Page 49 of Hidden Kingdoms

“Yes, Goldie?”

“Will you tell me more?” I continued to stroke the petals before glancing up at him.

He was frowning slightly. “I have a feeling that when it comes to you, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

20

CHAPTER TWENTY

BASTIAN

My chest heaved with laboured breaths as a steady trickle of blood ran down to the pads of my fingertips, dripping onto the thick rug under my feet. I couldn’t discern the disruption of the patterns, everything in my field of vision was currently tinted in various shades of red. Shards of glass littered the floor; ruby now instead of their earlier crystal.

Gritting my teeth on the growls that I held in my chest, my hands clenched and unclenched. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sharp remnants were still lodged in my skin. The cuts now coating my palm in blood as I blinked hard in an attempt to return colour to theworld.

It didn’t work.

As the drops peppered the rug that been here since before my fathers, fathers, father had occupied this palace, I could hear Cyra’s voice in my head.Calm, Little Prince. Focus your mind.I zeroed in on the fire poppies in the tapestry in front of me, counting each flaming bloom.

One, two, three.

Why wouldn’t she just give me some fucking answers?

Four, five, six.

Maybe a turn in the dungeons would get her talking?

When I’d counted to fifty seven and stillfelt the need to melt that white-haired creature into a puddle at my feet, I knew it wasn’t working.

I’d given her a bed. Food. Even stopped The Darkness from taking her, and she couldn’t give me a straight fucking answer. She knew something, why else would the magik Nova had given to us lead us right to her?

How was she supposed to help us? How did she have magik? Why had The Darkness chose her to attack? I’d never heard of it doing that before. Just who the fuck was she? Did we do something wrong with the stone Nova had given us? Was there something in the house that we had missed?

All questions I couldn’t answer.

I would crack her pretty little head open and dig the answers out with my bare hands if that’s what it took. Would have done it just then had Kaius not got in the way. A fresh wave of fury at the outcome of that encounter had my hands trembling as I focussed onnotsetting fire to the centuries old décor.

Things with The Darkness were escalating, attacks were becoming more frequent. Fae were going missing all over the fucking place, not to mention the whispers of fathers disappearance that were getting hard to keep under wraps.

If I’d had another glass in my vicinity I would of thrown that too. Though considering I’d also just destroyed a three-hundred year old bottle of Tyrsi whiskey, I needed to step away from the glassware.

Anger was kindling to the flames that resided in my veins.

And it would seem our new visitor knew just how to stoke them.

I hated it. This slumbering beast that reared its head just to remind me how weak I was. Being out of control of my emotions was something I’d had trained out of me a long time ago, andI couldn’t afford to slip now. Not with father gone, and the kingdom now in my fucking hands.

The story that their King was away on an indefinite pilgrimage was starting to wear thin. There was only so long we could keep it up before the rest of the kingdom saw right through our bullshit. They couldn’t know he’d been taken.

My heart felt like it was ripping in half every time I thought about it. No one knew what happened once The Darkness took you, but the magik threaded through our family’s hold on the Royal Line, told me he was still alive. I didn’t know what was worse.

The official declaration was that, as heir, I was to act in my father’s stead whist he completed his holy journey through the kingdom. Sooner or later people would realise he hadn’t been seen at a single sacred sight and the questions would begin.Werealready beginning in some places. It was why I’d stayed here to see out my indeterminate sentence as ruler. Less eyes.

There was no denying being out here in the country palace was better than being in Palace Incendo in the centre of Firenze. The Great Temple of Suri was so close I couldn’t move without bumping into a priestess, with their blackened skin and ritual chanting. The only one here was Cyra, which was fine by me, though I knew she would be pissed at my latest outburst. She’d probably run right off to the palace, to mother, and spill all.

It was good for the people to have their queen close by, it helped maintain the cover of father and uncle Viggo’s disappearance—and kept her out my way.

Though mother probably knew everything already, seeing as Cyra was the only one I trusted to tend to this…prisoner?

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