Chapter 25 #2
"Pieces of it. Enough to know that your reaction wasn't just about not wanting a child.
" I step closer, studying his face for tells, for the micro-expressions that might reveal what he's still hiding.
"You looked at me like I was asking you to embrace your own destruction.
But it wasn't the baby you feared—it was something else entirely. "
For a long moment, he doesn't respond. Just stands there in the shadow-wreathed throne room while something wars behind his eyes—truth fighting against protective instinct, love battling with the desperate need to shield me from horrors I can't remember.
Finally, he speaks, his voice barely above a whisper. "You know about Isil."
"I know you loved her," I confirm, though the admission sends an unwelcome pang through my chest. "But I don't remember the details. I don't remember how she died, or what that has to do with my question about children."
He laughs, but the sound holds no humor—only bitter acknowledgment of fate's twisted sense of timing. "She was pregnant when she died. With my child."
The words steal the breath from my lungs.
Of course. Of course, there was another child, another pregnancy that ended in tragedy.
The pattern was there if I'd had the courage to see it—his terror at the thought of repeating history, of losing another love and another child to forces beyond his control.
"What happened to her?" I ask, though part of me dreads the answer.
His face crumbles slightly as centuries of carefully contained grief break through his controlled facade. "My brother discovered the pregnancy. Altan couldn't bear the thought that my child might carry enough power to challenge his position as heir. So he... acted."
The way he says 'acted' makes my blood run cold. "What did he do?"
"He breathed a poison into her—a curse designed specifically to corrupt shadow magic and turn it against itself.
It didn't kill her outright. Instead, it drove her slowly mad, corrupting her thoughts, turning her own magic against her until she couldn't tell reality from nightmare.
" His hands clench into fists, shadows writhing around him with barely contained fury.
"She would claw at her own skin, trying to tear the darkness out.
She'd scream for hours about things that weren't there, about horrors only she could see. "
Understanding begins to dawn, terrible and complete. "You tried to save her."
"I absorbed as much of the curse as I could through our bond," he confirms, his voice hollow with memory. "Shadow calling to shadow, darkness recognizing its own. But I couldn't take it all—the poison was designed to feed on itself, to grow stronger with each passing day."
"The poison that's in you now," I breathe, pieces of the puzzle finally clicking into place. "It's from her. From trying to save her and your child."
"Yes." The admission seems torn from somewhere deep in his chest. "For months, I fought to draw the poison out of her, to take it into myself where it couldn't hurt them.
But with each transfer, something fundamental changed inside me.
The poison rewrote my very essence, made me hunger for things that should have horrified me. "
I can see the self-loathing in his eyes, the way he flinches from his own memories. "What kind of things?"
"Her pain," he whispers, and the words land between us like stones into still water.
The honesty in his confession steals my breath. I can see what it costs him to speak these truths, to admit to the very poison that's been eating away at his soul for centuries.
"She saw what I was becoming," he continues, his voice growing rougher with each word. "Saw the monster the curse was creating, and she knew that as long as she lived, the poison would keep spreading. So she..." He stops, his throat working as he struggles with words that refuse to come.
"She killed herself," I finish for him, understanding crashing over me with devastating clarity.
"Took her own life to break the connection, to stop feeding the dark poison that was consuming me.
" Tears track down his face, silver in the otherworldly light of the throne room.
"She died believing that her death would end the curse, would save me from becoming the monster my brother wanted me to be. "
"But it didn't work," I say quietly.
"The curse didn't die with her—it stayed in me, growing stronger with each passing year.
Every act of violence, every moment of rage or pain, feeds it until sometimes I can barely remember why I ever tried to fight against what I'm becoming.
" His expression darkens, and I see something terrible flicker behind his eyes.
"When I found out what Altan had done, when I realized he had murdered both Isil and my unborn child out of jealousy and ambition. .. I killed him."
The words hang between us like a blade. "You killed your own brother."
"I thought his death would break the curse," he says, his voice raw with old anguish.
"Thought that destroying the one who cast it would free me from its hold.
But as he died, Altan laughed. Told me that Father had whispered fears in his ear—that my child would one day take the throne, that the prophecies spoke of shadow-born offspring who would eclipse us all.
" His laugh is bitter, broken. "He said Father had filled his mind with paranoia and ambition until he couldn't see anything but threats in an unborn child's future. "
I can see where this story leads, and my heart clenches in preparation for the blow. "You went to your father."
"I demanded answers. Demanded he tell me if he had truly set Altan on that path, if he had orchestrated Isil's death.
" His jaw tightens, muscles flexing with barely controlled rage.
"He denied it all. Said he didn't have that kind of power over Altan, that my brother had acted alone.
But when I begged him to remove the curse, to lift the poison that was slowly transforming me into something monstrous.
.." He trails off, shadows writhing faster around him.
"He refused," I breathe.
"Said it was punishment for killing my brother.
That I would live with the curse as penance for spilling family blood, no matter the reason.
" The pain in his voice is centuries old but still fresh, still bleeding.
"I left his court that day and swore I would never speak to the man again.
And I haven't, not in hundreds of years. "
The tragedy of it, the impossible weight he's been carrying alone, makes my chest ache with sympathy I'm not sure I'm ready to feel. A brother's betrayal, a father's cold judgment, a curse that was meant to be justice but became eternal torment.
But underneath the pity, another emotion stirs—one that should terrify me but instead feels like recognition. Because looking at him now, seeing the truth of what he's endured and what he's become, I finally understand why I ran.
It was the knowledge that I would love him anyway, monster or not, and that such love would damn us both.
"The poison," I say quietly, studying the silver veins that pulse beneath his skin. "It's getting worse, isn't it?"
His smile is sharp as breaking glass. "Every day. Every act of violence, every moment of rage, feeds it until soon there won't be anything left of the man you married. Just the creature my father's justice created, the monster my brother's poison birthed."
"How long?" I ask, though part of me dreads the answer.
"Weeks, perhaps a month before the transformation becomes irreversible.
" He says it with the casual tone, but I can see the fear beneath his controlled facade.
"Your light magic could contain it, channel it, possibly even purify it if we restored our bond.
But that would trap you with a monster you don't remember choosing to love. "
The choice he's offering—bind myself to him again to save us both, or watch him transform into something that would make nightmares weep—hangs between us like a blade poised to fall.
And for the first time since waking up with no memory, I think I'm beginning to understand why the woman I used to be chose to run rather than face such an impossible decision.
Some truths are too heavy to bear. Some loves, too dangerous to survive.
But as I look at him—this broken, beautiful, damned creature who has fought against his own nature for centuries—I realize that forgetting might have been the cruelest choice of all.
Because love doesn't die just because we can't remember why it began.
And some bonds run deeper than memory, deeper than fear, deeper even than the darkness that threatens to consume everything we hold dear.
The question now is whether I have the courage to choose him again, knowing full well what that choice might cost us both.