***
Days passed in similar fashion.
Light. Poison. Swallow. Questions. No answer. Beating. Pain. Darkness.
Rinse and repeat.
For days on end.
The niceties of the beforehand established routine had been shed away. He was no longer fed or watered for what seemed like an eternity. His arms had begun going numb from being held up by the chains every day, all day. Every day, he was asked the same questions and even though he knew the answer required for it to stop, he never uttered it.
Instead, he couldn't help but say anything just to stop the agony.
"On my chest?" He choked out once as he spat blood on the floor, tired from the strain of not speaking.
It had been a different kind of torture, less physical at least, but far more effective for him. Through time and time alone, he'd grown weary of the beatings and soon, he'd started answering on reflex alone. This wasn't an answer he had wanted the rats to hear. It was the King's cruelty that allowed Raiden to be broken in this way and it made him hate himself — and the King — even more each time they did it and were successful in their methods.
Torture him more and he'd say whatever they wanted him to say again, like a daft animal that didn't want itself whipped any longer, Raiden knew that much. Every day with them was like this, one method or weapon used against another until they found what worked best to break him down into a quivering piece of jellied crap on his feet, barely able to breathe from anguish or pain without help from their maddening ministrations, thousands of little cuts all across his body that bled and bruised in bright colors that marked his skin for days and sometimes even weeks afterward if he was lucky or not.
He could make up some lie, but there was no point — they would never believe anything, nor were they supposed to. And even if they did, it wouldn't change anything because he still wouldn't escape this place alive. However, there was a chance among many for them to use whatever answers Raiden gave in illogical ways that might hurt the only person he cared about or put her at risk — however unlikely it was that the King would risk her safety in his quest for revenge.
Yet another reason for Raiden not wanting to speak.
Then, something changed.
Raiden forced himself awake, once again finding himself dropped to the floor. Hands tried to get his mouth open and he allowed it — no longer struggling against them when they touched him —, knowing what else came after this. A wad of cloth was stuffed into his mouth, filled with that same nauseating taste of bitterness, and a bag was placed over his head. His hands were freed from the chain link but the shackles remained around his wrists and soon enough he felt them being connected by a smaller chain.
More footsteps approached.
The hands pulled him back up again and he was suddenly being led forward. He could hear the footsteps of the guards with him following closely, but not so close that he felt in danger.
After a long, strenuous walk that left him feeling like he was in danger of fainting cold on the floor, he was forced to kneel.
"Do you know who I am?" The King's voice made Raiden's body stiffen with anger.
Raiden swallowed, tasting the cloth in his mouth, and breathed in through his nose, tasting the stale air. Instead of attempting speech, he nodded, slowly, feeling his heart quicken its pace and if he didn't know better, he'd fear he might launch across the room.
"Can I trust you to not grow violent if we take the cloth off?"
He nodded very slowly once more.
Fingers reached in to grab the cloth from his mouth and he opened his jaw wide so as to not be accused of trying to bite them. But the black bag remained, as did his hands chained in front of him.
"Tell me, what are you?"
Not again.
Raiden hesitated, forcing himself to not sigh when he realized he'd be asked the same exact questions as before, except in a finer place.
Of course.
He'd probably never left far from his father's sight.
"Do you wish me to call your mother?"
Raiden's body felt dipped in ice and he was reminded of the pain when the King had branded him. The words seemed now engraved onto his brain.
"No." His voice was hoarse from lack of use.
"Then, answer. With the truth, if you will. If I have to bear another of your senseless lies, I will gut that wretched woman in front of you and spare myself the misery of watching both of you withering away in this misery you've become."
Raiden wanted to yell at him, to ask how he could be vile enough to do all he'd done, to ask how he could know Raiden's mother was even alive, to yell at the King for the threats, to yell at the rats for their torture until they got what they wanted and to yell at himself for being trapped in all of this.
Raiden's nails bit into his palms.
His mind was working quickly down two roads. He knew one of them led to his fate, but the other… There was a chance. It was so small, so minuscule that he could ignore it entirely if he didn't focus on it, but he knew it was still there. The King was cruel, but he wasn't stupid.
The King was not stupid.
That's why he feared him.
The King sighed. "I need you to move this along, boy. I have much to take care of and, to be honest, I thought you'd be more interested in me keeping my end of our deal. But it seems like you aren't, are you?"
Raiden gritted his teeth. "How do I know she's alive? That you haven't harmed her?"
"You don't."
"Then, I guess I won't tell you what you want to hear."
"Then, I guess you're staying in your dungeon for a few more winters and the deal is gone."
Winters?
Had a winter passed already?
Raiden paused, knowing the King would take that as hesitation.
"So?"
Raiden's chest went cold. "I am a mutt."
He heard what he could imagine was a set of hands clapping enthusiastically. "Very well. Seems you've learned this lesson, at last," the King's voice sharpened. "Now, what is your purpose within these walls?"
Raiden's lashes fell shut. "To obey."
"What do mutt-bloods do when their king is before them?" King's voice rose sharply to a haunting speech.
How low could the King go to humiliate him further?
"They bow," his voice thundered across the room.
There was a sudden hollowness to the air as if Raiden had been dropped into a deep well.
"See that you remember this," he heard the King's voice right next to his ear.
He bowed his head forward. "Yes, King Demir."
Hands grabbed Raiden by the shoulders, forcing him to lift his head slightly even though he couldn't see anything with the hood. "That was very well done."
Hands pulled the hood from Raiden's head, tipping his head back and, without question, he opened his mouth, feeling the drops of acid falling on his tongue. His lips twitched, but other than that, he showed no other reaction to the poison, swallowing it even as it burned down his windpipe.
Raiden watched the single guard present leave the room and then he dropped his head back down to his chest, his mind spinning in a dozen different directions until he recollected himself.
He had been brought to an enormous room — large, but with no windows to gauge how long had passed, and hardly any light in the room at all to let him the time of day. As he'd expected, it was filled with opulence that symbolized both wealth and power, though he didn't recognize it immediately, meaning he'd probably never been here, before.
Not that he'd been ever allowed in his sixteen years of somewhat free life to roam the palace into the zones the King had early made it known he wasn't welcome in.
Atop a dais in front of him sat a grand throne made from solid white stone. At its shoulders, one wolf and a white crow curled protectively around each side. The wolf's front paws were bared, resting against the King's shoulder, while the crow sat with its beak lowered as if in a careening descent through the air, the tip of the animal's beak on the King's opposite shoulder. Smaller ruby-eyed versions surrounded its pedestal on either side looking like sentinels watching over their master. And all around the ivory room, the walls were adorned with beautiful tapestries depicting scenes of battle, bloodshed, and victory as well as pictures honoring those who had fought for such victories throughout history.
He'd heard in his time in the palace that the fortress owned such a room, where the history of the kingdom and the royal bloodline was written on its walls.
And it was.
Behind the throne, an ancient tree could be seen, with tall, broad branches hand-painted upon the white stone, depicting the royal descendants from the very first king of the north, Silven Thorden, centuries ago, who sat at the roots of the tree. The design occupied most of the tall wall at the back of the room and Raiden could even see that his own father's image had been drawn there, on a branch extended a little further to the right than the rest, along with his mother, and even though the lines for a descendant had been drawn, Raiden's image and name wasn't there to be forever remembered.
He couldn't decide if he was happy or disappointed by the fact.
Mostly indifferent, he realized.
On this white throne sat the King — the tall, imposing figure Raiden remembered, dressed in fabric-encrusted finery, wearing a crown atop his head proclaiming himself ruler of Arszden by divine right — hearing the arrival of the boy before him effortlessly confident of his own dominion over this realm.
It was then that a realization dawned upon Raiden.
"Now, treat me with my owed respect and I will let you speak freely. If not, I will put the cloth back in your mouth and speak alone." The King's hands moved in his lap and Raiden noticed he was twirling one of his rings on his finger. He lifted a brow arrogantly, judging, even though he saw not the boy in front of him. At the lack of response from Raiden, he continued. "Do you know why your mother has never left the castle?"
"Mother never told me."
The King's blue eyes twinkled. "But you've asked, have you not?" His head tipped to the side. "Your mother's maiden told me about all the times you tried to convince her to take you to the Hvitstein Mountain as a child to see the northern lights in the warm seasons."
Of course, he has spies everywhere.
He'd admitted it before.
Raiden's lashes lowered as he felt a sudden headache pulsating there because the King's intrusion and spying on his life and his mother's made his blood boil in his veins. "I've asked her a lot of things. Begged, really." Despite his effort, his voice still transpired all the anger coiling through him at the tight control his father seemed to have of everything that involved his wife and son. If he hated them so, why did he control them? Why didn't he just let them be? "Though after you caught us that day in the courtyard and had the guards chain her and beat her in a cell for days, I stopped asking."
And after what you just put me through, even more so.
It was clear in the smirk the King's lips produced that he was very pleased with the silent, quiet fear that Raiden's voice held as he remembered that horrific day and how he'd screamed and begged the King to make the guards stop only to see him smile and lean down to whisper something to his mother that made her spit in his face.
The King laughed, making his large belly dance with it, though the emotion never reached his unseeing eyes pinned to the space straight ahead of him. "Seems like against all odds, you've grown smart."
Raiden's spine turned pin-straight as he struggled to push in a breath since his chest seemed to be completely piled under rocks. "No." Raiden's voice was gruff because remembering that day still brought shivers to his skin. "I realized something that day."
The King's lips twitched and, for a mere second, he looked like he'd eaten something bitter and had detested the flavor.
But he didn't answer.
So, Raiden thought this was the moment to proceed and say what he'd been meaning to say to his father for a really long time and had never been brave enough to say them — or rather, had been much too scared of him to say. "Despite being related to you…" He swallowed, a bitter sadness collapsing his heart, making each beat it took seem out of breath. "We were never your family. Only your possessions."
An emotion Raiden had never seen before in his father crossed his features.
It was a shadow, rushing right there on the surface of his eyes. Barely there, but there nonetheless. And even though his eyes always appeared lifeless, the shadows made them look sorrowful, like a regret lived deep within them for so long they'd learned to accept whatever ray of sunshine that struck them through the darkness gathered around them. It made small chicken feet appear at their corners, and a fine gleam danced across the sea of the sky-blue irises. For a second, they exuded a sadness that deepened the air around the King like melted rubber and he looked as tired as Raiden had ever seen. Only not the regular type of tired.
He looked weary, like an old soul that'd lived so much it yearned for its rest.
Old.
The shadows danced there for a few more seconds, thriving in the aftermath of their own destruction, and then disappeared like rifts of smoke from a fire until all that remained was once more the light, reflecting the blueness of the same eyes that'd never see it again.
He held his breath, waiting for the punch or the slap or kick or punch or punishment that would certainly follow.
None came.
Instead, the King remained perfectly immobile, only his chest rising and falling steadily. "I believe you don't wish me to deny this," his voice was quiet when he spoke.
Raiden couldn't decide if he liked better the quiet man or the angered beast.
"Nor confirm." Raiden completed, his voice stern but honest, because, deep down, he didn't expect his father to do either, indeed.
He'd said the words knowing they were true, not seeking it.
The King nodded and by the subtle lift of his brows, Raiden knew he'd been caught off guard by the boy's words. "You know not how badly I've wished that it could all have been different."
"I don't, in fact," Raiden agreed solemnly, feeling his chest rise with a rush of cold air that seemed to burn its way inside his lungs. "But I do know that there's no point in changing the past when the thing you mean to change is not your own actions, but the consequences they brought."
The King inhaled sharply. "Must you assume my words aren't pure?"
"No. I believe you mean them," Raiden corrected, voice gentle as he saw a side to his father he'd never seen before. "But I also believe the thing you've wished to change above all else is the Gods' curse on you, not the mistake you made to anger them."
You're too proud and self-righteous for that, and you blame me for it, which is easier.
The King's head tilted to the side and a single lock of golden-white hair fell over his eyebrow that he didn't move to push back. "Why is it that you think so little of me, boy?"
Raiden's brow lifted and he chuckled, dumbfounded at the preposterous question because anyone with the tiniest intelligence would understand why he thought so little of the man who'd despised him and looked down on him for the entirety of his life. He wiggled his chains meaningfully, the sound chirping in the otherwise silent room. "Have you really given me any reason to think otherwise?"
The King's hands fidgeted in his lap almost as if he was uncomfortable in his own skin, which was definitely a new look on him. "So, do you hate me for that, then?" His chin rose in the air in a very particular type of self-proclaimed pride. "For giving you a kingdom and a crown to inherit? For giving you a proper education? For giving you a life of wealth and fortune? For teaching you worthy lessons for your future as king?"
He called what he'd done lessons of any kind or form?
Raiden's heart heaved against his ribcage in a mix between pain and shock. "I most certainly would've been happier if you'd given me none of that and had instead fought for the family we could have been."
Raiden saw his father's hands start to tremble, a movement the King sought to hide by running a hand through his hair and beard. "How is it that you've spent months in isolation, stand now at my feet in chains proclaiming your obedience to me, and yet still manage to defy me with words you've never spoken in my presence before?"
That's where you're wrong. I've always spoken. You've just never listened.
"Maybe you never cared to listen, before."
"Is that really the reason you wish to offer me?"
Raiden shrugged before he remembered the King could not see the gesture. "It matters not what I believe, does it?" He looked away, inhaling a deep breath. "You've shown me that much."
"It matters now."
"Yet, it never did, before. Why does it, now?"
A subtle quivering took over the King's upper lip. "Because now I am listening to you."
Raiden wanted to smack something.
Hard.
"It's a shame, then, that so many winters have had to go by to make you want to listen to the boy you recognized as your son, although I guess it's always been clear what you felt towards me since you refused to have me written on that wall as your heir."
There was clear recrimination in Raiden's voice and he knew the King would hear it as clearly as he did, but, for once, he was not scared of saying the truth to this man who, in sixteen winters, had today, for the first time ever, dared to see anything inside his own son aside from what he hated — whatever that was.
"You are only my heir because I have none other to claim as such."
Of course.
"Don't fool yourself into believing you're the only one who feels dissatisfied by that."
The King lifted a hand to run it through his hair. "You mean to tell me you don't want the throne?"
Raiden scoffed. "If I wasn't sure you'd find a way to torture me or imprison me before I could get as far away from here as possible, I would gladly abdicate in favor of anyone you called your true heir," Raiden closed his hands, needing the movement to ward off the gentle tingling coursing through him. "Although, if I'm being honest, I believe all of this could have been avoided had you managed to love me the day I was born, sixteen winters ago, for I'm sure we'd all be much happier, now, and you'd probably still have your sight."
The King's eyes widened and it was clear in the dilation of his blue pupils he was surprised by the boy's words since he probably hadn't expected he'd ever say them.
Because the truth is secrets are best kept by not telling them, even to the empty walls.
"She's told you?" One of the King's hands rose to his chest and the sheer terror on the man's face was enough for Raiden to realize the idea of anyone knowing the truth petrified him.
But was it because he feared people learned what he'd done?
Or because he worried what would happen if people learned he'd lied?
"No." He shook his head. "But I'm not stupid. I've heard the stories of how you lost your sight a few nights after I was born." He shrugged, moistening his lips and clearing his throat. "Mother's only ever told me that your scars are your punishment for your own choices. She didn't betray your secret… but it didn't take much to assume whatever secret you're keeping is related to my birth."
"We've only kept it a secret to protect you," his father answered him, voice gruff as if every word he'd uttered irked him. "We've kept it for all these winters, not only for your protection but for the kingdom's, as well."
Raiden stepped back, squaring his shoulders as he crossed his arms above his chest. "You genuinely expect me to believe that, don't you?"
The King's head tilted to the side. "Why wouldn't you?"
A small, bitter laugh escaped Raiden's lips at the look of complete shock displayed on the King's face as if he couldn't believe his own son thought him capable of caring about anything or anyone other than himself. "You don't protect other people." There was cruelty woven into the words and Raiden knew that, if he'd been younger and this conversation had all been going much differently, he'd probably have been dragged away and taught a lesson for speaking them, though he wasn't sure that would have any effect, now — not after what he'd been through. "It's just not in your blood. To care. You don't do that." Raiden wanted to rip hair from his scalp or maybe yell or laugh, but neither of those options seemed fitting for the outrage corroding him from the inside. "Whatever reason you have for keeping what really happened sixteen winters ago a secret, it's not for the kingdom's protection." He scoffed. "Much less mine."
A scowl took over the King's features, turning his expression sour and saddened. "You don't know me that well, then."
"Maybe not. I probably know you as well as you know me," he quipped lightning-fast. "What I do know, however, is that secrets…" Raiden moistened his lips and cleared his throat. "At some point, they become irrelevant. But the reason why they were kept never does."
"Remember your status, mutt," the King growled.
Raiden refused to apologize.
Still, he toned down the strength of his spirit, bowing his head and molding his voice until it resembled the tone of obedience the King longed to hear. "Sire."
The King squared his shoulders, running a hand through his hair. "You may have my name and you may even look like me, as many tell me, but you are not —" A relieved sigh left the King's lungs as if a burden had fallen from his chest. "You are not of my blood."
You are not of my blood.
He dared to say that with remorse.
How dare he?
Raiden nodded to himself.
Of course, he dared.
Raiden had obviously suspected, even against all proof he had of the contrary. The resemblance, for one, was hard to miss. But the resemblance could be a coincidence altogether and he'd known that all along. He'd asked his mother, but she'd never told him anything about it. He'd never dared to ask his father, though he'd suspected it by the way his father treated him.
That had always been his greatest clue.
But now, his father had confirmed it — if he could even call him that.
Pure, violent, exploding rage imploded inside him, making him close his hands into tight fists. It threatened to explode outwards into the world if he so much as moved a muscle, so he kept himself completely immobile. There was something balled into a knot in the back of his throat. Something he'd learned to swallow down like a shot of acid. Something he'd always managed to quench, like a thirst he'd always watered at just the last moment, keeping the beast it ultimately transformed into satiated. The lump grew as he stood there, facing his father, who'd turned the lives of his entire family into a living hell for sixteen winters because of the pettiest of secrets. Because of his selfish pride and because he couldn't accept a truth that mattered not if only his heart had been gentle and he'd been willing to see beyond their differences. A wave of terrifyingly powerful electricity rose in him at the thought and he exhaled roughly to dissipate the tension coiled around his muscles, though it helped little. The power inside of him — the same he'd learned to tamper down all his life — was aflame, now. It was still the same burning energy he knew since he could remember, but where before it relinquished to his wishes, now, it didn't.
Now… it wanted release.
Needed release.
Craved release.
Hungered for release.
The King had kept talking, though his words sounded from afar to Raiden's ears. "You are your mother's son, but you aren't my flesh and —"
"That's the secret?" His voice sounded hollow as he interrupted whatever mindless words his father was saying and he didn't recognize the edge of badly-contained anger in his tone, much like the edge of a blade swiping across the air to strike.
The King's entire frame froze.
He didn't answer.
"That's the secret?" Raiden repeated.
King Demir still said nothing.
"That's your fucking secret?!" Raiden was yelling now, having lost all sense of himself as the image of his father was reduced to a single, small, blue-tainted frame in front of his eyes. It was the first time Raiden heard himself scream in his sixteen winters of life and he absolutely loathed the sound of misery and pain clinging to each syllable he yelled — so pathetic and weak, exactly like a child begging for love. "I'm not your son? I'm not your fucking son?!" He laughed and the sound was every bit as icy as the snow that coated the lands. "All of this… all these winters… everything you've done… because I am not your son?!"
His screams made Rhun emerge at the room's door and he looked in doubt between him and the King, the indecision of whether to intervene or not dancing heavily in his eyes.
At Raiden's stare, he stilled, making no move to intervene.
For once, the two boys agreed on something.
Instead, he saw the way the boy ran his eyes over Raiden's body and it was hard not to picture exactly what he was seeing. Raiden had only seen it once in his lifetime himself, but he remembered it well enough to not have to wonder or fantasize or imagine any of it.
His skin glistened with a blue shimmer, and lines of fluorescent power enveloped his shoulders and exposed arms, enveloping his hands the most, moving like wandering threads of life, looking for a place to go. The energy cracked and sizzled, so powerful it was a wonder it didn't burn down the entire castle or the city around him. He could feel the current slowly flowing through his bloodstream as well as he wondered if his veins shone with electricity, too, the same way they felt hidden inside his entrails. His entire body tingled and burned, though the sensation was one he'd grown accustomed to over the winters enough to ignore it, now.
He knew that, at the snap of a finger, all could come crumbling down around him.
Rhun's chest heaved in tandem with Raiden's.
Was he going to say what he saw to the King?
To his surprise, no words left the servant boy's mouth.
Raiden's attention returned to his father. "How could you?"
The King's hands raised, palms up, facing Raiden. "Listen to me —"
"How could you?"
The man swallowed loudly. "I won't explain myself to you, though I doubt anything I could say would satisfy your anger."
"My anger? My anger?" Raiden laughed maniacally and it was hard to think that there had been a time when he'd been rational. The power sizzled louder, begging to lash out and punish. "You think I'm mad that you hid from me that I'm not your son?"
Confusion blared on the man's face. "Well, yes… aren't you?"
"No, Father." He used the word purposefully to wound and hurt. At the quick intake of breath and subtle rise of the King's chin, Raiden knew he'd hit his mark. "The only thing I am angry about is the fact that the world's let you cause this much pain and seed this much hate only for the sake of your own pride." He laughed again, sadistic and bloody. "It's sick. And it's cruel. And above all else, I'm angry because it allowed you to do all that and sit there, now, thinking the lie is the worst of your deeds."
"You were born with those eyes and —"
"So, somehow, it's my fault, now?" Raiden's eyes narrowed as he felt the burning all over his body, now, cutting off his breath. Raiden suppressed the need to gesticulate and ease the burning sensation tingling through his skin. "Can you even admit to what you did without making it someone else's fault? Without finding justifications for your actions? Without blaming others for the outcome of your decisions?"
"You are…" The King turned his body to his right, hiding away whatever emotion or reaction crossed his features, his shoulders rising sharply. One finger touched the corner of his eye and, if Raiden didn't know better, he'd think the man was fighting off tears. "You looked so much like him as a baby…" There was a longing in the words as if the King remembered all too well how he'd looked like as an infant and had, at times, longed that the face he saw reflected there was his own, instead of another man's. "Even now, standing here, I hear the resemblance in your words. It was impossible not to feel him in you." The old man shook his head, his blind eyes growing heavy as they moved in their orbits even without knowing where to look at. "You are his perfect copy. Everything about you is exactly like him, your speech, your sovereignty, your looks, your voice, even your self-righteousness."
"It doesn't matter!" Raiden exploded, winded by his outburst just as much as his father seemed to be, raising his brows high in surprise. He took deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down, listening to his own heartbeat to soothe his anger and time his breaths. "It doesn't matter," he repeated, his voice sounding now quieter.
The King's brows lowered and he frowned as he leaned forward as if he meant to get up. "It does —"
"I don't care who he is or was, nor if we look alike or not," Raiden interrupted, tone harsh because he couldn't fathom why this man thought it mattered who he'd guessed all those winters ago to be his son's father. All that did matter was that he'd recognized him as his own and, if he was indeed not his son in blood, then perhaps things could all have been different if only he'd made different, much more rational choices in the past. "I'm not him. The same way I am not you. And he's not my father any more than you are, mutt father."
The King's chest rose sharply, brows rising. The same shadow from before crossed his eyes once more, only this time he was quicker to recover from its touch.
Raiden wondered what he was thinking, now.
And realized he didn't really care because this was the same man who'd spent sixteen winters pretending he didn't exist except when he meant to punish him or, by extension, his mother, so he didn't have the right to suddenly start pretending to care. And it was the same man who'd spent however long he'd been incarcerated torturing him for compliance and blind obedience.
His father blinked. "Raiden." His eyes fell closed and Raiden found that, with his eyes closed, his face became gentler, that of a man saddened with the fate he'd been dealt and burdened with the choices that'd lead him to it, instead of the disfigured, ravenous, self-righteous monster Raiden had always seen, to this day. "You might not think it matters, but it does! Because he is your father. Either by flesh and blood or by spirit, he is more your father than I will ever be, and he's responsible for all of this! This is all his doing." The King's words faltered and a wince of pain and sorrow flew across his face, changing his features into that of an embittered man, saddened by a burden he'd never been able to carry properly, without weighing him down. "Your father put this curse on me. This punishment. I was made blind by him."
By him?
By a God?
His father was a God?
A sneer came to rest on Raiden's face. "That's how you justify your hate?"
"No." Came the quick answer, almost a whisper in the King's voice. "That's just the truth."
"Then, what did you do to make him blind you?"
The King's face hardened, his jaw clenched and his cheeks pinked with the softest shade of shame.
Raiden clapped his hands with a roar of icy laughter and the sound made the King jump in the banquette. "I should have guessed you'd be too much of a coward to admit the truth."
The King's mouth opened. Then closed, just as his fair lashes lowered, hiding his mutilated eyes. Then, he opened his mouth again, and from it came rushing words with the bloodied, savage truth the King had been hiding all these winters. "The second I realized you weren't mine, I tried to send you off the tower's balcony, and I've loathed the mere thought of you all these winters because of the fact that every time I heard you or felt you or heard your voice, all I wanted was for you to be mine. Not his."
Greed and jealousy.
Raiden's hands started to tremble and his chest rose with an unsteady breath. The burning increased until a furnace seemed to live inside of him. He turned, running a hand through his face as the other came to rest under his ribs as if holding them might make the pain gutting him ease a bit.
Which it didn't.
It only made all of it harder to accept — to swallow.
"You tried to kill me."
"I was so enraged at your mother's betrayal, that she'd lain with another man that I… lost all control."
Raiden's heart fluttered uncomfortably as he made a long pause, his burning momentarily too stumped to grow or diminish, wondering how to answer the crushing truth before him. "I will never forgive you."
The King's face hardened and his jaw clenched. "I will not apologize."
Raiden shook his head. "If I wanted an apology, I would have asked for one," he growled gruffly, then sighed. "You already gave me what I wanted, so you can take me back to my cell."
Raiden struggled to rise —
"What about your mother? Our deal? Have you forgotten?"
He stopped, body stiffening. "No. But I know you won't keep it."
"Sire —" Rhun began.
"No." The King's face twisted in anger and he rose to his feet swiftly. "GUARDS!" He yelled, voice shrill. "No, Raiden, you are not going to rebel against me again —"
The door burst open, hitting the wall with a loud crack.
There, the Queen stood, her white undergarment — a beautiful tunic — bloodied at the womb. One of her hands cradled her belly and Raiden didn't need to look twice to understand what was happening. Her hair was in complete disarray and her eyes had a crazed gleam to them, which Raiden guessed were both from the pain and the panic. Her cheeks were flushed, probably from running from her chambers all the way here, as much as from the pain making her wince as she leaned on the door for support.
The electricity in his blood evaporated.
Mother.
Raiden fell back to his knees, fear seeming to stomp his chest with each beat his heart took. He felt his shoulders tense and his jaw clenched as thoughts raced through his mind while his mother crossed the room with large steps toward him.
Oh, Mother.
As she reached him, she collapsed into his arms, letting go of all power altogether. She paled by the second as he slowly lowered her to the floor, pulling hair away from her face with tender fingers. One bloodied hand reached up to touch her son's cheek even though a wince left her when she leaned her head on his shoulder. "I couldn't let him hurt you anymore."
He already had.
"Mother…" Too worried about her state to care about her reasons for coming here, Raiden's eyes traveled her garments, seeing that the bloodstain was growing still. "You were pregnant?" His words were low, but in the silence created in the room, they were audible all the same.
"Were?" The King repeated, voice hollow.
Rhun suddenly materialized in the room. "She's having a miscarriage, Sire."
"You bloody whore!" The King yelled, stepping forward blindly even as Rhun tried to keep him still. "How dare you? How dare you steal yet another life from me? How dare you steal yet another son from me, you filthy whore?!"
His mother's hand squeezed Raiden's painfully but when she spoke through her pained panting, her eyes were locked onto the King's. "I didn't plan this!" She yelled, her last word ending in a wail of pain. Raiden tried to help her grow more comfortable by lying her down on the floor but she stopped him by struggling to sit instead, one of her hands on her lower abdomen while the other squeezed valiantly his hand. "You might be able to hate your own son and you might even have been capable of trying to murder him, Demir, but I am not like you!"
There was silence for a few dizzying moments.
Raiden looked up at his father's face and, for just a few seconds, he wondered if he'd let this go. But the second he lifted his hand to point at Raiden, he realized that the most wicked of his punishments was coming.
"I was willing to forget, Jordhanna, but not anymore. Seems both of you are much too keen on defying me, so I must put an end to this foolish idea that either of you can oppose me by definitively ending this." The finality of his words made Raiden shiver and tremble, accompanying the shudders of pain echoing through his mother. "Seize the boy!" He demanded.
Raiden heard the sound of footsteps rushing into the room, signaling the entry of three castle guards in the royal chambers.
"No!" His mother yelled, despair so clear in her voice that it ripped a hole through Raiden's chest. Her hands cramped up the fabric over Raiden's chest, pushing him against her. "Stop, Demir, please! I would never do this on purpose! Haven't you hurt him enough?!"
Two seconds went by before hands were grabbing him under the armpits and lifting him from the ground at his mother's side, though not without effort. He clung to her with the same strength she did for him, screaming at the guards, knowing something very evil awaited him as the price to pay for what had happened in this room today.
His brother's death.
The Queen's eyes tipped up. "Demir, please."
Raiden realized he'd propelled forward with Rhun's guidance, standing now a little to his side, his presence as deadly as he'd ever felt it before.
"Did you enjoy taking my son's life? Ripping him from the same womb that gladly carried this —" His father shoved Raiden forward, making him fall to his knees, the guards swiftly holding him there by the shoulders. "— filthy mongrel for nine months?"
"No!" Tears were falling down her eyes, now, running freely down her rosy cheeks. "I would never abort on purpose! You know I've had trouble getting pregnant since Raiden. I don't —" Her voice died with the tears falling down her face, making her swallow harshly before rising her eyes back to the King, reinvigorated. "I don't know what happened. I didn't do anything to make this happen. You have to believe me, Demir. Please."
Raiden tried to pull back from the hands, fighting their hold on his shoulders, but they hastily grabbed him tighter by the collars of his dress shirt, shoving him forcibly down when he tried to rise. His knees skidded on the stone and he winced, gritting his teeth at the flash of pain.
"You can't give me back my son's life, can you?" The King's voice was as cold and frivolous as Raiden had ever heard, and the sound was like a knife going down his spine.
In tears, Jordhanna shook her head, lashes drooping.
One guard crossed his arm underneath Raiden's armpit and his hand was on Raiden's throat in less than a second. The grip was painful, but not quite suffocating, though he felt the threat quite strongly as the coolness of a blade pressed against his jugular. Rendered immobile, Raiden stilled all effort to escape, keeping his gaze trained on his mother as tears fell from her eyes.
I'm sorry, Mother.
"Then, maybe, one day, I'll give you back yours."
Raiden breathed in.
"Maybe the day one of my own sits upon my throne."
Out of the corner of his eyes, Raiden noticed a shadow to his right and his insides clenched just as a shiver tiptoed down his back.
Raiden breathed out —
A scream ripped out of his throat.
"No! You monster!"
It was only seconds later that Raiden felt the pain ripping through him as the convulsions began, stronger than ever before. His body slid away from his mother, all of him twitching as the convulsions took over. It increasingly became harder to breathe through his strangled pants. He could feel his muscles spasming too rapidly, creating new, excruciating pain every time he expanded his lungs.
He collapsed on his back.
The pain was dilacerating, ripping him into pieces as he grunted and wailed, screams ripping off his vocal cords.
His eyes lifted to the ceiling as he felt his body give out.
Oh, Gods in the heavens.
The sound of his screams, mixed with his mother's, filled his ears, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. He felt hands on his body, changing his position, shoving him into his knees and then up until he was supported under the arms by two forearms. The third one snagged a hand over his hair, pulling his head back while the crack of a hand landed across his cheek.
His heavy lids lifted as he grunted. "Keep awake, mutt," one of the guards sneered under his breath. "You'll heal quickly from the poison with that special blood of yours, but we'll make it damn hard for you, this once."
Everything seemed muffled and muddled.
Still, in one last surge of energy, Raiden opened his eyes to look at his mother, still in pain on the floor.
"What will you do with him?" Jordhanna forced the words out like they were weapons shooting out of her mouth and Raiden wondered if it was fear that sharpened her tone or pain.
"I won't kill him. He is still my only heir."
Raiden wanted to scoff, but he lacked the strength to do that. Instead, he coughed up blood on the floor.
"Until you make me give you another?" The Queen yelled back.
No one answered her except the silence.
"Answer me, Demir!"
"Put him in a cell," the King ordered the guards instead — who hummed their approval — and ignored his wife as thoroughly as he had all their years of marriage. "No food or water. He'll see no ray of sunshine nor a single glow of a star as long as his mother doesn't learn her place in this monarchy, which is giving me a true heir."
"No…"
"Yes, Jordhanna." The King bowed and whether he could tell where she was or he'd just guessed, he stood now face to face with the Queen. "Maybe if you see him in a few winters, you'll finally remember what a woman's purpose in a dynasty is."
Raiden's eyelids slowly brushed closed.
He let out a breath.
The last thing he saw was his mother's face, bathed in tears. The pain and sorrow in her eyes were so clear, so pure, so genuine, he felt his own eyes shed a tear because even from where he stood, he could see it.
Her heart.
Breaking.
Because today had been the day she'd lost, not one, but two children.
And as the guards started to drag him away, tripping and moaning, his last coherent thought was that the breaking of such a beautiful, gentle thing — the kindest heart to ever exist in this rotten world — should make a greater crack.
Then, his entire body was on fire.
And everything went black.