Stay Dead This Time Chapter 09
Daphne threw herself at him, half laughing and half sobbing. “Stellan! I knew it! I knew you’d wake up!”
Stellan’s gaze drifted slowly across the room, taking in every face, before finally settling on me.
“Elara…” His voice was raw. “You’ve got some nerve. I’m not dead yet. What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
Then, he turned to Daphne, his tone softening with concern. “Daphne, what happened to you? Were you really going to follow me in death? I always knew…”
He was trying to play the part, trying to pick up where the act was supposed to begin. However, I just stood there, perfectly still, watching it all unfold without so much as a blink.
“Stellan, you’re awake?” My voice was sweet enough to pass for a devoted wife’s.
“You’re quite right. Our dear cousin did offer to die for you. In fact, His Majesty was so moved that he granted her the title of Lady of Fidelity and ordered her buried alongside you. Now that you’re awake, though, what are we supposed to do about the burial?”
The color drained from Stellan’s face. He clearly never expected me to take things this far.
“You…” He struggled to climb out of the coffin, but his body gave out and he fell back against the wood. “Elara, what have you done?”
“I haven’t done a thing.” I spread my hands innocently. “I simply honored Daphne’s devotion. She wept and begged to die for you. How could I possibly refuse? I even went to the palace personally to petition His Majesty for her title. Tell me, Stellan, did I not do the right thing?”
Stellan’s face went pale. Paler, even, than it was when he was pretending to be dead.
Just then, the pounding of hooves grew closer.
Garrett arrived with a column of mounted soldiers. He swung down from his horse, strode into the chapel, and bowed to me.
“Mrs. Montclair, my apologies for the late arrival.”
“Not at all,” I said evenly. “Your timing is perfect.”
Garrett glanced at Stellan sitting inside the coffin, grey-faced and stricken, and the corner of his mouth twitched before his expression settled back into something hard and official.
“General Montclair.” He stepped forward, his voice ringing out like a roll call on the parade grounds. “There’s something I can’t quite make sense of, and I was hoping you could help me understand.”
Stellan said nothing.
“If you died on the battlefield, then why are you sitting here alive?” Garrett’s gaze cut across Stellan’s face like a blade. “Every man in the army knows that General Montclair fell in battle, his body lost and unrecoverable. And yet here sits the general, perfectly intact. I’m at a loss, truly.”
He paused, and his voice dropped colder still. “Unless, of course, this man isn’t General Montclair at all.”
Stellan’s head snapped up. “What did you just say?”
“I said,” Garrett pronounced each word with deliberate weight, “that since the general is dead, the general should be dead. Whoever this man is, he’s nothing but an impostor.”
Outside the chapel, a crowd had gathered without anyone noticing. They were there because of the story Everett had spread.
Every one of them had watched Stellan’s coffin being carried out for burial. Every one of them knew that he had died on the battlefield.
Now, a ‘dead man’ had just climbed out of his own coffin, and the murmuring was growing louder by the second..
“Who is that? Isn’t the general supposed to be dead?”
“That’s what I’m saying. It’s already been seven days since he died. Where did this man come from?”
“He’s probably a fraud, right? Trying to pass himself off as the general for money?”
“That’s what it looks like to me. Look at the state of him. He looks like a ghost, not a general.”
Every last trace of color left Stellan’s face. He opened his mouth to speak, but there was nothing he could say. The entire world believed he was dead. Every soldier in the camp believed he was dead. Even the king believed he was
dead.
