Chapter 11 The Forgotten Heir
The Forgotten Heir
Asterious
The prince flexed his hands, his chest tight as he stared at this ethereal woman who challenged the deepest parts of him in the strangest ways.
She was insolent and wild and foolhardy, and had no idea the danger she was putting herself in.
He could sense each of her breaths. The way she shifted and her heartbeat sped up when he came too near.
Like a deer trying to stand her ground against a lion.
He would never be able to get it out of his head—the image of her standing there, facing him with bare dripping breasts and stomach, the sweep of her hips and perfect thighs peeking out with each step from the silky folds of that open gown.
Her eyes shining like twilight stars above full, soft lips sparkling with water droplets like spring dew.
A vision that would be unforgettable and equally maddening.
And when he moved toward her, she’d recoiled.
It seemed to shake her far more than he’d meant to.
He’d frightened her. Sometimes he forgot how easy it was to move too quickly, too harshly.
Sometimes that inhuman part of himself slipped out in moments it shouldn’t.
But he couldn’t let himself care. He didn’t care. She was just a pawn…for now.
He held his gaze on her face as she stared up at him and breathed a sigh of relief when she wrapped the robe shut around herself. Fully clothed or not, he was going to continue with this interrogation.
"My question is the same, Caramyn.” He tried to soften his voice, aware that the way he towered over her was likely intimidating enough. “Where…where did you find the ring?”
The girl shifted uncomfortably as she stood, glancing at the window nervously. There was a raven perched outside on the sill. “My answer is also still the same.”
“Then this room will be your prison until it changes.” When she bit her cheek and looked away, he pressed her, producing the ring from his pocket. "Let’s try something else. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Did you steal it?"
She looked back and narrowed her eyes at him, then at the ring. "No," she finally said, focusing again on the bird in the window. “Now I technically answered a question. So now will you answer one of mine?”
Asterious crossed his arms and leaned against the wall by the window, trying once again to distract himself from the way the delicate fabric clung to her curves. “Fair enough.” He groaned. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to tell her one small thing. “One question.”
But her question wasn’t as straight-forward as he’d hoped. He could smell her fear, her uncertainty, her mistrust. But he couldn’t hope to guess what she would say next. He braced himself as she moved to take a seat in the windowsill and tossed out the words. “Why is the ring so important to you?”
“Because it was my mother’s.” He turned the ring in his fingers, watching the way the sun glinted off the metal and highlighted the outline of the moons.
“That doesn’t count. You already told me that.”
Asterious raised an eyebrow. “All right. Perhaps this will satisfy you. My mother was Queen Elysia Vaerwynd, and I’ve been trying to find out what happened to her since I was a boy.”
It did not escape the prince’s notice how Caramyn’s eyes widened, and she leaned forward. “Was she not killed in the Lightborn Massacre or the purge of the witchlands?”
Asterious clicked his tongue and waved a finger. “A question for a question. My turn…Did you find the ring?”
A quiet pause held the air as Caramyn twirled her fingers in her lap. “Y—yes. On the bodies of some bandits I came across while traveling.”
“Hmm...” Asterious purred. “So you’re telling me you looted dead bandits while traveling alone in the wilds, found a magic Lightborn relic, and headed for the Shadow Woods with it around your finger, is that correct?”
“That’s not what I said...”
“But it’s what you’ve implied.”
“I…I ran away from home some time back. I found the ring, put it on, hoping to sell it in Havenswood for supplies. But instead, the ring tried to kill me, and it made me feverish and disoriented. I must’ve stumbled into the Shadow Woods in my delirious state.”
Asterious huffed. “So, you’re from Havenswood? Because there’s no other mark of civilization out there in the Bleak Wilderness apart from the bandit clans themselves. So unless you were part of those—”
“I’m not a bandit. And I’m not a thief. I trade herbs and remedies made from things that most don’t dare to seek out in the wilderness.”
“You still didn’t answer if you’re from Havenswood or not.”
“And you didn’t let me ask the question I’m owed for answering the previous one.”
Asterious clenched his jaw. “Fine. What?”
“How is it that you are both of Blackwynd and Vaerwynd blood?” She didn’t stall on a single syllable.
A long sigh slipped from Asterious’ lips as he dropped his shoulders, bracing for the weight of the explanation.
“Before my father openly turned on magic and decreed it a crime, he threw a grand ball in the human court, inviting all the Vaerwynd royals, and many magickind as well, even a High Shadowblood as an attempt at an allyship. The ball was meant to be a celebration to honor the Lightborn for their help in giving him a child—my half-sister, Sinevia.”
“The Vaerwynd Massacre,” Caramyn muttered. “The night the Shadowblood killed the Lightborn king?”
“That’s what history says, yes. But the truth of it is…
not quite so. The Shadowblood’s presence was a scape goat.
A place to shift the blame for when my father killed the Vaerwynd King.
” The prince turned his head, seeing that Caramyn was just as confused as he expected her to be.
“The ball was nothing more than a trap. A plot for revenge for his wife’s death in childbirth—the hidden cost of a life for a child.
When all the Lightborn royals were gathered in the ballroom, my father subdued them with great iron bells he’d secretly installed throughout the castle, shattering their connection to their magic.
He killed them all, but not before he made the Vaerwynd King watch as he took Queen Elysia—the king’s mate—for himself.
A queen for a queen. He promised to keep her alive as his prize for the rest of her days, knowing how greatly this would make the Lightborn king suffer before he died.
But he didn’t count on the cursed conception that would come of it.
” Asterious drew a heavy breath as he focused on a small crack in the floor, letting it out with one single word. “Me.”
He looked up to see Caramyn’s reaction, to see if it matched the way he sensed her pulse was slowing.
Calmer. She was leaning so far forward listening he thought she might fall from the windowsill.
He should’ve stopped there. Should’ve let that be the extent of his explanation.
But for some reason, her gaze tugged at something inside him and he went on.
“The abomination of the Vaerwynd legacy. And the shame of the Blackwynd King. But still very loved by my mother regardless. And one day when my father grew tired of her pleading with him to recognize me as his heir, he locked her away in a location he kept secret from me. And I’ve been trying to find her ever since I—” Asterious bit his tongue, deciding he had said enough.
“I’ve been trying to find her for a long time. ”
Something in Caramyn’s gaze had softened. The way she looked at him now felt less like of a threat and more like...like something tender...almost compassion, maybe.
“I don’t want your pity.” Asterious grumbled, pushing off the wall to straighten himself. “I just want you to tell me the truth. Tell me something to give me some semblance of hope that I might not have wasted that journey to only end up no closer to finding her than where I started.”
Caramyn stood up from the window and turned to stare out the glass, still clutching her gown shut.
The sun rays broke through the stained-glass outline, casting a mosaic of heavenly light across her face and setting fire to those shimmering amethysts beneath her lashes.
“I’m...not from Havenswood.” She blinked and turned to face him.
“I have told you everything I can remember.”
Asterious leaned into her, careful not to upset her by moving too quickly as he did before.
“You know, you’re a terrible liar. High Lightborn cannot lie.
Upon ascending the throne, spells are sealed into their oaths—binding them irrevocably to the truth.
I watched my mother survive by working around that vulnerability time and time again.
So, I know all about twisting or omitting details to work around the truth.
I recognize it when I see it.” Her gaze rained fire upon him.
“And I see it. I sense the way your heart races when you try to explain yourself. And all it does is make me more suspicious of you. Makes me wonder what you’re really hiding…
or if you even know yourself.” He raised an eyebrow as he propped himself up with one hand against the wall, amused at the way her flustered face twisted into a look of disgust.
“So you admit you’re a master of deception. You do all this and tell me a sad story to get me talking, and then you’ll kill me, right? Once I tell you what you want to know. This room, the food, everything. This is all just a trap, isn’t it?” Her voice rose the longer she spoke.
“It’s merely an interrogation. Not a trap.”
“So, does an interrogation always come before the execution part, or am I just lucky? Does the next question come with a dagger to my throat?”