Chapter Twenty-six

C harlotte slept, or at least pretended to sleep, when their family arrived. Liana caught them outside the door before they could disturb Charlotte.

Lord Monroe pulled Liana into a hug. "I cannot explain how relieved we are that you are alive and well."

Liana savored the moment in her father's arms before pulling away. Lady Monroe was next, pulling her daughter into a crushing embrace. "You scared the magic out of me, Liana."

She hugged her mother back. "Love you too, Mother."

Dabbing at her tears with an embroidered handkerchief, Lady Monroe asked, "What happened to Charlotte? Is she in there?"

"She is resting for now. Let me walk you to your rooms." Liana gestured down the hall and Phillipa led the way. Liana locked eyes with Sasha then nodded her head at the door. Sasha didn't argue about leaving her, just slipped inside to keep an eye on Charlotte.

Settled in the sitting room, Liana's brows furrowed. "Where is Hannah? What about Wesley and Jasmine," she asked, noticing only two of her brothers present.

"Hannah was out to lunch with Lord Dietrich. Wesley and Jasmine went to our cottage down south for the weekend," her father answered.

Her body broke out into nervous sweat. "They should be here too. They are all in danger."

"Danger from what, Liana? You have told us nothing," Lady Monroe pointed out.

"Does this have anything to do with the attack on the city last week?" Lord Monroe questioned.

She sought out Damien in her mind, ignoring both of them. "I apologize if I'm interrupting, but I need to speak with you immediately."

His reply was swift. "I will be there in a moment." She told him where they were although he could just as easily track her through their reconnected bond.

"Liana, what is going on?" her father asked again.

"Ranville was the one that abducted me. He is a rebel, likely even the leader. He wanted to use Charlotte in order to control me. He has been controlling her through mind magic since Wesley's wedding."

Lady Monroe gasped, clutching at her chest and falling back into the sofa. Her father exploded off the couch, vulgar expletives pouring from his mouth.

"How did we not see this?" he shouted. his anger directed at no one in particular. "I should have known after that stunt he pulled with their marriage. I knew Charlotte never would have settled for that farce of a ceremony."

"We cannot focus on blame right now," Liana lectured. William poked at their mother who still appeared shocked into silence. "We've detained Ranville and a few accomplices. That, and with the attack on the city and the raid a few weeks ago on a rebel safehouse should give us enough information to neutralize them. Until that time, I am not risking your safety. I need all of my family safe within these walls."

Damien strode in at that moment. "What is happening?" he demanded, getting right to the point.

Liana filled him in quickly. "I need the rest of my family here immediately. No one else can be trusted, not even Lord Dietrich."

Damien nodded. "I agree. Dietrich has not shown any inclination toward rebel ideals or support, but I am not risking letting him into this castle. I will send for your sister immediately. As for Wesley, he and his wife might be safer out of the city. Where is your cottage?"

Lord Monroe answered. "Less than a half day south."

"Do many people know of it?"

"Ranville knows," he answered and that was all they needed to know. "I'll send him a message. How much danger would they be in coming on their own?"

"Ranville has been captured and I doubt he had any time to plan for an attack on your family. He lost Liana but still had Charlotte. They should be fine. Tell them to get here as fast as possible."

Lord Monroe didn't waste time and immediately began writing a mage message.

Damien took Liana's hand. "How is Charlotte?"

"Sleeping." That was all she could manage to say right now about that situation while the guilt and devastation plagued Liana.

"What happened to you when Ranville took you?" Lord Monroe asked after the message was sent. He checked on Mary, the woman was alert, but unusually quiet after her hysterics.

Liana shrugged and leaned into Damien's side needing his strength and support. He wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her steady. She hadn't realized before, but her magic had been unsettled just as she was. The moment she was in contact with him, they were both soothed. She still found it so odd that even her magic was as in love with Damien as she was.

"He wanted to convert me to his separatist ideals. He tried to control me by threatening Charlotte," Liana answered, keeping the details vague.

"He fooled me for so long. Fooled us all for so long. Gods, he is on the mage council for Sancta Valles!" Lord Monroe paced again.

"The entire Ranville family line have been separatists since the beginning. They all hid it." Liana left it at that, not mentioning her past with them as well. That was chaos she didn't want to deal with currently. There was a past she did need to deal with though. And avoiding it wouldn't do anyone any good. She needed to look at the Book of Kings for herself, to see what details it held.

"I will be certain to get as much information out of Ranville as possible," Damien promised.

"I need to discuss something with you," Liana said, turning into Damien. He nodded and they said their farewells to her parents. "I need to see the Book of Kings for myself," she said as soon as they were in the hall. "Ranville said there was information about the original Triaedian."

"You may look at it, however, I have read through it multiple times, there is no mention of another Triaedian or another kingdom on this land prior to ours."

"Who else has seen that book?" she questioned, wondering why Ranville sounded so certain that the book contained vital information. Juno said Ranville's account of the past had been false though, so plenty more of what he claimed was likely untrue as well.

"Only the kings. My father passed it down to me once I was crowned and his father before that."

They hurried down the stairs while Liana kept up a privacy shield.

"Would you say you are capable of detecting magic?" Liana knew he was at least somewhat adept at feeling magic. Vampires don't necessarily possess magic like the mage, but they were created by the same gods, the same power ran through their veins.

"I've trained to be able to sense more than the average vampire." He glanced at her sideways. "Are you suggesting that someone spelled the Book of Kings ?"

"I'm just thinking out loud," she defended.

"That is a terrifying thought, however, I have not sensed any magic on the book aside from the spell that keeps it hidden from all except my eyes."

She hoped that was the truth. Although, she'd be the final say. When they reached his office, Liana locked the doors. Damien walked over to one of his many bookshelves and grabbed an unassuming, leather-bound book. The moment his hand touched it though, the book transformed into an elegantly bound tome with embellishments of gold.

She rounded the desk with him. Even as she approached, she felt it. Her stomach sank.

"Damien, I can already feel the magic in it," she said, which had his eyes narrowing on her.

"Can you tell the purpose of the magic?"

Standing side by side, he set the book down but kept his hand on it. A border of gold lined the front cover while the title was hand embroidered with gold thread which read, Book of Kings .

Liana hovered her hands over it, sensing what lay hidden in the pages of this thousand-year-old book. "There is magic from two people here. One I do not recognize. The other… it is her magic," she whispered. "Juno put a concealment spell on it."

"To conceal what?" he asked, his voice tight and clipped.

Liana lifted the front cover. Damien moved his hand to allow it, the book falling back to a generic state before flashing back when he returned his fingers to the pages. He turned past the title page to where it all began.

Liana read aloud, "For the kings of Triaedian. May this be a helpful tool during your reign. May you learn from our past and add to it for future generations. Never forget our purpose, peace among the breeds."

"I've lived by that purpose my entire life," Damien admitted. "It was like a prayer to me. More important than any prayer I recited in temple. And now my kingdom is more divided than ever."

Liana gripped his tensed arm. "This is not your fault, Damien. You've been one of the best kings Triaedian has ever had. I thought the unrest that started with our relationship was my fault because of who I was in society and marrying outside of my breed, but it's even bigger than that. I'm beginning to realize that all of us are just pawns in her plan."

Brows furrowed, he asked, "What do you mean? What plan?"

"What I haven't told you yet, is that Juno came to me again when I was under that mountain. I'd stumbled into a temple dedicated to her. It wasn't just that temple though. The entire castle had been a shrine to her and only her. And there has been something else that doesn't make sense to me. The blood of the Original was used as a weapon against me because he was blessed by the gods as well, but only my own magic would have been defenseless against my own magic. I think this has all been Juno, not the other gods. She gave power to the Original, just like she gave me power. She created the first Triaedian and now the second. There are no other gods involved, if there even are others."

She hated to even say that out loud, but if there were other gods, the countless amount they prayed to daily, why would they not have intervened by now? Why was Juno the sole power in all of this?

"You're saying that Juno has been manipulating this kingdom for thousands of years, but to what end? Why give her power to mortals? Why make that prophecy?" he questioned, at as much of a loss as she was.

"I cannot see the why of it yet," Liana admitted. "We must be missing vital information. Juno even said so herself that the history Ranville knew was not the truth. She said this book had the answers."

"Can you remove the concealment spell?"

"I can try." Liana let the tight grip she held her magic in loosen. She knew how to untangle a concealment spell the way a normal mage would, but this was likely magic crafted by a goddess. She'd have to be careful. Inspecting the spell, she considered detangling the weave of magic. Then she found where the concentration of magic sat and decided it would be best to try and lift away the magic but keep it intact. Slowly, she directed her magic to lift the spell away. Once that was completed, she then detangled the spell and let it all fall away.

"Look," Damien said pointing to two pages that appeared, settling in with the rest of the pages. "This is the very beginning of the first king's entry. I've never seen this before." He flipped the page, inspecting it.

"Read the first line," Liana warned, dread clawing up her throat.

"What you must first realize is that Triaedian failed once before," Damien read, then abruptly stopped. Stumbling backward, he fell into his chair. "All this time, it was right there. Hidden beneath our very eyes."

Liana let him take a moment to get over his shock. "It was powerful magic. She carefully concealed it. There is nothing any of you could have done."

"I don't understand any of this. How could an entire kingdom just be wiped from memory? What of the other kingdoms? Surely they would have remembered a failed nation."

Liana shrugged. "Maybe the book will tell us."

Running a hand through his hair, he sighed. "Yes, well, let's get this over with." He pulled Liana and the book into his lap. "I see you gave yourself the privilege to read this as well," he noted without any heat behind his words when he saw the book visible while he didn't touch it.

"I think I took off the concealment spell by accident," she admitted sheepishly. "I'll put a new one on when we're done." Getting comfortable, she began to read aloud. "What you must first realize is that Triaedian failed once before. The first kingdom to settle here also came with hopes of peace between the breeds. They succeeded for about three centuries before being completely destroyed in one cataclysmic event. The entire situation remains a mystery. Even more of a mystery though is that no one remembers it. It has only been about five centuries since this likely happened, yet it has been erased from history books and common knowledge.

"I only write this now because we found the remains of the castle. We didn't get far before a goddess came to me in my dreams. She was the most stunning creature I'd ever seen. She told me to abandon the ruins, to build on top of the old and keep it all hidden. To build a new Triaedian, we must build on the foundations of the old and create a better future. She even suggested that I start this book so that all my descendants would know the same as me, that we once failed and would not again."

Liana paused at the last sentence.

"So, Juno wanted the kings to know of the past? Then why did she conceal it?" Damien questioned, voicing her own thoughts.

Liana kept reading, hoping for answers.

"The Goddess yearned for a kingdom united just as the founders do. She warned of a time of unrest in our future and offered us one boon, that when that time comes, so shall our savior arise. She gave me a prophecy to transcribe in this book and even used her powerful magic to spell the book so that only the kings would be able to read it. Nor will it ever be destroyed."

Liana stopped again. "So, Juno's concealment spell was the one spelled for the kings. Then whoever else's magic was on here is the one that concealed these pages."

"Perhaps the goddess did try to help us instead of hinder us," Damien reasoned. That was still yet to be determined in Liana's mind. There were too many unanswered questions.

She kept reading. "The prophecy states; The tenth vampire king will usher in a new era of diversity for Triaedian. He will become the strongest Ashwood in history and unit the kingdom with the aid of the promised savior as his wife. Their children will be the start of a new generation. A generation of peace. I pray that when this time of unrest comes, my descendants will be prepared and that with the aid of the Savior, Triaedian will be victorious and finally be at peace."

The words hovered in the air like the beginnings of a spell, a potential energy waiting to be forged into something powerful. Liana didn't dare poke into that energy for fear of what she might start.

Damien scrubbed a hand down his face. "That was helpful but not nearly enough information. Why did Juno not give him more details?"

Liana shook her head. "All we know is that Juno wanted us to succeed. She wanted peace among the breeds. But that still leaves me wondering why she gave so much power to one mage. And if this is the true prophecy, why did Ranville ever think the Savior would be male? It clearly says wife, not husband."

Damien squeezed the hand on her hip then stood, putting them both on their feet. "I have no more answers than you." He set the book down on his desk. "I suggest that you search through the rest of the book to see if there are any other hidden texts while I go torture some answers out of Ranville."

Liana crossed her arms. "And what makes you think I want to miss out on said torture? He did harm my sister after all."

A wicked grin slashed across his face. "Have I told you how much I love every word that comes out of this daring mouth?"

Ignoring the way her heart fluttered when he wrapped his arms around her waist, she tried to keep her face flat. "I am serious, Damien. I want to interrogate him."

"I never thought otherwise, my love. However, I will not subject you to what occurs in the dungeons. That is not something I ever want you to see. And please, do not fight me on this one. My people and I are well equipped at extracting answers from those that don't want to give them. If I need any of your skills, trust that I will come to you," he explained.

"I hate it when you're rational," she grumbled, then pulled his seat closer and flopped down.

"And I love it when you pout." He gave her a quick kiss. "I'll be detained for a while. Reach out if you find anything." He was gone in the next blink of her eyes.

Flipping the book open once more, Liana focused on her task. They all had a job to do and the only thing that mattered was finally getting rid of these rebels.