Page 176 of Beneath a Shattered Sky
My heart skips a beat, but I don’t speak. I don’t think I can.
It’s not just the news that whatever long-dead Iceblyd ancestors will finally be laid to rest. Ever since I was born, I’ve been Lord Drystan Snowchild, the infamous bastard of Calimnel. The son of the female who managed to trap the king. Grandson of a traitor.
Drystan Iceblyd. I can’t decide how the idea makes me feel.
Ashton pauses at my silence, darting a glance up. “If you want it, lad. It’s yours. Those two fucking fought over you like dogs over a bone, but Iceblyd was a noble house, once. When I was a child, your grandmother used to take me sledding, for fuck’s sake.”
I hadn’t known that, either. I suppose there was a reason Cedwyn felt so betrayed by Archie’s coup.
Kitarni interjects. “There is a heavy price to pay for changing an entry in the Book of Names, Your Highness, and it can only be paid by a parent.”
Ashton looks her square in the eye and says the words that finally shatter my reality. “You really think Cedwyn would’ve tortured his own child so much? No. His mate bore my son, and he hated all three of us for it.”
No. Not possible. Cedwyn and Hawkith were mates—truly mated—so the chances that he could be…
“Danu works in mysterious ways,” Kitarni murmurs.
Goddess. There’s mysterious and then there’s fucked up.
Rose guessed, I realise, looking up at the ceiling with dread. My mate knew my parents were mated, and she knew one of them wasn’t even my parent. Was it all so transparent, or was it the Goddess’s influence?
My uncle—myfather—won’t look at me.
“Why?” I ask. “Archie—Archibald Iceblyd—tried to kill you. Killed your parents.”
“That was almost six hundred years ago.” Ashton waves his hand in the air. “And Cedwyn spent almost every night sincethen tormented by ghosts he couldn’t even see. I’m not stupid or stubborn enough to follow in his footsteps, and I don’t need to crush the Iceblyds to rule Calimnel. Once the war is over, we’ll make it official and look at getting Mirrwyl restored, so you’ll always have a true home in your own court.”
I don’t know what to say. Part of me wants the ice to open up beneath me and swallow me whole. Another angry, bitter part thinks Ashton is five hundred years too late to start righting wrongs and heaping favours on me.
If I’m his son, I’m the heir. Just that word threatens to shatter my composure. ‘Heir’ makes me exactly what my mother always wanted. It grants her a final victory over Cedwyn and makes all the punishments I suffered at his hand meaningless. He took my head for almost two centuries to prevent this exact scenario.
If Ashton dies—and we’re in the middle of a Goddess-damned war, so it’s a distinct possibility—that makes me king.
I’d rather rot in a windowless room for a hundred years than spend a second as King of Winter.
“Make a new heir,” I whisper. “I won’t sit on that throne.”
I’m turning on my heel before he can respond, barely aware of Kitarni counselling Ashton to ‘give me some time,’ when Gryffin bursts through the door to the privy chamber, with Jaro hot on his heels.
“What—” I begin, but I’m cut off when the Autumn Prince scans the room and scowls when he fails to find whoever he’s seeking.
“Where is she?” he demands, lines of strain bracketing his features. “I thought he’d go after the Nicnevin next, but if she’s not with you?—”
“Who?” Kitarni asks, striding forward.
“Caedmon.” Gryffin spits his name like a curse. “The bastard stabbed my mate, pushed her out of a window, and then left her for dead.”
The blue flames behind me roar scarlet and orange, bathing the room in golden warmth even as my veins ice over.
“Where. Is. Rhoswyn?” I demand, reaching for the Call as I stride from the room. “Tell me someone is with her.”
“We just sent Lore to look for Florian,” Jaro says, leading the way out of the war room at a run, his wolf snarling through his voice as his eyes flash golden. “And Bree was recovering from Hawkith’s potion.”
Leaving Caed with the perfect fucking opening.
“Yeah, the redcap turned up on our doorstep spouting off about Elfhame having fallen, told Caed to watch Rose and Bree, and then disappeared,” Gryffin explains. “Caed went all stiff, asked for a second alone with Prae. The next thing I know, I’m sending everything I’ve got down our mating bond to keep her alive while a barbegazi with healing magic tries to keep her heart beating.”
We let our guard down for one moment, and it was all Caed needed to strike. I knew this would happen.
