The candlelight flickered low, casting long shadows across the hidden chamber beneath the old chapel ruins. Dust clung to every surface, and ancient tomes lay scattered like forgotten memories. Kael knelt beside Lyra, their breaths shallow with tension.
The scroll they'd found wasn't just scripture—it was confession.
"The Thornbound were not heretics," Lyra whispered. "They were the rightful heirs."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Heirs to what?"
Lyra unrolled the scroll further. Her fingers trembled as she read aloud:
"We, the exiled blood of Queen Selene, stripped of crown and name, bind ourselves to the earth, to the storm, and to the truth buried in shadow.""Our sons will be hunted, our daughters cursed. But the throne will bleed for what it stole."
Kael's eyes narrowed. Queen Selene… that name echoed somewhere in his blood, unspoken but familiar.
He rose to his feet and paced. "Why hide this? Why bury it so deep?"
"Because," Lyra said, meeting his gaze, "if the world knew the truth, the current kings would fall."
A cold realization slid down Kael's spine. He wasn't just a forgotten bastard… he was a living mark of a stolen legacy.
Lyra walked over to a tapestry half-rotted by time. She pulled it aside, revealing a mural carved into stone—faded, but still hauntingly beautiful. It showed a woman crowned with thorns, cradling a child. Her eyes were carved hollow, but her sorrow was eternal.
"Your mother?" Lyra asked quietly.
Kael didn't speak. He stepped closer to the mural. His hand hovered over the child's face—the etching bore his cheekbones, the same sharpness in the jaw. The resemblance was undeniable.
And then it struck him—not just the truth of his bloodline, but the cost of carrying it.
"They'll come for us now," he muttered.
"They already are," Lyra replied. "Veyron knew. That's why he ran."
Kael's thoughts raced. If the Thornbound had once ruled, and his mother was their last known blood, then…
He wasn't just part of a lost lineage.He might be the last of it.
The truth hit like a hammer: the throne of thorns wasn't a myth. It was his.
But thrones-real thrones-demanded more than blood. They demanded sacrifice.
And Kael wasn't sure yet what he'd be asked to give.