Chapter 34
She stared at him wide-eyed, her mouth gaping open before she covered it with a delicate hand. “Oh, blessed Goddess, it’s true.”
He balled his hands into fists as he turned away from her and stared at the fireplace. “Tristram is dead.”
Publicly executed for his crimes. Buried without ceremony. A fitting end for the monster he became.
Blood roared in his ears. His chest rose and fell. He never even heard Ceridwen approach until she laid a hand upon his back that caused every muscle in his body to stiffen.
“He’s not,” she whispered. “But I don’t care about that. To me, you’re Drystan, no matter what you were once called.”
He slammed his eyes shut, fighting against the pain of that name and the monster rumbling once more under his skin. Drystan jerked away and crossed the room to fall into his customary chair, head in his hands.
She didn’t even know his greatest sin and shame, but she knew enough, more than he’d ever wanted her to know. How? How could she have learned such a thing when he’d been so careful? Tristram was dead, Drystan Winterbourne reborn in his place. A noble sprung from the shadows to serve the king or receive the punishment he truly deserved, one that had been bestowed on some unfortunate man who bore a passing resemblance to him that the king had dug up to execute in his stead.
He was nothing more than a ghost, a shadow in an already dark world.
Where the king planned to wield him like a cruel blade for his own uses, and had, to his shame, only one thing gave him the courage not to lie down and die or accept the torment he so readily deserved: the chance at revenge.
Ceridwen was a beautiful light in the dark despair of his recent years. A bright spot amid all the grief, loss, and guilt that plagued him. She was so much more than a monster like him deserved, yet he’d been unable to stop yearning for that light, for the beauty of her spirit that shone through in her songs and smiles.
He gasped when Ceridwen stepped before him and placed her palms on his shoulders. She shoved him, forcing him to recline in the chair.
“Ceridwen—”
Before he could protest further, she hiked up her skirts and climbed atop his lap.
“Goddess above,” he groaned.
“You can’t run from me now unless you plan to tip me off onto the floor.” Her words were near breathless, her chest rising and falling with breaths as heavy and uneven as his own.
He planted his palms on her waist, holding her in place. “We can’t have that.” Of all the things he’d damaged, he wouldn’t let her be one of them.
If this was her reprisal for his secrets, her way of tormenting him, he’d gladly take it.
Once again, her tongue peeked out, moistening her lips as she stared him down. That act, along with her nearness, had his cock stiffening again despite her revelation moments ago.
“It’s true?” she asked. Her gaze dipped to his chest where her fingertips scrunched the soft material of his shirt. “Are you really Prince Tristram?”
He swallowed the tightness in his throat. The moment she’d said that name, his eyes had flown open, and he’d seen the conviction in hers. The name, his old name, hadn’t been a random question. It was a test, and his reaction already gave away the answer.
“How did you figure it out? I was so careful…” He’d had to be—for years. Outside his staff, the king, and a few of those in the king’s central sphere, no one knew that he still lived. Despite the nagging worry that lingered at the back of his mind, he was almost certain the staff hadn’t given him away. They’d been loyal long before his fall—handpicked from only those he knew he could trust to keep his secrets. People loyal to him, to his parents, not to the wicked king now reigning from his stolen throne.
Ceridwen shifted her position, nearly making him groan in pleasure as she slid in his lap, before she responded. “Malik told me his true identity.”
Drystan bucked in surprise. “That bastard. I’ll—”
She silenced him with a finger over his mouth again. “Don’t. I don’t think he was trying to get you in trouble or even reveal your secret. It was just one puzzle piece, but it helped all the others to fit together.”
Drystan’s lips thinned. As if that bastard wouldn’t want to ruin him one way or another.
Ceridwen continued, “You keep everyone away from the manor and don’t show your face in town. Even at the ball, you never removed your mask. No one knows anything about Drystan Winterbourne. It makes sense if that’s because you’re trying to hide who you really are. Even Malik’s visits make a certain sense.”
He rubbed a path up and down her side with his thumb, the soothing motion helping him remain calm amid her revelations.
“It would cause problems in the capital if anyone found out the dark prince was still alive after his execution,” she said. “That’s why he comes to visit and to watch you, isn’t it?”
So easily she figured him out. Drystan’s gaze hooded as he stared at her in admiration. If he didn’t already love her for her kindness, music, and beauty, he would have fallen headlong in that moment over her mind. “Have I ever told you how clever you are?”
“No,” she huffed. “I don’t believe you have.”
“An oversight on my part. One I won’t make again.” He slid her closer to him, causing the fabric of her dress to further bunch between them. Ceridwen squirmed atop him, unknowingly, or even perhaps knowingly rubbing against his stiff cock through his breeches. Drystan didn’t bother to muffle his groan of desire.
He released one hand from her hip to twirl a strand of golden hair near her face. So lovely. If he could focus on her, it might give him the strength to confess all, but there was one thing he needed to make sure she knew straight away.
“It’s true, what you’ve said. But I didn’t kill my parents.” His throat tightened up again as his shoulders hunched. Years had gone by, but speaking of them still threatened to crush him. “You have to believe me. I loved them. I would never have wished them harm.”
“I do. The man I know wouldn’t do such a thing,” she said. “But who did?”
He sighed and slumped forward until his forehead pressed against hers. “The king.”
Ceridwen stiffened, as he expected she might, so he snuggled her closer, clung to her like an anchor in turbulent seas.
“The man said to have helped purge the darkness destroyed the light instead,” she whispered, a slight tremor running through her.
“I wasn’t entirely innocent in the matter, though,” Drystan confessed, drawing back ever so slightly until their faces were only inches apart.
Ceridwen fisted her hands in his shirt, as if perhaps he was her anchor as well.
“My uncle introduced me to dark magic.”
She gasped. “But why do it?”
“I didn’t know what it was, not really. I was an ignorant boy back then.” Such a foolish young man, consumed with the pleasures of life and missing every warning sign. “He presented it as a way to obtain power and help my family. So, like the fool I was, I believed him.” He shook his head. “He left out the side effects, of course, not telling me the cravings that dark magic bred, that I’d become a monster. There was always a temptation toward the dark, even for those of us who practice light magic. Almost like a faint itch just waiting to be scratched. But it was so dull I never noticed it, not until my uncle pointed it out. And that craving only grew. The more I touched darkness, the more I wanted it.”
“He trained me himself, in secret. I relished in the power at first. It hit me like a high, so much stronger than booze or parties. Soon, it consumed me until I started to black out, to lose time. I didn’t know then that I became a monster.” Sadness settled on him like a heavy weight, and he drew quiet.
“What happened with your parents?” Ceridwen asked.
A sad smile crept to his face as he leaned back into the chair.
Ceridwen followed him, closing the distance he created.
This time, he smiled genuinely. “It’s hard to talk with you like this.”
“I’m not moving until you finish,” she replied.
He ran a hand through a fall of her blond hair, which had slipped over one shoulder, swirling it around his fingers again. “Then I may talk all night. I just wish it were a happier topic.”
The answering blush that tinted her cheeks was reward enough as he dropped her hair and let his head recline against the back of the chair. “Anyway, rumors of a monster spread around the capital and especially within the palace. My father knew immediately what that meant—he’d fought his own father and his followers, after all, some who transformed into monsters, like I do. By the time Father told me of the rumors, I’d started to be somewhat lucid during the change, just enough to understand why I woke up naked and sometimes covered in blood that wasn’t my own. The darkness craves it, and if you don’t feed the craving once you start, the monster takes its due.”
“I confessed to him what had happened. The dark magic, the change, all of it. He and Mother tried to purge the darkness using some complicated spell, but it caused me to change as they worked. As the monster, I attacked them before they could complete their working. The rest is hazy, though I’ve begun to remember more and more of it as time goes by. I didn’t kill them, but the injuries…” He shuddered, trying to shut down the horrible memories racing behind his eyes. “I can never forgive myself. My uncle appeared in the wake of the disaster and finished what I started.”
“Drystan…” She caressed his cheek, the touch a balm to his sorrow.
“He could have finished me off too, but he didn’t,” he continued. “He convinced me I’d killed my parents, and in the haze of magic and grief, I believed him. He promised to guide me, to help me, but he used me as a weapon instead, doing his dirty work around the capital while he faked my death and put himself on the throne. He made me one of his pawns.”
“You told me you watched the prince’s execution.” She tilted her head, brows scrunching.
His lips twitched. “I did, or at least the poor man who looked enough like me that no one questioned it after they’d beaten him bloody and dragged him in front of the crowd. He begged and sobbed, proclaiming his innocence. And to my shame, I watched it all from my uncle’s box while disguised. That part I didn’t lie about.”
One of his greatest sins. He’d been too consumed with grief over his parents to think straight. Too angry to form a plan or do anything to stop his uncle’s actions. And still too much of a coward to take the punishment that was his due.
“As my memories came back, I realized the lies and how my guilt had been twisted and used. It’s like I was trapped in a haze for months, unable to do anything except what I was bid. But finally, it cleared. That’s when I started to plan my revenge.”
“But how did you get here?” she asked. “Wouldn’t he have wanted to keep you close?”
“I told you he used me to do his dirty work? Well, I always wore a disguise when I did—a mask like the rest of his followers—something to hide our identities.” The king favored masks resembling dragons, his nickname for his followers, and the symbol he forged in iron for each of them to carry and wear so that they would know one another as loyal to the king and his dark ways. The beast of myth no longer existed, if it ever had, but the thought of them made his teeth grind together.
“However, I started to let myself be seen instead. Sure enough, a rumor spread around the capital that Tristram might not be dead after all. He could have killed me then, but it was worth the risk.” Every bit of his plan was risky. Any number of times, someone could have betrayed him, or the king could have chosen to slaughter him then and there. But without risk, without trying, he would never have his revenge.
“I couldn’t work the magic I needed to with him so near, and I had to risk that he’d banish me instead of kill me for my error. To my luck, he sent me away for one year to the most out-of-the-way place he could think of with strict orders not to share my identity. I brought only those I trusted, servants of my parents and myself who knew my truth and kept it safe. Though I’m still surprised Malik hasn’t reported something to his father that would give him cause to sign my death warrant. The king would certainly kill me if he knew even a bit of what I plan. He likely will when he’s done using me anyway.”
Being a pawn, a shadow in the form of one of the king’s loyal dragons, was never a long-term prospect for him. Drystan was powerful, more so than even his parents, and the king liked power so long as he could control it. But the king was no fool either. He knew the risk of keeping Drystan alive. If that outweighed whatever use he had planned, he’d end him—quickly and quietly.