The Alpha King Marked Me. I Still Haven't Told Him I'm A Girl novel Chapter 148

Chapter 148: One Hundred & Forty Eight

Valka

Peace isn’t constant.

It’s something I’ve learned over the last few years since I became Queen. Being a Lycan was more of a curse than it was a blessing.

The truce with the humans lasted for more than a decade. Until Cyrus died. And years of alliances and truce went up in flames. Averis has been conquered. Voss has been taken. Silvermoor already fell. Ebonheart stands only by the sheer strength of the royal families.

Some fights we win. Some we lose. This one, we will win. With many loses. But there will be more in the future. And I know we will not always win.

Parchment crinkles as I pull the candle over the papers, casting a glance towards Lucien where he sleeps with Jessamine pressed against his chest. I turn left and Asterin looks from where he’s perched on the window slit, overlooking the world outside going up in flames with an intelligence no fifteen year old should have.

We’re under siege. Again, our kingdom being uprooted by explosives and weapons we have little experience fighting against. Guns. They have guns with silver bullets. They have things like bombs. They have ships that can fly.

It’s all really tiring.

"Come here, Rin," I say. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

He blinks once. Then pads over quietly, like a doll being pulled by puppet’s strings. By now, I should have grown used to it. It worries me. That he isn’t like the others. It worries Lucien and I so much that he doesn’t... he doesn’t feel.

He looks at the other children when they cry, as if he’s trying to figure out what’s missing inside of him. No empathy. No fear. No pain. No happiness. It’s like he is filled with ice and carved out of silver.

When he was nine, he had beaten a guard to near death, out of curiosity. The guard had called him a freak. But Asterin hadn’t been upset when he hit the male. He hadn’t been hurt. He’d told Lucien he was curious. He wanted to know if the man would be able say the word ’freak’ if he in turn became a freak. So he had rid him of all his teeth and an eye.

Lucien had looked at me then, and I saw underneath it all, fear. Asterin, we weren’t sure how to reach, how to raise, but we tried. Still, we couldn’t take out that penchant for curiosity that always led to viciousness.

We worked every day and night to ensure he understood why empathy was important, what the value of one life wss and the weight of taking it. And when it became clear we were talking to a stone wall, we began to teach him mimicry.

Asterin learned that, instead. To mimic what it might look like if a person had a heart, had kindness. It was important that the future king knew when to be cruel and when to be kind. And Asterin did an excellent job at mimicry, even if everyone knew he felt nothing.

"Your Grace," he says.

I bite the inside of my cheek. "Mother," I correct.

"Mother," he repeats, but it doesn’t sound quite right rolling off his tongue.

"Your brothers?"

"Drustan refuses to stay still in the night’s watch. Uncle Trenton has him on guard duty. Tristan..." He pauses, considering. "No one ever knows where Tristan is."

I smile, pointing at the stool beside me. "Come. Sit."

His eyes flick to the papers. Blank, empty expression. "I already know what it says."

"It doesn’t matter."

When he gets within arms reach, I catch him off guard by his elbow and tug hard until his rump hits the ground. He exhales a little when I giggle and run my fingers through his hair. "You realize I am not a child anymore?"

I snort. "So long as you do not learn to brush your own hair, you will always be a child in my eyes." I shove the parchment into his hands, pale like Lucien’s, but the silver swirls along his fingers like a glistening tattoo. "There. Read it to me."

"Mother," he tries for a groan but it lands flat as I retrieve the brush from atop my dresser and begin running it along his hair.

He clears his throat and begins.

If this reaches your hands, then it means the routes remained open longer than my lungs did. I write not for favour nor coin, for I have earned more scars than gold in your service and that has never troubled me. A man cannot serve two masters, and I chose long ago that Ebonheart and its throne would be the only banner my shadow bent for.

But a father may still beg for one thing before he crosses the threshold between worlds.

You will meet a boy in this war. He fights for the enemy. He bears my name, though perhaps not my stature, and you will know him the moment he lifts his face to you. You will know him by the fire in his eyes and the anger in his blood. The stubbornness that my tutelage never broke.

You will want to kill him. He has that effect on quite a number of people, unfortunately. He is small but his spirit was always larger than his body could contain. He doesn’t know when to run from death, neither does he bow to fear. He is quick-minded. Too quick. He learns a blade the first time he sees it. He is rash. But he is good. Under the rage and the hate, he is good. I swear this to you with my last honest breath.

I do not know on which field you will meet. I pray it is not blade to blade. But should the war turn him toward you, I ask only that you see him. I do not ask that you spare him if he raises treason. I know the weight of crowns. I have carried them in silence beside you for years as your spy. But if the moment comes when mercy is a choice rather than a weakness, I ask that you choose it for him.

He is all that remains of me. My legacy. My pride.

Should I die before this reaches you, then let these words be my last command as your loyal servant.

Look after him, Majesty. Not as a king guards a subject, but as one wolf shields another who does not yet know where he belongs.

I have given you every secret, every whispered truth, every drop of loyalty these bones could carry. I offer only this one request in return.

--Q.

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