Chapter Forty-Six
When my son vanished after I hid him away in desperation, hoping to shield him from the bloodshed, I knew in my bones that Hades had taken him. And though I’ve since learnt he was taken to the land of the Fae, one question continues to haunt me: why there? Why not any other realm?
And then another thought coils through my mind like smoke.
Hades is bound to Persephone, queen of the Underworld but also the silent architect of the Fae and their shimmering, beguiling lands.
And so I ask myself, not for the first time…
Was it truly Hades who stole my son from me?
Or was it her?
Tabitha Wysteria
They were nearing the borders of the Kingdom of Ice, the wind already carrying the faint chill of distant snows. The party had pressed on without rest, but now, at last, the princess had given the order to make camp, granting them a few precious hours of sleep before venturing into wolverian lands.
Arden crouched low, coaxing life into a small fire until it roared bright enough to stand against the night.
Across from him, Kage Blackburn sat in utter silence, his back pressed against the flank of the great wolf who served as his steadfast companion, while the shadow crow roosted high above on a branch, unblinking eyes fixed on its master like an ebony sentinel.
‘I know how to make a fire,’ Kage said, his tone cool as the wind beyond the treeline.
Arden smiled faintly, sparks dancing in his eyes to match the flame. ‘You could always just say you’re welcome,’ he replied, crouching by the warmth to ensure the fire would endure the night’s breath. Then, rummaging through his satchel, he produced a small pouch and tossed it into Kage’s lap.
The prince of shadows regarded it with a frown but did not open it, instead lifting those depthless dark eyes to fix on Arden.
‘It’s food,’ Arden explained easily. ‘Rotten food, actually. I’ve been keeping fruit in there just in case… well, in case you couldn’t hunt or we found ourselves starving.’
Kage’s face betrayed nothing, a mask as inscrutable as stone.
‘You could always just say thank you,’ Arden teased, a crooked grin tugging at his lips as he stood to leave. But he had barely turned on his heel before Kage’s voice, quiet yet resonant, drifted across the fire.
‘Thank you.’
Arden’s grin widened, wicked delight dancing across his features as he looked back. ‘Ah, I knew you had it in you.’ The sight of Kage’s barely perceptible scowl only deepened his amusement. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep you company.’
‘I didn’t—’
‘No, no, don’t worry. There’s no need to beg,’ Arden said, dropping himself onto the ground with theatrical ease and a soft laugh.
Kage’s eyes narrowed, though he said nothing.
‘I know you were dying to ask me to stay,’ Arden continued, resting back on his hands.
‘I wasn’t,’ came the flat reply.
‘You might want to eat that before it actually does go off…’ Arden paused, catching the absurdity of his own words before shrugging with a self-satisfied grin. ‘Never mind, I suppose.’
Both men sat in silence, the weight of exhaustion and unspoken thoughts hanging between them like an unseen veil.
Arden’s eyes wandered across the camp, tracing the small clusters of Fae gathered around their fires, their murmurs muted beneath the soft crackle of flames.
His body stiffened when the princess approached, her presence quiet yet commanding, as she lowered herself gracefully onto the far side of the fire.
Her green eyes, unseeing yet unflinching, fixed on the dancing blaze. Arden knew she could not truly see the flames, but something in her expression told him she saw them dance all the same.
‘My father is dead,’ she said at last, her voice low, each syllable carried like a secret on the wind. Soft, contemplative, and strangely fragile.
Arden glanced at Kage, uncertain of how to answer, the words heavy in his throat.
‘He is,’ he said carefully, testing the weight of the admission.
‘So you’re… free.’
Her words struck Arden like cold iron. His spine straightened, his expression unreadable. ‘I’m Black Lotus,’ he said at last, his tone a shield. ‘We are not free.’
The princess sighed, the sound soft and aching. ‘Perhaps none of us truly are,’ she muttered. ‘We are all bound to something… someone. But my father, the king, is gone, Arden Briar. So tell me, what stops you from walking away?’
Arden frowned, confusion creasing his brow. ‘I don’t understand… Even with the king dead, the queen still lives. You still live. We are bound to the crown.’
‘That you are,’ she said with a bitter snort, a sound too sharp to mask the sorrow in it. ‘Without the Black Lotus, we Fae stand no chance against the witches. And now, with the king dead… I fear—’
‘Do not fear,’ Arden interrupted gently, though his words held a steel edge. ‘We belong to the crown.’
Beside him, Kage shifted, the subtle stiffness in his posture betraying his discomfort at Arden’s choice of words.
Yet Arden did not waver. It was the truth.
He had been forged into the perfect weapon, sharpened by blood and loyalty until there was nothing left of the boy he had once been.
He belonged to the Hawthornes. He had killed for them, bled for them, surrendered every shred of his soul for them…
And he had felt nothing at all.
His life had been a sequence of orders, obeyed without question, without thought, without heart.
Until.
Until those eyes, blue as fractured ice and infinite skies, had entered his world and shattered everything he had believed himself to be.
‘I do not wish for you to belong to the crown,’ Rio said, her voice slicing through him, sharp and deliberate, like a blade finding the weakest chink in armour.
‘I do not want the world to remain as it was when my father still drew breath. He clung to the old customs, to the bones of a dying era. But things must change. We must change. And for that, I ask you to fight. Not as a Black Lotus but as a Fae.’
Arden stared, his brow furrowing, confusion etched across his face.
Rio exhaled slowly, the sound weary, as though it had been pulled from somewhere deep in her soul. ‘Do you know why the Black Lotus exists, Arden Briar?’
‘Yes… years ago, a prince fell in love with a peasant, and his father—’
‘No, Arden Briar,’ she interrupted, her tone steel and sorrow in equal measure. ‘Not that truth. Not the romanticised beginning sung in taverns and court halls. Have you never wondered why it endures? Why, generation after generation, every king has kept the Black Lotus by his side?’
‘Because we are the king’s blade. We protect the Fae.’
‘Could kings not simply train soldiers for such a task? Why take orphans? Why burn their past and sever every tie of love? What purpose lies in cruelty so deliberate?’
Arden did not avert his gaze, his jaw tight, his face carved into stone. ‘To make certain we never felt. So that we would always follow orders, no matter the cost.’
‘Are you so sure that is the whole purpose?’
Arden’s teeth clenched, an edge of warning sharpening his voice. ‘What are you saying, your highness?’
Rio’s sigh came slow, tired, almost unbearably sad.
‘There is a reason they take the youngest of our kind and mould them into obedience, stripping them of everything that makes them whole. The court is full of men, highborn nobles who slip into the pleasure courts to indulge their darkest whims. And what, Arden Briar, do you imagine becomes of the bastards born of such vile indulgences?’
Arden frowned, unease flickering in his eyes. ‘The women of the pleasure court take remedies to prevent pregnancy.’
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 Kage had 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 his secret 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.’