The Truth Behind the Lost King
Back in the strategy room, I had Cole set me down at the middle of the long table so I could study the map more as I waited.
I’d always known about Creisal and Utros, but they were rarely discussed since we didn’t really interact.
Though, seeing them on a map was a whole new experience, taking in just how big our continent was.
To the west was Creisal and ended at the waters of the Caleden Sea, which the tales claimed was so wide you couldn’t see what lay on the other side.
Many had tried to sail across, but none ever returned and were believed to be dead.
I always dreamed it was because they found a magical place, not wanting to return.
I returned to the problem at hand—Errit, our easterly neighbor, cut off from us by the Great Darsor River, and Utros, just south of Errit.
As far as I knew, Utros didn’t have an alliance with any of the countries, but could that have changed without us knowing because of the Lost King?
He ruled Errit, now commanding their army.
What’s to stop him from doing the same thing in Utros?
“Vasin, how long would it take a dragon to fly over all of Utros?”
“My best guess would be roughly a week. Utros is a much larger country than ours or even Creisal, for that matter. What are you looking for?”
“We need to see if the Lost King has pulled them under his rule as well as Errit. If I knew he was trying to get his rightful place back, I wouldn’t be concerned, but he wants more, Vasin… he wants to rule it all.”
“You are right in assuming that a dragon would swiftly get you the information you need, but I’m not sure they will be able to tell you the full story.”
“That’s a good point. I’ll need to send out a dragon rider. This is why we need the queen on our side. They have already trained spies to do just that. I could even send one into Errit, so we have a true sense of how much of it he’s taken over.”
“This is why I chose you, dear Cass. You are wise and able to see more than others.”
I smiled, sending him all my warm thoughts and emotions. “We need to go flying soon. I’m suffocating at being stuck on this mountain. Now that I’ve gotten my taste of freedom, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give up living out in nature.”
“I would like that very much. Tahir and I have been scouting the area to make sure we are safe, but it would please me greatly to take you with me next time.”
“Deal.”
After discussing things with Vasin, I felt more confident addressing it with everyone else.
I’d be lost without my pair-bond, and even though we were in the same place together, being apart from him was hard.
I’d been spoiled, taking the time as I studied scrolls for Sal to be with Vasin, pretending it was because I needed his help.
My dragon and I knew that, at this point, I was almost fluent in reading, writing, and speaking the old tongue after all the work I’d done.
I planned one day when things calmed down to teach others so we didn’t lose this part of our culture.
“Queen Cassarah, we have arrived as summoned,” Porvan announced, causing me to sigh and resign myself to dealing with him.
I shifted in my chair to see the five of them waiting for my directions. Porvan was the only one who seemed to be bothered by the summons. “Please have a seat. We have much to discuss.”
“Will you not be taking the head of the table?” Xio asked, his brows knit together.
“I prefer to be able to see the map for this conversation, and sitting at the head of the table will make that impossible,” I stated, not understanding why this was such a big deal.
“Yesterday, you shared with me all you knew about what was happening in and around our country, but I don’t think it’s enough. We need more.”
The clan leaders drifted to the same seats they took yesterday, leaving me to sit next to Acton and Porvan at the end of the table. Did they honestly believe he had more power or say in things because he sat there?
“How do you suggest we get this information?” Porvan demanded, settling into his seat, looking far too pleased.
Apparently, he thought he had more power in the matter being in that chair. It was good for them to know it didn’t matter where I sat. I was going to outsmart them time and time again.
“As I said yesterday, we need Queen Mary on our side. King Edward is king in name, but I’ve seen them both deal with a situation, and the queen is the one who has control over her husband.
If I can get her to listen to me, I’m sure we can gain their assistance, but I need to know the whole story behind the Lost King,” I said, looking pointedly at Porvan.
“If you could start at the very beginning of this tale, it would be greatly appreciated.”
Porvan shifted in his chair, no longer the relaxed man who thought he had the power in this situation. “I don’t see how the past could be all that important to what’s happening now.”
Idiot.
“Be that as it may, I would appreciate it if you could still tell us. That is unless you are trying to hide more about the situation than you already have,” I pressed, unwilling to let him get out of this.
The other clan leaders looked at him expectantly, which was the final nail in his casket. If he didn’t give us the full story, it would prove he truly was hiding something from them, causing them to turn on him.
“Look, this all happened thirty-some years ago. I don’t know how King Edward got ahold of one of my men, but he did and sent a message to the person in charge…
my father at the time. I was brought in on the meeting to decide whether or not we should bring this up to Ballard and the other clan leaders.
They voted against doing that, feeling that something this sensitive should be shared with as few people as possible.
I was the one they asked to take the boy into Utros and meet up with the people who would become his new family.
The king didn’t want to know anything other than if the deed was done, knowing if his son was ever discovered, he had deniability,” Porvan stated, arms crossed as he spoke.
“When my men and I crossed the border and met the family, I was shocked to find it was King Mahon’s cousin, Marquees Efrem, and his wife who were taking the child.
I shouldn’t have been surprised because the king wouldn’t have connections with just anyone in Utros.
This also told me that King Mahon was in on the deal. ”
“What reason would the king of Utros have to help out King Edward?” Xio questioned. “Our countries have never worked that closely together. Utros prides itself on being separate from the others, being fully self-sufficient.”
“It wasn’t my place to ask. I wasn’t in charge at that point,” Porvan growled out.
“You didn’t have your own thoughts on the matter? I find that hard to believe for a power-driven person such as yourself,” Garold challenged, leaning forward toward the man. “Or is it that you did something behind your father’s back and screwed everything up?”
Porvan let out a breath, his entire body sagging.
“The marquees reached out five years later, telling me they couldn’t keep the boy.
He was becoming a danger to their other children, and they didn’t know what to do, not wanting to go back on their deal with King Edward.
I took two men with me, planning to take the kid from them and kill him, making it look like an accident, knowing we couldn’t have a war starting between us and Utros.
They would slaughter us with how large their army was, even though they never used it for anything but guarding their borders.
When I got to the small village where they had dropped him off for me to collect, I found him sitting there on the steps of an inn with all the children bringing him things.
He was surrounded by food, toys, and clothing, something they had very little of.
Somehow, he’d already managed to access his Birthright and used it to get whatever he wanted.
It didn’t seem to work on the adults who were all yelling at their children for what they were doing, but they just ignored them like they couldn’t hear what was being said to them. ”
“Obviously, you didn’t kill him since he’s still alive, unless he has another Birthright that can raise him from the dead.” Garold sneered, glaring at Porvan. “What the fuck did you do?”
“We tried to get him away from the kids, but he caused them to mob us. I wasn’t going to slaughter twenty innocent kids, so we left and waited until nightfall.
In the dead of night, we snuck back into the village and kidnapped him, dragging him out into the forest. When I was about to kill the kid, the marquees and his guards came bursting out of the forest, claiming that the kingdom of Norden was trying to murder their child.
The whole thing had been a setup, and we were going to be used as the patsy in a war between our countries.
The marquees wanted to be king and decided that blackmailing us into assassinating King Mahon was the best course of action. ”
The clan leaders started yelling at Porvan for walking into the trap. When they didn’t settle down, I turned to look at Dayson and tilted my head to indicate the fighting men.
“Quiet,” Dayson bellowed, causing all the men to stop and look at him in surprise. “Sit back down in your seats and act like men, not boys.”
Once they all did as he said, he gave me a smile and a wink, which I returned before turning to deal with the men of our clans. “Since we didn’t end up having a war with Utros, did you kill the king?”
“Yes.”
Now everything was making sense. Not only did the Lost King have the Birthright to gain power, but he also had a tyrannical male role model to feed the problem.
“So it would be safe to say that Utros also has the Lost King’s back in a battle. Now we are not just fighting Errit but Utros as well,” I summed up, rubbing my forehead. “Do you still believe we stand a chance without the king and queen on our side?”
“Wait. You’re just going to brush off the fact he helped assassinate one foreign king to put another on the throne?
What about the fact that he single-handedly set up this madman to rein terror over all our kingdoms?
” Xio demanded, shooting up from his seat in his anger.
“I will not just sit here while this traitor is at this table.”
“Please, Xio, calm yourself. We still don’t have the whole story. I suggest you reserve your judgment for when you have all the facts,” I cautioned him.
Letting out a growl, he slammed his fist against the table and again took his seat. “Could we at least have someone fetch us some ale?”
“No, the last thing I need is for any of you to be impaired as we work through this. Drinking will only cloud your judgment and make your anger worse. None of that will be helpful right now,” I stated, holding his gaze to see if he would argue my decision, but he didn’t.
Returning my attention to Porvan, I settled my hands on the table in a show of complete calm.
“Was this the last time you had interaction with the now king of Utros?”
“It was not,” Porvan answered. “The marquees had me by the balls. If I didn’t do what he asked, then he would find some way to destroy my family, clan, and country, and I couldn’t let him do that when I was responsible for all of this.”
“Do you think King Edward knows anything about this interaction?”
“Absolutely not. This was between me and the marquees. I was young and stupid, just married, and my wife was pregnant with our daughter. I wanted to go to the king, but then I would have to confess what I’d already done, and I would have gotten killed as a traitor.”
“Why not turn to us… your clansmen? If everyone had been in the know from the beginning, none of this would have been an issue,” Garold interjected, unable to hold his thoughts any longer.
“Nothing would have changed!” Porvan yelled, standing and tossing his chair across the room.
“I fucked up, and every day of my life I’ve been worried something like this would come back and bite me in the ass.
You don’t get it. If I didn’t do as he said, then Henry would have made me.
By the time he was ten, that bastard could manipulate anyone into doing whatever he wanted. ”
Something didn’t add up with this whole account. Why did it take this long for the Lost King to make his move when he had everything he needed in Utros alone?
“Porvan, what aren’t you telling us?” I commanded, reaching the end of my patience with this drawn-out tale of a man’s arrogance.
Porvan turned to us, his hair no longer neatly pulled back, now disheveled from running his hands through it. “Paxton, Payson’s twin, went after him to end this, but now that Henry is here, it just means he failed, and I got my son killed for trying to fix my mistake.”
Now it was my turn to growl at him. “What. Does. That. Mean?”
“My twins are an anomaly. They shouldn’t have Birthrights to begin with, being the second-born children.
Yet both have one, and Paxton’s is to be a void.
He can neutralize another person’s Birthright.
I thought I was in the clear once King Efrem hadn’t reached out, but then I was approached again after many years of complete silence.
On that fateful day when the messenger came, the boys were with me, and I was forced to tell them part of the story to keep them from telling anyone else.
Paxton took it upon himself to end things once and for all since he couldn’t be controlled.
I tried to stop him, but we got into a very public argument, and he left…
never to come back,” Porvan said, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears for his son.
“Now, I’ve not only lost a son, but I might even lose our home to this animal. ”
The room fell utterly silent as we processed all this information. I wanted to give the man a moment to grieve the loss of his son, but it was even more imperative that we figure out a plan to stop the Lost King.