Page 30 of Return of the Darkness (The Lost Kingdom Saga #3)

Caellum

T he Diary of Wren Balfour, Entry Two

I was right to be suspicious, and I expect my end is inevitable.

While I still feel like myself, he is there, a presence in my mind.

I find myself doing and saying things without realising.

It has only been a day since I returned from the Neutral City.

I entered the castle estate and shoved a servant when they stumbled into me—why would I do that?

I try to resist, but the darkness coils tighter around my mind, twisting until I submit.

I do not know how long I have until I become like my father: devoid of emotions, actions unexplained.

Until I reach that state, I will continue to write.

Perhaps one day one of my children will find this, and should the same fate befall whoever rules in my place, it may help them uncover ways to help.

It was him. The Historian. Except he wears a different face and bears a name he would not tell me.

I approached him in the small office within the temple, hidden down the single staircase accessed through a door only I and the other rulers know about.

It was clear I should not have been there; he was not expecting me.

In the brief glimpse I caught of the room, I saw all manner of unusual artefacts: statues I did not recognise, iron contraptions, maps of places I had never heard of.

I could take in no more before he pushed me from the room with a force a man of such an age should not have managed.

“I’ve been waiting for a moment to have you alone,” he sneered in my ear, his voice far younger and sinister than I had ever heard it.

“It is time you follow in your father’s footsteps.

” The next thing I knew, darkness overcame the hallway.

Mysterious shadows slammed the temple door shut, and when I looked back at the Historian, he was changed.

No longer frail, old, or wise. A man with a presence that ebbed around me, and a chill that threatened my end.

His hands reached for my temples. I had no chance to challenge him and ask of the three pins or my father.

I had no chance to beg him not to take my mind or hurt my children.

For when his nails dug into my skin, shadows invaded me.

I recall my eyes rolling back, and within my mind, a place that should only belong to me, his face appeared.

I stood in a nursery; a mural forest painted on the wall beside an expertly engraved mahogany crib.

I knew the room instantly. It was Caellum’s.

The Historian peered down at my most recent son with a sneer.

“My torment will end with this generation one day. My trusted servant sees things, and I will not invade this one's mind.” The Historian reached into the crib and trailed a finger along my son’s cheek.

“I will simply have him as vengeance against your god for far more than you know.” I stepped towards him, but Caellum vanished into smoke in my mind.

I stared again at the old man’s face; we were back in the temple.

He simply commanded I leave, and I did without question.

I walked from the temple and did not turn back to say all I wished to.

I simply mounted my horse and returned to the realm that could be ended at my hand one day.

Caellum turned the page with a trembling hand and read through the next few weeks of entries.

The sunlight shifted around the room. Still, Sadira leaned against his shoulder, a small comfort.

Neither had moved since they had first sat down to read; he imagined Sir Cain would eventually begin searching for them when they missed dinner.

The entries continued in a similar manner, depicting his days.

Occasionally, he acted out of character and referenced the Historian—Caligh’s presence in his mind.

His actions worsened the more he slept and dreamed of him .

The Diary of Wren Balfour, Entry Twenty-Eight

The nursery no longer looks the same. Where a forest mural once lived is now a wall of shadows twisting together and creeping along the wooden floor.

Ivy coats the windowpanes, and the room’s light is fading more rapidly now, like my mind.

I hit my son today. I hit Dalton. I hit my four-year-old son.

He was running through the gardens after morning rainfall and fell into the puddle by my feet, splashing mud onto my trousers.

While a part of me wished to pick him up to check for injuries, shadows crept into my mind and tugged at the muscles in my arm.

So, instead of reaching for him, I struck his face.

I heard Aurelia’s cries from where she sat on the wall, watching.

I hear them still. The tall, red-headed man—Cain, I think his name is—hurried Dalton away.

I could not decipher the look in his eye.

Did this man know me well once? I believe he is simply my commander, though I do not know.

A chill descended on the nursery in my mind, and the Historian appeared in his true form, with his straightened posture and darkened hair.

“You’re doing well, Wren. Your mind is becoming so flexible and easier to manipulate. Slowly, the Balfour line will die until they are replaced with those I can mould.”

“Is there a way to expel you from my mind?” I asked boldly, widening my eyes at my confidence. He simply chuckled.

“Only when I choose to release my hold. But Wren, that fate—the insanity that comes from being stripped of a presence in your mind after so long—might just be worse than death.”

I don’t recall what else was said. When I awoke, sweating in the bed I share with my wife, I reached for this diary to record as much as possible. I stayed up the entire night, walking through each of my children’s rooms, tears rolling down my cheeks.

Caellum cleared his throat and closed the diary briefly. He glanced at Sadira, glimpsing the tears in her eyes. He cradled her face, and she sniffed. Caellum sensed from her reaction that Jorah’s journal offered similar insights.

“He didn’t want to do it, Caellum. Jorah and Errard were best friends, practically brothers.

Your grandfather remembered all of it, even pushing the knife into my grandfather’s stomach.

He cried while he did yet felt no emotion.

He did not want to; he did not want the throne, nor to take the life of a family he served and loved.

” Caellum wiped the tears from Sadira’s cheeks as she closed the journal.

“But a part of him stopped himself.” Caellum furrowed his brow.

“Lyra, my grandmother. She did not just escape, Caellum. Jorah let her go. He watched her flee to the stables, where she would then ride to Albyn and cross to Doltas. His mind tried to make him follow to kill her, too, but he fought back for just a moment, long enough to slam a door on his hand and break it. The pain jolted his mind and allowed him to refocus, allowing Lyra more time to escape.” Frowning, Sadira placed the journal on the desk with trembling hands.

Tears welled in her eyes. “Is this what happened to Soren?” Sadira murmured.

Caellum recalled Sir Cain's thoughts and the similarities he had witnessed in Soren.

The pieces were falling into place. “Was he controlling her mind all along? Slowly changing her until she passed the point of no return?”

The regret in Sadira’s eyes stopped Caellum from revealing what he had learned, that stripping Caligh’s presence from her mind was a fate worse than death, though he suspected Sir Cain’s insight and Sadira’s deductions were correct.

“I cannot read anymore; I need to clear my head.” Sadira reached for the trinket box containing the three pins.

“I could take these to Athena at the apothecary to see if she knows anything?” Caellum nodded and kissed her gently before she climbed from his lap and headed for the door.

“Sadira!” he called. She paused in the doorway, dabbing at the tears on her cheeks.

“We will try to find a way to help her.” Sadira’s regret for her sister’s treatment remained unspoken between them, knowing she might have endured the same as Jorah and Wren.

Even Caellum felt it, the guilt in the pit of his stomach.

Soren had no choice. And yet, he still doubted her.

She had wanted his throne and was willing to kill him for it.

Whether it was her choice or not, she was still a risk while her mind was unstable.

Sadira nodded and smiled before closing the door.

Caellum continued reading late into the day. The diary entries became far less frequent as his father began losing his own thoughts and recollections, until eventually, the account of his actions held no remorse at all. Years passed, with only one or two entries.

The Diary of Wren Balfour, Entry Ninety-Three

Why do people bother having children? They are insufferable.

They get in your way and do not know how to behave before lords and visitors.

They are all inadequate, unworthy of the Balfour name.

I must express my doubt about them, so, one day, when my crown passes, someone stronger can take the throne, just as my father did to the Mordanes.

Why would I –

Perhaps I should kill them all and be done with it. No; he said at least one would need to survive. Which one? Their names come and go.

The Diary of Wren Balfour, Entry

I hate them. I hate them all. I—

The Diary of Wren Balfour

He said he does not need me anymore because the time has come. I do not know what he means.

The Diary of Wren Bal-

I see flashes of memories that I think are tricks of the brain. Flashes of me laughing and holding my children. I saw a boy laughing in his crib long ago. What madness is befalling me? I have not seen him; he has not visited my dreams. He does not need me.

The Diary of Wren -

There is a prophecy. I am to die. Vala’s queen is looking for ways to prevent it and stop it from happening.

They said my children would die and I must pick one to live.

My head hurt through the entire meeting until suddenly it felt light, like I was someone else.

I pushed back—I don’t know why; I do not like my children when I think about it now.

One image appeared. The night he told me my son would be killed.

Caellum. I said his name; I do not know why. I don’t remember much.

Diary -

Vala’s queen has failed. We meet next month. We die.

Diary -

*Scribbles*

Caellum turned the diary’s final pages covered with splattered ink, spreading across the parchment with his father’s tears.

He wiped his face with the back of his sleeve.

Caellum recalled his father being coherent in the final days before the explosion.

But these pages depicted the war in his mind, the brief moments of remembering before darkness flooded him once more.

If Caellum had spent less time hiding from fear, would he have seen the signs?

Would he have watched his father lose his mind and perhaps sought answers to help and do more?

He remembered my name. Caellum’s siblings’ portraits stared back at him, and he knew then.

They remained there because some small part of his father, a tiny crack in the shadows, loved his children through it all.

Caellum lifted one of his father’s quills, straightened in the desk chair, and wrote a letter to the Queen of Keres.

In the chair where two kings, decayed by darkness, had sat, the new king took their place in an attempt to make things right.

A king who, perhaps, if his father saw him now, would be proud of.