"You didn't need to," the Dowager murmured. She smiled behind her cup, hearing the reason why they asked her to "host" this.
They didn't want a mediator, they wanted a leash for her tyrant son. And perhaps... they'd get one. But not the leash they expected.
Silence.
She looked to the King now, whose fingers curled tightly around the head of his cane. "You'd trade your own son's birthright for convenience?" she asked, hiding what she knew. She knew why the king hated Leroy and wanted him to lose his title as the crown prince.
But she had a selfish reason to not let that happen.
He sneered. "He was born to me, not raised by me. He returns, draped in a foreign bride, drunk on a foreign name. He lies beside the enemy, defies me, and dares call it love."
