“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have gone instead of you?”
“That’s exactly the reason. You’d have gone instead of me. And if I was wrong, it would have been on my hands, and it was my burden alone to carry,” he admits softly.
My words leave me, my mind completely empty.
Sam is Masen.
Masen is Sam.
He’s alive.
Kael’s back.
“How are you, alive?” I ask Masen.
“I was never dead. I can only apologise for letting you believe I was. But, like I said, it was the only way.” My jaw tightens, holding back years of grief for an explanation that still could never erase the pain.
“Tell him what you told me,” Kael says, leaning forward in his chair. Masen nods, taking a deep breath.
“I didn’t leave to study the blight.”
“Why did you leave?”
“I found something in the archives when I was trying to find a solution to the blight. Instead, I found records, royal ones. Old enough that I could tell they weren’t meant to be found,” I cross my arms.
“What?”
“Centuries ago, the kingdom was gripped by turmoil. Not a war, an uprising against the king. The king, who was a true-blood heir.” The words hang between us.
“That’s impossible, you know our kingdom isn’t run on a bloodline. It never has been,” I say.
“That’s what we have been told. It’s been that way so long, no one has thought to question it.”
“What about the curse? The king’s mark?”
“The true king discovered plans for his death, he sent his family through the gate, an unknown realm. On his deathbed, he bound the throne to his bloodline. He set a rune in motion.”
“What are you saying?”
“The king’s mark, the curse, all of it. It’s because we don’t have a true heir. That’s why the only way to ease the effects of the curse is Widowsbloom.” My stomach tightens, understanding dawning.
“He tied false kings to the land, marked with an affliction that causes a man to suffer a pain like no other.”
That mark, the curse, it’s something every person has lived in fear of. Every time we lose a king, there is a sickening dread of who will be chosen next.
Who will look down at their wrist and see that godforsaken mark?
Turning you into the ruler of a land that watches you slowly die.
“What does this have to do with you leaving?”
“After I found out, I went to Aldric. I explained it all to him. I said if I could find anyone from that bloodline, maybe they could reclaim the throne and it would bring an end to the curse.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t like it, he said it was too risky. He didn’t like the idea of being dethroned and worried it would end with him being killed whilst losing his honour. He declared treason against me and sent his guards after me. I ran with whatever contents I had left in my pockets. That’s when you found me,” he says. The words hang there, and suddenly I’m not in Mara’s kitchen anymore. I’m standing at the gate, except now I know what I didn’t know back then.
The memory is so haunting that it’s something I have relived countless times in my guilt.
