The Crownless Curse

Chapter 3: The Blood Price

Kael did not sleep.

Even after the firelight dimmed and the last of the rebels retreated to rest, he sat near the embers, eyes fixed on the dark edges of the camp. His blade rested across his knees, and the weight of everything he had seen, everything he had done, pressed against his ribs like a second set of bones.

There was no escaping the memory of her face. The woman in the prison. The way she had looked at him with such fury. It was not fear. It was not despair. She looked at him like she knew him. And for a moment, he thought he had known her too.

But he would have remembered eyes like that.

Wouldn't he?

A shift in the wind carried a scent he recognized. Blood and burned wood and wet iron. Someone was coming. He rose, blade in hand, just as Varn stepped into the flickering orange glow. The older man looked more ghost than rebel, his face lined by old scars and shadow.

"You should sleep," Varn said, voice low, almost paternal.

Kael gave a short nod but did not move.

Varn crouched beside the fire, throwing another piece of wood onto it. The flames jumped.

"You saw something in that prison," Varn said.

Kael’s jaw tightened.

"I saw a woman being tortured for no reason."

Varn’s eyes met his. "You saw more than that."

Kael did not answer.

Varn drew a slow breath. "She is not who you think she is. None of them are. That place, the citadel, it changes people."

Kael frowned. "She said my name."

"Lots of people know your name."

"She said it like she knew me."

The fire popped. Varn did not respond.

Kael’s grip on the sword hilt tightened. "You said the Council took everything from us. If that's true, then why are there pieces of my past that feel like someone else’s dream?"

Varn’s gaze hardened. "Because dreams are safer than truth."

Kael turned sharply. "And what truth are you hiding from me?"

The older man stood. "The kind you are not ready to face. Not yet."

Kael stepped forward, blocking him. "Try me."

Varn stared at him for a long moment. The firelight danced between them, casting deep shadows across the camp. Finally, Varn reached into his coat and tossed something at Kael’s feet.

It was a small, bronze pendant. Worn smooth, cracked down the middle. A sigil Kael did not recognize.

"That was yours," Varn said. "You wore it the day they took you."

Kael stared at it.

"That woman you saw. She knew you. She remembered what they made you forget."

"What did they make me forget?" Kael’s voice was almost a whisper.

Varn turned. "Ask her yourself. But be careful. Memory is a blade with two edges."

He left Kael standing there with the pendant in his hand, the fire behind him, and the ghost of a past he had never lived breathing down his neck.

By morning, the plan was set.

Kael would return to the prison with a small team, this time not to storm it, but to extract her.

Varn did not argue. He only gave Kael a warning.

"Do not trust what she tells you. If the mind breaks the wrong way, the pieces never fit again."

Kael said nothing.

He took three men with him. Silent, skilled, loyal. Men who owed him and knew how to move without leaving a sound behind. They approached the ruins of the citadel like shadows, their black cloaks blending into the jagged terrain of the canyon.

The upper towers were still burning.

Kael moved fast, retracing the path he had taken through the underhalls, his memory as sharp as a drawn blade. When he reached the cell where he had seen her, his heart sank.

Empty.

The chains on the wall were torn open. Blood smeared the floor. Not dried. Fresh.

One of his men bent to examine it.

"Taken. Recently. Someone moved fast."

Kael felt it in his chest, a sick twist of instinct.

They had moved her.

A sound echoed beyond the stone wall. A cry. Then a scream.

He ran toward it without waiting for the others, down a flight of broken stairs, past a series of crumbled arches until he reached a door half off its hinges.

Inside, the scene unfolded like something from a nightmare.

She was there. Bound again. But this time to a stone altar, her arms stretched above her, blood dripping from fresh wounds at her wrists. A man stood over her with a knife, dressed in ceremonial black, chanting something Kael did not understand.

The moment shattered as Kael stormed the room.

He crossed the space in a flash, his blade flashing once. The priest went down without a word.

Kael ripped the chains free and caught her as she slumped forward, barely conscious.

"You're safe," he said, though the words felt too small.

Her eyes blinked open slowly.

"You came back."

"Who did this?" he asked.

Her head shook weakly. "You don't know what they are. What they want. You have to stop them."

"I will," Kael said, lifting her into his arms. "But I need answers."

She pressed something into his palm before her eyes closed again.

A name.

Written in her blood.

Sareth.

Kael’s stomach turned.

He had heard that name before.

But he could not remember where.

They rode hard into the night.

Kael’s team kept watch while he stayed close to her, tending to her wounds, waiting for her to wake.

She stirred near dawn.

Kael sat beside her, watching the pale sky begin to light.

"What is Sareth?" he asked.

Her lips parted. Her voice came out dry.

"Not what. Who."

"Who, then?"

She turned her head. Her face was bruised, her expression haunted.

"He was your brother."

Kael froze.

"What are you talking about?"

"They took him. Same as they took you. But he never came back. Not the same. Not alive. Not really."

Kael’s heart pounded. "I don’t have a brother."

"You did," she said. "They erased him from you."

"Why?"

Her eyes filled with something like pity.

"Because he saw too much. And because they could only control one of you."

Kael stood. The air felt too thin.

"You said my name before. You knew me."

"Yes."

"Then tell me who I am."

She sat up slowly. "You are the last son of the Alari line. You were born under the eclipse. Your blood is the key to the crownless gate. That’s why they took you. That’s why they broke you."

Kael shook his head.

"This is madness."

She reached for his hand.

"No. This is the truth. And you feel it too, don’t you? Like something inside you is waking up."

Kael looked at her, and for the first time, he saw something more than just pain in her eyes. He saw recognition. Memory. Maybe even hope.

He turned away.

The fire crackled behind them.

His thoughts ran wild.

If what she said was true, then everything Varn had told him was a lie. His life was not born in rebellion. It was stolen. And if there had been a brother, a family, a legacy, then the Council had taken far more from him than he ever imagined.

The rebellion had always been personal.

Now it was something else.

Now it was war.