Page 26 of A Promise of Lies (Shadows of the Tenebris Court #3)

25

Bastian

I stared at the torn out page. Read it again and again.

“We found her on the banks of the river, a tiny baby in her arms. She was soaked and so pale we thought she was dead at first. But she was clinging on, desperate not to leave her boy alone in the world. The river had washed the blood from her clothes and snapped the arrows.”

My father’s voice was distant, an accompaniment to the note as I read it over and over—a compulsion I couldn’t shake.

“She wouldn’t tell us what had happened, her focus was entirely on her baby. She begged us for paper. Begged us to take him and keep him safe. She wanted to give us proof and she wanted to give him a name. To give you a name.”

I name him Bastian .

I name him Bastian .

I name him Bastian .

It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t…

“But I…” I shook my head, grasping for words other than what was in the note. “The woman who was attacked… she’s my…”

“We let everyone think that. You know how useful assumptions are. The timings lined up—you were born when she was nine months pregnant. But you weren’t conceived that night. You were two months premature—that’s why you were always such a small child. A little miracle.”

I couldn’t think straight. There were so many arguments against this, so many reasons it couldn’t be true. But all I could do was finally tear my eyes from the note and look at him, at Kat, searching for signs that this was a joke or a hallucination or something .

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she wept in silence. “It’s true.”

And with those two words, the world shifted. I was one thing one minute, something else the next.

Just like that.

A breath in. A breath out. The two moments worlds apart.

My knees thudded into the stone floor.

I was the son of Princess Nyx. Braea’s grandson. Sura’s nephew.

Did she know? Was that why she had refused to kill me, even though it would’ve been the smart course of action?

“Sura planted the information inside my head,” Kat went on when I remained silent. “She locked it away so I couldn’t reach it. She was afraid everyone who knew would die before you could be told, but she knew you’d keep me close. I was meant to remember if she died, but seeing this must’ve…” She shook her head.

“It broke the lock. Forcibly. Thank the Stars above, I managed to fix the worst of the damage.” Kaliban watched me. I’d never seen so many lines on his face. We didn’t age like humans, but today he looked ancient, as though worry wore him thin like old clothes.

“So…” I stumbled into more silence, too many questions falling over themselves to be voiced. “She survived? Nyx is still alive?”

But my father shook his head. “Only for a short while. The arrows… they were too much. There was nothing we could do. Maybe if one of us had been a healer, but… She knew it was coming. That’s why she was desperate to leave something for you. She wanted you to know where you came from and that you were born from love—love that reached across the veil between here and the Underworld and didn’t care that your father-by-blood was unseelie. She made us help her write it, kissed your little head and told you she loved you, then she closed her eyes.”

Goosebumps crept over me, and my eyes burned.

I’d always understood the woman who’d given birth to me didn’t love me. I could deal with that. It was old knowledge, long accepted. Familiar in a way. But this?

I turned away from it and planted my feet on a more practical path, checking Kat’s nose had stopped bleeding. “How did she die? You said arrows—whose?”

He exchanged a look with Kat. “She wouldn’t say how she got three arrows in her and ended up in the river. She was entirely focused on keeping you safe. But…” He took a long breath and his gaze slid to Kat again. “She made us give our word that we’d never tell her mother the truth.”

Her hand slid into my lap and she gave my leg a comforting squeeze. “Remember what Sura told me about how Nyx died? She needed to keep you safe from Braea… and from anyone who might try to put you on the throne when they discovered Braea had killed Nyx.”

I flinched, shutting my eyes against that lie. If Sura had planted that information in Kat’s head, she could plant lies too—she didn’t have to say things out loud to put them there. That could be a way around the law that bound us.

Instead, I frowned at my father. “Why didn’t you tell me? All these years and nothing.”

“We swore to protect you. If you’d known as a child, that was one more person to let slip. The only ones who knew were us and Princess Sura. Three was already too many. But your father and I trusted each other, and Sura… to her you were all she had left of her sister. She would do anything to keep you safe.”

I hated that it made sense.

“Her coup wasn’t to gain power for herself. It was to remove Braea from the throne. It took her years to gain support from the right people—Sylen and me included. But she never forgot her sister or what Braea had done to her. She hoped taking the throne would make you safe.”

“But the queen loves me, she wouldn’t?—”

“Braea locked up Nyx because she couldn’t control her. Don’t you understand? She murdered Nyx because she couldn’t stand the thought of having an unseelie heir— you . She had Sura executed. Do you think she would hesitate to kill you if she found out?”

He was wrong. He didn’t understand. But arguing with him was pointless. Once he’d made up his mind, it was set.

“Sylen knew it.” He leant as close to the bars as he could without touching them. “That was why he never wanted you in the Queensguard. He was afraid that if you got close to her, Braea would recognise who you really were.”

I searched through my memories, filtering them through the lens of this new information. Had he dropped hints?

I kept landing at the day he’d died. The day I’d killed him. The day he’d let me.

“Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he stop me? If I’d known…” Would I have let him take the throne for Sura? How would I have weighed Braea’s stability against the truth? What did all this mean for his death? For the first time in fifteen years, I wasn’t sure I had made the right choice, however painful.

My father gave a sad smile; it was the kindest look he’d given me in a long while. “His blood may not run through your veins, but you and he were cut from the same cloth. He would’ve done anything for the realm—for your future. That included giving his own life.”

“The willow knot charm. That’s why he put it in my pocket.”

His eyes gleamed as he nodded. “He knew there was a risk you’d run in headlong, trying to save the day. It would keep you alive until you could be healed. He probably intended to keep you out of the fight with the injury, but of course ”—his mouth twisted in a sardonic smirk—“you refused to even look after yourself and insisted on saving the queen first.”

The back of my throat ached. All this time, I’d wondered if it was an accident or if he meant to protect me if Braea lashed out due to his treachery.

“He couldn’t kill you, because the coup was meant to make you safe, just as he’d sworn. Just as I have stayed away all these years in order to protect you.”

Again, the world shifted. This time it jolted away, leaving me in free fall. “ What ?”

“I’m sorry that I’ve played the part too well, but it was necessary.”

“No, you were right. I took him away from you. I betrayed you both. I understand.” His anger at me was fair—righteous, even.

“Oh, I was furious. But at him , not at you. He’d left me when we’d promised to be together always.” When he blinked, tears fell. “After the coup, there was so much suspicion on me and if I kept you close, I knew it could easily fall on you. I hated myself for it, but when I turned my back on you, I was doing as Sylen bade me. I was remembering our promise.”

I’d repeated his message, even as my own heart lay in tatters and I broke Kaliban’s. I’d had no idea that promise related to me.

“I never stopped loving you, Bastian. How could I? My boy. The son I didn’t know I wanted—I needed . You saved me. Having you…” He shook his head as the tears reached his lips. “It was starlight in the darkness of my own guilt—a guiding point when I was lost. And I know I failed you. So many times. My dreams… I let them imprint on you. I hurt you with them?—”

“That wasn’t your?—”

“I still did it. The first time it happened, I should’ve found a way to stop them or at least protect you. But I was too comforted by having our little life in the stable quarters—a normal life where I could wake up with your father and make you breakfast. So, yes, I failed you. But I have never— never stopped loving you.”

I had to wipe tears from my own cheeks, and this time I leant into Kat’s comforting touch on my arm. All these years, I thought he hated me. I thought I’d never achieve his forgiveness, so I was unworthy of it.

But he had forgiven.

He still called me son.

He was still my athair .

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I could barely choke the question out as I held myself together.

“It was part of protecting you. Knowing puts you in danger—even now. It’s much easier to keep a secret when you don’t know it. But…” He spread his hands. “They’re going to execute me. This was my last chance. At least I thought it was.” He gave Kat a lopsided smile. “I didn’t realise Sura had locked the knowledge in Kat’s mind.”

I scrubbed my face, a last ditch effort to wake up. But the calluses on my palms bit into the skin around my eyes, telling me there was nothing to wake up from.

“All this time you left me on my own to… to think you hated me.”

He bowed his head. “If Braea thought there was even a chance you were working against her, influenced by me, she would’ve had you killed.” He took a deep breath before meeting my gaze, his eyebrows knitting together. “You don’t understand the lengths she will go to.”

“No. You misunderstand her. She treads a tightrope.” The same as me. “It isn’t easy to keep the peace between two courts… To do what must be done.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” He laughed mirthlessly. He’d done what needed to be done. It still burned him. “The—the…” His jaw went solid as he squeezed his eyes shut. “The… the…” His face went red. Sweat beaded his brow, which scrunched up in… it was either pain or effort. Or both.

Kat reached through the bars, touching his shoulder. “Kaliban?”

He huffed out a sigh. “I can’t speak of it. There’s a… a…” He waved his hand.

“Geas?” I offered.

There had to be one in place, because he couldn’t even nod to confirm. An obligation that had been placed upon him, in this instance that he couldn’t communicate about a particular topic.

A geas placed a great deal of strain on its subject, and required even more energy from the person placing it. They weren’t spoken of lightly and few were put in place. Even threatening one was considered serious.

He spoke his next words slowly, as if testing the boundaries of his restrictions. “That infernal book of hers.”

I swapped looks with Kat, who shook her head, clearly as puzzled as I was.

He’d been nursing his hate of Braea for a long time now, and if he’d been conspiring with Sura about the coup, who knew what poison she’d dripped in his ear about her mother.

There was nothing I could do about any of that. I certainly wasn’t going to act on what I’d just found out. I couldn’t even bring myself to think the words.

“Whatever happened in the past, we’re going to get you out. This is all… nonsense.” Both the arrest and some of what he’d said, too. “I’m going to fix this.”

As I helped Kat up, he shook his head. “Whatever you need to believe, Bastian. But just in case you’re wrong… just in case this is the last chance, I need to tell you one more thing.”

“Please, no more surprises.” I rubbed my forehead. There was too much new information in my brain. Too many things falling over each other as I tried to process—or ignore—them.

“I’ve seen you in Kat’s thoughts”—he gave her an apologetic grin—“before she learned to stop them bleeding out. My boy…” He came up to the bars. “For too long you’ve blamed yourself and felt the guilt and responsibility for things you didn’t do, all because you remember them. I did those things. I am the one who deserves punishment. Not you.”

I stared at him, frozen by the shock of being perceived. He and Kat had seen me, understood me, pulled out the quiet things I kept to myself.

I suddenly understood how prey felt when it was caught in the hunter’s gaze.

“You need to stop torturing yourself for what you didn’t do. You need to stop thinking that you’re undeserving of any brightness because of my darkness, skulking in the shadows, while your queen stands in the light.” He took my shoulder, his words echoing in my mind, easing the old memories so they were indistinct ink spills rather than crisply drawn diagrams. “You need to be the prince, the king, the leader you were always meant to be.”