Rio gave a bitter laugh, harsh as cracking ice. ‘Of course they do. And yet, do you think such remedies are perfect? Bastards are born in every kingdom under the sun. Do you believe ours would be any different?’
Arden shook his head, deliberately ignoring the way Kagehad straightened, suddenly attentive.
‘What are you saying?’
‘The Black Lotus is made of the bastard children of the court, Arden Briar,’ Rio said, her voice low and steady, her gaze never straying from the firelight that painted gold across her cheeks.
‘That cannot be right,’ he replied, his voice tight with disbelief. ‘I remember my family. They were farmers. My father couldn’t pay the king’s tax on the land, and he was killed in a fight with the guards. My mother… she was sent to work at the—’
‘At the pleasure court?’ Rio’s sharp eyes narrowed.
‘My father was a farmer.’
‘Are you so sure?’ Rio’s brow furrowed, her tone heavy with quiet sorrow. ‘Here is the truth about the Fae, Arden Briar… we are unparalleled masters of illusion.’
‘I remember it,’ he said stubbornly, as though speaking the memory aloud might make it real.
‘I’m certain you do,’ she said softly. ‘But memory can be moulded, just as easily as clay. Just because you remember it, does not make it truth. Your father was never a farmer. Your mother has served in the pleasure court since the very beginning. The bastards are hidden away until they are old enough to be shaped, broken, and rebuilt for the Black Lotus.’
Arden’s jaw clenched. ‘Then why not simply kill them?’
Rio laughed, bitter as frostbite. ‘Kill them? No, Arden Briar. Their existence is hidden from the highborn nobles, but the kings always know. They want those bastards. They need them. The kings have always believed their own flesh and blood make the finest weapons, the most loyal killers. I would wager my father himself ensured that every few years the women of the pleasure court bore at least one child of his, a quiet crop for hissecret army. And of course, they spun illusions into your minds, weaving false childhoods so you would never remember the truth. That would have been… inconvenient.’
‘But why risk someone discovering it?’
‘Because, for generations, kings have believed the blood of their loins makes the deadliest of soldiers. Twisted and sick, yes, but not as sick as slaughtering innocent children in the cradle, wouldn’t you agree?’
Arden’s thoughts scattered like startled birds. His gaze darted instinctively to Elric and Nymeria, who sat laughing beside another fire, sharing stories with the princess’s guards as though war were no more than a distant rumour. He had known them his entire life, heard the echo of their screams in the training halls, witnessed their bruises bloom like dark flowers beneath their skin, and held their shaking hands as they mended one another’s wounds in silence.
Were they, too, the discarded offspring of highborn Fae, pressed into servitude and moulded into blades by a king’s cruelty?
‘Why are you telling him this?’ Kage’s voice cut through Arden’s spiralling thoughts, steady and sharp as a drawn blade. ‘Such knowledge does you no favours. One of those bastards you speak of could rise, claim the blood in their veins, and take the throne for themselves.’
Rio snorted, a sound laced with dry amusement. ‘Do you truly believe most of us will survive this war, Kage Blackburn?’ Her head turned slightly, her face angled towards the sound of his voice, the unseeing eyes still somehow piercing. ‘I speak of this because I doubt House of Wild will outlast what is coming. Only my sister and I remain, and the world… it is tearing itself apart. The Fae must endure, even if my house falls. When the last of us is gone, an heir must rise.’
‘There are hundreds of Black Lotus,’ Arden said, his voice rough.
‘Most tied to noblemen,’ Kage added quietly. ‘Finding one with royal blood would be no easy feat.’
Rio scoffed, the sound like flint striking steel. ‘I may be blind, Kage Blackburn, but I do not need eyes to see.’
‘See what?’ Arden asked, unease curling in his stomach.
‘The resemblance, Arden Briar.’
Something shifted in Kage’s posture, a subtle tightening, his dark eyes widening by the faintest margin. Arden leaned back slightly, confusion weighing heavy on him, trying to grasp whatever it was Kage had already discerned.
His attention returned to the princess, a frown tugging at his brow. ‘What resemblance?’
‘The one you and I share.’
Her green eyes, those deep, fathomless wells of colour, locked on to him, and in that moment, Arden’s blood ran cold. For the first time, he saw it: the familiar angle of her cheekbones, the subtle curve of her mouth, the fall of her hair, thick and dark. She was a younger, softer reflection of himself. Prettier, yes, with the queen’s finer features, but undeniably kin.
‘Your name isn’t Arden Briar,’ Rio said at last, her lips curling into a smile both dangerous and knowing. ‘It’s Arden Hawthorne.’
Hades unveiled the truth to me today. That I am not, as I have always believed, a mere mortal named Tabitha. I am Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft.
Naturally, I dismissed his words at first, scoffing at the very notion. But then he led me down into the Underworld… and something within me began to stir. Memories, like half-forgotten dreams, began to awaken, fragments of a past long buried. The truth. My origins. Everything.
