Chapter 23 Confessions #2
It’s nighttime now, the small courtyard of tables lit by candles scattered about.
There are a variety of Sanc mingling here, and with a pang of regret, I realize they’re all paired off.
Leaning into one another deep in conversation, purring into each others’ ears.
One couple can’t keep their hands to themselves, despite the public setting.
Something about the way they grope each other reminds me of Edwin and Alma.
I choke on the unwelcome memory. Brynn allows me to drag him by without a word.
It’s almost pitch black as we near the backside of the magicked inn.
The blackwood canopy above allows no moonlight to peek through.
My eyes adjust slowly. As soon as we are far enough away from any possible witnesses, I grab the front of Brynn’s tunic and shove him with all my strength into the ivied wall.
So hard that my momentum causes me to fall into him, pinning him to it. His laugh is soft. Breathy.
“It’s incredibly unfair that you won’t let me touch you—yet you can’t stop touching me,” he murmurs in that honeyed tone.
Nonsense. He’s blinded by drunken lust.
I blink at him in confusion until it dawns.
He thinks I’ve pulled him away to kiss him.
He lowers his face to mine. So close that his frantic breath warms my lips.
It smells of faeplum ale and sweet mystery spirits.
His heart did not beat like this even when I held a blade to his throat.
It is ruthless, cruel, but I play the part.
My shaky hands move up his chest, my fingernails digging into his neck like I am eager, desperate to pull him closer.
His hands hover near the sides of my face, like he yearns to plunge them into my wild hair as soon as I yield.
But I know even in this condition, he will not break his promise.
He will wait for me to make the first move.
“Do you want me to stop?” I ask, my own voice unfamiliar.
“Never,” he says gruffly.
I breathe in that sweet smell of faeplum again and find myself a traitor—wanting to taste it on his lips.
Wanting to feel his tricky tongue on mine.
I did not foresee how difficult this part would be—being so close and resisting.
But my own body’s betrayal has me seeing red again. Nothing but irrepressible, hungry rage.
Somehow, I stay the master of my compulsions.
“You will never touch me again, Prince.”
Due to his drunken state, the weight of my words—my promise—take an eternity to sink in.
Once they do, his whole body stills beneath me.
His hands drop as he lifts his face up and away from mine.
I push hard off of his chest, putting an icy distance between us.
He leans back against the whitewashed stone on a heavy exhale.
“I knew you’d figure it out,” he says at last, not meeting my blazing gaze.
“Why did you lie, Brynn?”
You’d think I slapped him, the way he tenses at his name.
“I didn’t lie—I—”
“Omitted? Left out? Deceived? You’re a liar,” I hiss.
“Thea, please,” Brynn says to the blackwood canopy and night sky beyond. He rakes both hands through his hair, then scrubs his face with the heels of his palms—as if that might miraculously sober him. “Please give me a chance to explain.”
“You had every chance to explain,” I say, crossing my arms to hold myself together. My chest aches, my heart stings. “You chose to leave me in the dark. ‘Secrets at a minimum from here on out,’” I repeat his words back to him, mocking his honey-sweet tone. He flinches.
“You’re right,” he says, and at last, he meets my gaze. The despair on his face threatens to break me. He looks broken. My nails dig into my crossed arms.
“You’ve two minutes more,” I concede bitterly. “You’re drunk so I’ve graciously given you an extra minute.”
He staggers from the wall and stands too close to me yet again, his voice low as he dives into hurried speech.
“I needed help to find my mother. No one will enter a deal with a prince. Especially a prince that they think—know, really—is a bastard. They fear my father too much, but they all know what I am. You were a complete stranger—with no biased notions of me. You live in the mortal world—where my mother is supposed to be. It’s like you fell into my lap. A gift from the gods.”
I narrow my eyes at him. He presses on, no doubt believing that my two minutes are literal.
“And I’ll confess—it was nice. It was nice for one godsdamned second for someone to not know who I was.
Even if I had to give you my bloody true name to earn your trust—it was so freeing.
Talking to someone who didn’t know who I was.
There are all these expectations when you’re royalty—people want something from you even when they say they don’t. ”
I could understand this part, but not fully.
Because though I hold the title, the expectations, the weight of duty…
I have no freedom, no life outside the castle walls.
No one recognizes my face. No one knows me anywhere, because I am kept caged.
Brynn is allowed to roam free. But not free from judgment, duty, or expectations.
The truth is—a title is a cage. Brynn carries his with him wherever he goes, for all to see.
Maybe I am lucky to at least be unknown.
He studies my face with such sharp intensity, as if desperate to read my thoughts. I’m thankful he cannot.
“The omission wasn’t intended to—I didn’t want to trick you. I swear it—I couldn’t—It’s not some scheme to pull one over on you, Thea. It’s—I liked the thought of you getting to know me. To trust me. As I am. Without the assumptions. Without the title. What it was was selfish.”
He stares at me. Brynn is far too drunk to intentionally manipulate me with words.
He’s Oathstruck and unable to lie, yes, but I feel it deep in my gut.
This is the whole truth. And my guilt only grows.
Because there is no real reason to keep my secret anymore.
Yet I do. His reason was pure—he wanted me to know him, without the weight of a crown between us.
Mine isn’t so innocent. It’s selfish, too—but a different side of the same coin.
I do want him to know me beyond my title…
but how can that matter, when no one truly knows me at all?
“I believe my two minutes are up, but if I also might add,” Brynn pleads, and whatever he sees in my face makes him keep going, “I was stupid—for prolonging telling you. I wanted to last night. Glo has been urging me to get it out of the way, that I would regret it otherwise if you learned it from someone else. And I do—of course I regret not being the one to tell you. But I—”
Brynn stiffens, clearly wary of continuing. I arch my brow, waiting.
He shakes his head, jaw clenching and unclenching. “I—I worried you would think of me differently. And gods, I didn’t mean to drink so much. I just—the ride earlier—you make me nervous. I—”
“I make you nervous?”
“Yes, you’re infuriating,” he says with a strange heat. “Because you make my thoughts and mouth twist and tangle and I can’t—”
“I believe that’s the spirits’ doing,” I deadpan.
“Yes, but—I’ve never—you could command me to do anything, Thea. With or without my true name. And I would obey. Without hesitation—I would do anything you ask of me.” He swallows hard.
I blink in disbelief. “You’re drunk.”
“Yes, regretfully so,” he says thickly, his brow furrowing. He takes a step back and my stomach—just buoyant from his declaration—drops at his expression. “But… there’s one last thing.”
I brace for impact, my quickening pulse tolling like a warning bell. His sharp intake of breath is ragged.
“I may be betrothed. And now I am laid bare. There are no more secrets. I swear it, Thea.”
“Betrothed?” I hiss. He crosses his arms across his chest, swaying a bit.
“I think, at least,” he says, shaking his head and looking puzzled.
“What do you mean ‘you think’? You either are or you aren’t.”
Inexplicably, the invisible cuff of our bound deal shocks me. I flex my hand. He stares at it, perhaps mistaking the movement for me wanting to strike him.
“There’s—there’s a… prophecy. My mother made it, actually.
That’s why I must find her.” The mortal seer.
I see now. He continues, “It was made in High Sanctuarian. I’ve been learning the language to decipher it, but there are some words…
symbols… characters, I guess, whose meanings have been lost to time.
I think—what I’ve most recently figured out—I think it mentions a fated betrothal—but I am not certain. ”
The handwritten journal I found in his bedroom, full of cryptic symbols and scribbles—this is what he’s been working on.
“How did your mortal mother know High Sanctuarian?”
“She didn’t. Sometimes when visions affect seers—it’s like they’ve been possessed, or—or…
overcome. Those who witnessed and recorded it said it was in a voice that was not her own,” he explains.
I must still look cynical, because he continues, “They recorded the spoken bit as best they could. Phonetically, for the most part. It’s been a pain in the ass to get this far—because it’s a dead language.
My mother later recorded the symbols she saw in her dreams..
. There could be some discrepancies—it’s why I need to find her. ”
“What do you know it to say so far?” I ask.
“It seems to say something along the lines of ‘the bastard son of Sanctuary’s High King must one day be wed to’—this middle part is the difficult bit that I’m unsure of, it appears to be a long-forgotten name or something—‘or the realm will know chaos and death.’ Admittedly, I’m adlibbing a bit there—I don’t have it in front of me. But it sounds grim.”
“Are you even sure you’re the bastard son in the prophecy? If your father had one affair, he likely had many,” I suggest. Brynn winces.
“He swears I’m the only illegitimate child. And he’s Oathstruck, so I believe it to be true.”
“There are other ways to lie,” I say pointedly. He offers a humorless laugh.
“You’re not wrong. But one bastard is shameful enough. I do not believe he made the mistake twice. My half-brother, full fae—full dickhead—Asan. He is the rightful heir to the throne,” he says, the bitterness in his voice unmistakable.
“How did you even learn of the prophecy?” I ask.
“My father.”
A memory floods my mind, paired with Brynn’s once withering glare: My father’s done unspeakable things to make sure of that. Before I knew of his title, this did not seem all that significant. Now...
“What did your father do to keep an entire kingdom in the dark about your blood status?”
“Well. Exiled my mother to the mortal realm, for one.” Brynn closes his eyes and continues, looking exhausted, “No one knew she was my mother, though. Just that his wife, the queen, is not. The fact that my mother could be mortal was a rumor started by my father’s enemies.
Those rumors, as well as their spreaders, were squashed—but the damage was already done.
I discovered they were true around the age of thirteen.
I always knew Asan to be the heir because I was made to believe he was the eldest. Turns out—I’m two weeks older than him.
And Father made sure anyone who knew that information was…
eliminated. I don’t even believe my stepmother knows, as she was bedridden the last months of her pregnancy and slow to recover after Asan’s birth.
I did not discover the nuances of our titles until I started to study the High Sanctuarian language.
Asan means heir, just as Vir means prince.
But seeing as my blood is impure—I have no right to the Sanctuarian throne anyway. ”
Brynn finally opens his eyes and takes a deep breath.
“It’s stupid—I know,” he says, voice too soft, “but I was already born a disappointment, you see. If this prophecy is truly mine and I do not fulfill it, if I lead Sanctuary to damnation? I cannot risk it. I could not live with myself.”
I’m speechless. Brynn would give everything—his free will, his dignity—to help a kingdom that will never accept him. If my kingdom were to reject me, when I don’t even want it to begin with… My wrath would be unmatched. Maybe we are two completely different coins.
I clear my throat, shaking away the thought. I do not know what else to say, so I change the subject altogether. “Why don’t you use glamours? If you wish to be less… known?”
“Glamours are like any other magics. It takes effort. Concentration. Endurance. Years of training to master. Magics are Asan’s specialty—I never mastered more than the basics.
It would drain me more than it’s worth to keep them on constantly,” he says with a shrug.
“My father may be, but I’m not ashamed of who I am.
At least, not most of the time. I am presently a little ashamed.
” He offers a small smile at his own jest.
We stand in a smothering silence. I’m clueless at what to say or where to go from here. I only know that I wish I did not feel as sorry for him as I do now. I thought the expectations placed on my shoulders were heavy. Brynn carries twice the weight.
“Your tactics are sobering,” he says after some time, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” I shoot back.
“I mean—that—you—” His hand drops to his side, and he gestures toward the whitewashed wall where I feigned to almost kiss him. Those glowy eyes find mine, even in the dark. “Cruel. Unfair. Powerfully effective. I don’t think I’ll ever drink again.”
“If my tactics were truly sobering, you’d pledge to never deceive me again.”
“I won’t deceive you ever again. I promise you. Admittedly, that was much nicer than the dagger,” Brynn blurts, “But I would take either if it meant your hands were on me.”
He blinks at the ground, avoiding my withering glare, but stands a little straighter anyway. My treasonous cheeks flush even though I know it’s the spirits that embolden him.
“Well, you’re supposedly betrothed by some ancient, prophetic fate and all, so I promise that will never happen,” I say.
Brynn exhales—part heavy sigh, part disappointed scoff.
“I will not be Sanctuary’s downfall either,” I declare.
As I may already be the downfall of my own kingdom.