Chapter 44

44

Ella

I stared back at Cassius in stunned silence. He couldn't be serious. "What are you talking about? Immortals rule, and we serve. We lost ."

He shook his head. "Maybe I should have said we all lost."

Anger flushed my skin. The sheer arrogance of it.

I turned Chastity about and brought her alongside Tenebris so I could face the prince directly. "Are you serious? We all lost? You live in a castle with wonders like hot running water, limitless wealth, and dozens of servants ready to tend to your every need. You didn't lose— we did, the poor bastards digging in the dirt and scraping by on the scraps from your table. The Uprising failed."

Cassius looked at me, his eyes dark and cold. "It's not that simple."

What could be simpler? It was all I could do not to scream. "Are you blind? We're little more than your slaves. The ceiling of your great hall is covered in pictures of my people being slaughtered. The history books?—"

" Tell the stories we want them to tell ." His voice was a winter wind, cold and violent, and despite my fury, I stilled. His broad frame trembled with barely restrained anger. "It's all a lie. The books, the murals, the priests—they only tell part of the story. It's true that your kind were slaughtered by the thousands, but while one of us can fight off ten men or twenty, we can't fight a hundred at once. We were fewer then, outnumbered, and overwhelmed. What the murals don't show is that we lost in the end."

Shock and disbelief swept over me like a tremor in the earth, but his eyes didn't lie. They burned with an intensity that told me he believed what he was saying.

I shook my head. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Only because you believe in heroes. There are no heroes, Ella." Cassius looked out across the valley, his mood dark and somber. "Tell me what you know of the Uprising. Not what they teach, but what is whispered among friends and in the dark corners of taverns."

That it was still alive.

If that's what he wanted me to confess, I wouldn't. "What's there to tell? They say our people united, but we were defeated in the end."

"What else?"

"That there were those who could wield magic, but after we lost, they were all executed, and magic hasn't returned since. Or at least I thought it hadn't until I came here."

He gave a low growl of displeasure. "Magic is alive and well, I'm afraid. Your Uprising was led by three powerful mages, but they didn't give a damn about the rest of you. To them, the farmers and laborers and craftsmen who bled for the cause were chaff, readily sacrificed at the altar of war. The mages incited the revolution to get what they wanted, and once they had it, they tossed the rest of your kind away."

His words piled up one by one, the bricks of a house collapsing on top of me. Three mages. It couldn't be, and yet, hadn't I suspected it as much, deep in my heart?

My throat grew taut as the horrid truth dawned, but I couldn't accept it until I heard him say it. I had to see the truth in his eyes. "What did the mages want?"

"You already know what they wanted." The prince looked down at his hand and flexed it slowly. "Our blood—the secret to defying death. It was the one thing their magic could not give them. Immortality."

My stomach plummeted.

Seeing my comprehension, he gave me a grim smile. "Yes, the Triad . Horace was one of the leaders of the Uprising three centuries ago. He and his allies sold you out. There were many mages like them once. The Triad convinced the others to let them channel their power to defeat us—but instead of just borrowing it, they stole it. And once they'd won, they had us execute their rivals."

Everything I'd come to believe about our history came raining down like a scorched pile of cinder and ash.

"There's a sick poetry in it, I suppose," Cassius said bitterly. "You serve us, and we serve them. You pay us the blood tithe, and I pay it to them. The Triad drink royal blood—my father's, and then my brother's, and now mine. It's the reason they're so invested in ensuring my line continues. Without it, they'll wither and age, and their powers will fade."

"If that is true, then why do you serve them? Why don't you fight back?"

His shoulders and hands knotted, and for a second, I thought Cassius was going to lash out. Instead, a deep hollowness came over him. The emotion drained from his face. "Because they're far more powerful than I am—than anyone. They can call lightning and fire down from the skies and force you to speak and bow against your will."

He looked back at the castle, his eyes trained on the place where their invisible tower should be. "If they wanted, they could chain me up and tap me at their leisure like a barrel of wine. In some ways, that would be easier. I wouldn't be party to their crimes. But instead, I keep my freedom and resist them from within. It's one of the reasons I haven't fed from the source for a century. I'd hoped it would weaken them, even if it weakened me, too."

Were the Triad truly so powerful they could make all the immortals bow before them? My stomach twisted as I imagined the prince hung like a cow at the butcher's, bled from the neck while the Triad fed off him.

"What if you just left?" I whispered. "Flee the Bloodvale and go somewhere they could never find you."

"Like my brother did?" The pain and betrayal in his voice lanced through me, and I touched the mark on my neck, my heart aching.

I knew it was dangerous territory, but I licked my lips and pushed on. "With you both gone, they would no longer have access to the royal blood. Perhaps they'd grow old and die, and in time, you could return to claim your throne."

His expression didn't waver. Hard. Cold. Relentless. "I've considered it," he said with hesitation. "But I doubt it would work. While the Triad demands royal blood, it might only be a symbol of their dominion over our house. Even if it's the blood of our line that they require, I have cousins they could put on the throne." His back straightened as if he'd reached a decision. "No. Even if it would weaken them, I won't abandon my people to their rule—or yours. Imagine what this place would be like if Lorayna and Bianca and their family claimed the throne. They're loyal to the Triad, and the next most powerful house."

My guts clenched at the thought. It would be chaos. Slaughter and debauchery and unrelenting cruelty, the ceiling of the great hall brought to life. We would truly become no more than slaves and cattle.

He shook his head. "My brother abandoned his duties. I will not do the same."

His voice ached with betrayal and loss. He must have loved Valen as much as I loved Belle.

"I'm sorry, Cassius. I really am."

Cassius sank into a silence I didn't dare break. I watched him staring off into the darkness, admiring the hard line of his jaw and the ferocity in his expression. He was a severe man, but my instincts about him had been right. He was different. The prince had a sense of duty unlike any of the immortals I'd met or heard about. It seemed relentless, almost selfless—and it wasn't just to his house, but to the Bloodvale. To his people and mine. Even though Cassius seemed to despise the crown, I sensed he wanted to be a good king.

Could that be an opportunity? Was there a chance that he would change things if I showed him the value of human life? He'd stood up to Bianca for me. Maybe, in time, he could be a king who stood up for all of us.

I placed my hand on his arm. "I'm glad it's you on the throne and not your brother. The Bloodvale needs someone who stands for its people and protects them. Not someone who abandons them and runs."

He scowled and shook his head. " Abandoned is the wrong word—it's just half a century of bitterness speaking. Valen would have been a good king, a better king. I think the Triad sensed that and drove him mad to get rid of him."

My eyes widened. "You think he tried to resist them?"

"At first, I thought that our father's death or the burden of rule got to him, but now, I'm not so sure. Maybe he didn't like being used as a puppet any more than I do. Maybe he fought back, and the Triad taught him a lesson. I don't know. I lived at one of the border keeps then, and I wasn't part of the court or its machinations." He glanced over, his jaw set and expression stern. "I've never told anyone my suspicions. I shouldn't be telling you."

Doubt prickled my mind. Shouldn't I tell my stepmother or Siggy? Even if I was gagged by Horace's spell, there had to be something I could tell them, yet the thought of doing so and betraying his trust made me sick.

"I won't speak a word to anyone," I promised, my chest tightening. For whatever reason, the oath felt even stronger than Horace's spell.

Cassius's stormy eyes slipped into sadness, and his mouth became a mournful smile. "But you will speak if the Triad demands it. They'll use their magic to squeeze every word out of you."

My breathing became shallow. I had way too many secrets burning in my heart. The resistance. My magic. And everything Cassius had shared. Those secrets could doom everyone I cared about. Belle. Cara. My stepmother and her allies. The old woman in the woods.

And him .

My head spun, and I thought I might be sick. "If they can make me speak, why tell me all of this?"

He backed Tenebris away from me. "Because I'm a selfish bastard. Because I couldn't keep the truth trapped inside of me any longer—even if it damns me. I don't care. I was never meant to belong to those bastards or the throne."

The prince suddenly seemed more alone than I'd ever seen any man. Trapped in his palace, forced to rule by duty and obliged to serve by force. He hadn't even been given the luxury of marrying for love. It was another obligation. Another trap.

No wonder he fled the castle on horseback each day—it was because he couldn't flee for good.

"We should go," Cassius said, and turned his stallion to head back the way we'd come.

"What if there was something I could do?" I called after him as I spurred Chastity to follow.

He gently pulled Tenebris to a halt. "And what would you do, little spy? What could you or the people you work for possibly do?"

The people I work for? I stared at him, aghast. He knew? He knew, and yet he'd told me all of this.

He narrowed his eyes at me, his expression glacial. "I'm no fool, Cinderella, and neither are you. Unless you work for three mages equal in power to the Triad, then there is nothing any of us can do."

Cassius urged Tenebris forward again, down the trail. We rode in silence as I replayed everything he'd said, over and over. Did he know I worked for the resistance, or had it been a guess? Had everything he told me been the truth, or was it a ploy?

I wanted to trust him, perhaps tell him everything, but that was a foolish instinct. What would it gain me? How would we ever change things, faced with mages powerful enough to defeat a kingdom of immortals and to kill all their rivals?

There was still too much I didn't know—most importantly, about the curse.

"Why is magic repressed beyond the castle walls?" I asked.

He glanced back and shook his head. "There will never be enough answers for you, will there?"

"I seriously doubt it. I'm the inquisitive sort."

"So I've noticed," he muttered.

"I already know enough to damn you and get myself killed, so why hold anything back?"

Cassius shook his head and turned to the path ahead. It seemed he'd say no more, but a few minutes later, he spoke. "The Triad cursed the Bloodvale after they took power. I don't pretend to understand how, but they created a spell that drains the magic beyond the castle and fuels their own power. It's like a whirlpool that pulls in magic. That's why there are no mages or witches left to lead your people, or to help us against the Triad. They've all been stifled."

Stifled.

Was that how I felt? Siggy had called it repressed.

I closed my eyes, searching for the difference between the way the world felt within the castle and the forest. It wasn't so much the presence of a spell, but an absence—a hollowness, draining the magic within me and drawing it into the darkness of the woods. I felt it slipping away in subtle waves, almost like a heartbeat.

Everything Siggy had told me began to make sense, but the magic wasn't repressed as she'd imagined it. It was being taken from us both. The Triad's curse wasn't stifling or repressing us, but rather draining our magic, just like the immortals drained our blood. That's why our powers were weak beyond the wall.

Weak, but not nonexistent.

Siggy had levitated a kettle, and I'd called trees to my defense against the beast. Repressed or drained or stifled, I had power. That meant there was hope.

"Do you really think there's no one with magic left?" I asked, keeping my voice casual, like an offhand remark.

"It's unlikely."

I locked my eyes on the path, not daring to look at him. "And what would you do if you discovered a mortal with magic?"

"Hunt them down," the prince said.

My shoulders tightened. "So, you'd just hand them over to the Triad?"

"No." He grunted and looked back. "If they were strong, I'd beg them for help."

Beg? I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "And if they weren't?"

Cassius's expression turned back to stone. "I'd tell them to run, to get out of this place and never come back, because sooner or later, the Triad would find them and steal their power—just like they've done to every other poor soul unlucky enough to be born a witch."

The ramifications of his words sent my thoughts spiraling all over again. "Then there've been others?" Cassius's eyes narrowed sharply with suspicion, and my heart skipped a beat as I scrambled to cover for my slip. "Others like those in the revolution, I mean."

For a long moment, the prince's interrogating gaze rested on me, but then he turned back to the trail. "Don't get your hopes up, little mouse. Witches are killed as soon as they're discovered—each and every one."