Chapter 39
Ryzen
What had I expected when Galanth had shown up? Of course, that it would be revelation after revelation and the truth would seep in through the shadows in ways I had never predicted.
Where had Callyn gone?
Was my brother with her?
The blood in the tub was not really blood at all.
A staged scene in her room.
And the most nerve-wracking thought of all, what was the relationship between Callyn and my brother?
But no truths revealed themselves.
Rorcan had never once given me reason to ever doubt him, except for that one time he didn't let me get any more drunk than I was and murder our mother, the Queen of Riveria.
Time and time again I had questioned his actions that day. It wasn't long after Father had died and the ache of having lost someone so precious to you had still been fresh in the space between my chest. And so it was for my older brother, who had suddenly found the throne out of his reach, for our Father’s wish was for me, the second-born and cursed, to be King of Riveria and the Southern Isles. But it was a grief not shared by the woman who birthed us, a pain never seen on her face for the husband she had just lost. Her face shone now, her clothes gaudy as ever and her revels were endless. I knew it in my bones that only she was to blame for Father’s death. She never did love him; I had seen the scorn on her face for decades and when she held yet another revel I allowed myself a drink too many and came this close to ending her during her own merry-making.
It was only him, only Rorcan who stopped me from making what he claimed would be “the biggest mistake of my life.”
So here I was now. With no brother to stop me from my own self and a woman whom I possibly couldn't have truly known.
What else could explain the fake blood in the tub and the staged room? Who else could but her?
A knock sounded on my door.
Galanth didn't wait for my response when he walked in through the door and stood before me, his hands crossed.
“Well?”
He let out a heavy sigh. I knew that sigh. It usually came when he had to deliver difficult news. Had heard it countless times before when he had to deliver news of good men lost to war.
“I asked around and dug up some things,” he began, keeping his gaze firmly on mine.
Gold played at my fingertips and he cut a glance toward them.
“Callyn Alcoff doesn't exist,” he said at last.
“What?”
It was a simple statement. It shouldn't have been so hard to understand.
“No one by the name of Callyn Alcoff exists… not in the Nation’s Council, not anywhere.”
A simple statement and yet, the ramifications were unfathomable.
It was an effort to control the gold at my fingertips. Usually it was easy; it came naturally, to throw over a blanket of calm when the gold rushed in but at moments like this, when the sky shattered onto the earth, it was an extreme effort.
So I breathed in deep and let the air fill my lungs, tried not to focus on the sickening scent of Mother’s roses and let a small fraction of that beautifully destructive power of mine loose in the room.
Fine particles of gold hovered around me and Galanth and expanded into the confines of the large room, into every nook and cranny.
The faint shimmer of that fragment of my power was the only bit I let loose, only so I didn't set the entirety of Riveria Castle up in gold flames.
To be continued…
You set fire to my imagination by those magically aligned words..You are really talented dear. Write more frequently 🥰