Page 54 of Essence of the Throne

“And what truth would that be, Your Majesty?” My voice is deadly quiet.

She pats Caspian’s cheek. “My dear boy, you really should find better company. Someone more suitable for your position.” Her eyes slide back to me. “Someone who isn’t quite so broken.”

Caspian and Seraphina have a tense, aggressive exchange, though I hear none of it. I shrivel into myself, her words replaying at an impossible speed in my head.

I’ve nothing to respond with because she’s absolutely right. My instincts tell me to grab my blade and ensure she can never speak again, but my body no longer answers to me.

She ripped open the one insecurity I’ve refused to acknowledge, and suddenly my chest feels heavy. Dense.

My fingers grip the stone wall as I force myself to breathe through the queen’s words. She knows nothing of my mother, of what happened that day. But her implications dig under my skin like poisoned blades.

I was only six when my mother took her life. Too young to understand why she’d leave me, but old enough to remember finding her body. The image is seared into my mind—her pale form sprawled across our floor, crimson pooling beneath her like some macabre painting.

Some nights I still wake tasting her blood in the air.

Marek says trauma shapes us, molds us into who we need to become.

But Marek…after he found me, he saw something in me worth saving. He took me to the guild, taught me to channel my rage into something deadly.“Pain either breaks you or forges you stronger,”he’d say during our training.“Choose, Ariella”

Always the wise man.

I chose to become the blade that would eventually sever the king’s head from his shoulders. Every kill, every drop of blood I’ve spilled has been practice for that moment. Twenty years of honing myself into the perfect weapon, and I’ve not once allowed a single insecurity to plague my thoughts.

Yet here I stand, trembling before the queen’s words like that helpless child again. Because she’s right—I am broken. The little girl who lost everything never truly healed. She just learned to wear her scars like armor, and that is not something I’ve ever questioned. I have reveled in the fragmented pieces. Allowed them to burrow under my skin until they became a necessary part of me.

My past didn’t ruin me—it patched up the splinters my parents caused and made me whole.

But now, with Caspian…he makes me want things I can’t have. Makes me question if vengeance is all I’m meant for.

And that terrifies me more than any blade ever could, because it’s all I’ve known.

“I would like to speak with my son,” she announces in my direction. “Alone.” My eyes flit between the mother-son duo, a heartbeat passing before I stalk down the hall to shower this day off. I’m so fucking sick of letting the royal family slither their way into my head. It’s pathetic.

Once the king is dead, I will leave this tainted castle and figure out what artifacts are needed for the new Accord—with my luck, they'll not be the same as in the vision. No longer will I have to deal with the likes of the queen, or Gavriel, thank the fucking Angel. Just a few days until such freedoms are mine. I’ve waited twenty years for this; I can wait a little longer.

Chapter Seventeen

Caspian

The silence between Ariella and me feels charged as we walk through the castle halls. My muscles are still sore from our sparring session yesterday, but the physical discomfort pales compared to the storm in my mind. I glance at my wraith, her bright hair catching the morning light. She hasn’t spoken much since her encounter with my mother, and I can’t blame her.

The way my mother looked at her…there was recognition there, mixed with something else I couldn’t quite place. And that comment about Valyria—Ariella’s mother. I’ve never heard my mother mention her before, which only adds to the growing list of questions I have.

My jaw clenches as I think about the children being taken from their families. The peoples’ anger haunts me. What could my father want with them? The guards won’t tell me anything, and the castle staff avoid eye contact whenever I pass. Even Gavriel seems on edge, though he insists he knows nothing.

I should have seen this coming. The signs were there—the increased security, the whispers among the nobility, my father’s growing paranoia. But I was too focused on other things…namely Ariella, but I cannot be blamed for caring for the woman.

My hand flexes at my side, remembering how she nearly released her forbidden essence yesterday. The raw vulnerability in her eyes before she ran. I’ve never seen her like that, and it terrifies me how much I want to see more. To understand every part of her.

But that will have to wait. My mother wouldn’t request a private audience without reason. The fact that she’s choosing now, after everything that’s happened, is not a coincidence. My stomach turns as I consider what this could mean. Where do my true loyalties lie? With my family and the crown I’m meant to inherit? Or with the woman beside me who’s shown me just how corrupt that crown has become?

And why does it matter so much to me? The king is the problem, not the queen or princess. I need to take care of him and do my best to leave my mother and sister out of it.

I steal another glance at Ariella, her face set in that carefully neutral expression she wears like armor. Her strength is so beautiful.

I pause outside my mother’s study, turning to face Ariella. “Wait here.”

She crosses her arms, leaning against the stone wall as her eyes form slits. “If there’s even a hint that something’s wrong, I’m breaking down that door.”

---