Alahathrial gave the faintest nod, his expression unreadable. “He knew.”
Zander reeled back like he’d been struck.
“King Rayne was many things, ambitious, shrewd, deeply aware of his shortcomings. When it became clear he could not produce the heir he wanted, he asked me if I could. I confirmed that my bloodline had what he needed, but that such power could only be bestowed on a blooded child of mine.”
Zander laughed once. Short, hollow, furious. “No. No, he wouldn’t?—”
“He asked me to do this,” Alahathrial said, his voice soft but unwavering. “I have fathered many children among the commoners. That is why magic is thick in the villages surrounding Warriath, why gifts appear in bloodlines that should have faded generations ago.”
My chest tightened.
“My blood,” Alahathrial continued, “has filtered into the Outer Kingdoms, the lowborn, the border regions.”
He turned his eyes on Zander once more, and for the first time, there was something reverent in his tone.
“Butyouare the firstborn of a true queen. One with a powerful bloodline.”
Zander staggered a half-step back, one hand at his mouth like he might be sick.
He looked at me—lost, betrayed, burning from the inside out, and I had no words.
Because I didn’t know what this mademe.
If he was born to open a door, was I the key? The lock? The curse?
My thoughts raced, but I couldn’t stop staring at him.
Zander’s voice cracked when he finally spoke again.
“So my siblings are only… half.”
And the weight of what he was beginning to accept settled over all of us like ash after a fire.
For the first time since we’d stepped into that velvet-draped prison, Alahathrial looked… uncomfortable.
His gaze shifted, no longer piercing Zander’s but glancing away toward the corner of the chamber, where the torches cast flickering shadows across the floor.
He exhaled slowly. “Your father… King Rayne… could only produce sons.”
Zander stiffened, every muscle drawn tight.
“But your mother,” Alahathrial continued, voice quieter now, almost reverently, “she wanted a daughter. A little girl.”
His gaze lifted again, this time not with power, but memory.
“I know you won’t believe this,” he said, directing it to Zander, but I felt the weight of it too, “but I loved your mother.”
Zander flinched.
“I visited her often after your birth,” Alahathrial went on, each word slower now, more careful. “Always wearing your father’s face. At first, it was to ensure her safety. To see you grow. To protect what we had created. But… she began to understand. She saw through the magic. And she did not turn me away.”
He paused. The silence between us stretched, thick with too much truth.
“She confronted me. She asked who I was. Why I came.”
Zander’s fists curled at his sides, his breathing shallow.
“I told her everything,” Alahathrial said, his voice fragile now, as if he were afraid the memory might break. “And shedidn’t scream. She didn’t strike me. She said… she loved our talks. That she didn’t have that kind of relationship with your father. That she’d grown used to being seen, but never known.”
