them a fabricated peace, while paying off the very ‘enemies’ she claimed to be fighting.”
“Why now, Julian?” I demanded, closing the ledger with a snap. “Why tell me this now, after three years of silence?”
He met my gaze, a deep sadness in his eyes. “Because of Clara, Your Majesty. I witnessed the initial discussions. I was a party to her disappearance, though I tried to argue against it. Eleanor threatened my family, my lineage, if I spoke a word. But seeing her arrive, a living prisoner… and hearing of her intended ‘preservation’ in lead… I can no longer stand idly by.”
His gaze dropped to the ledger in my hand. “This is not all, Your Majesty. There is another ledger. One even more damning.”
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