Oisin was supposed to be a prince. He was supposed to soak in the kingdom adoring him as he grew but barely made it past the age of five. His power hadn't been discovered yet but with the strength of his two parents, there isn't a doubt he would have been immortal. And one day, ruled the kingdom if Silas never produced an heir.

He was supposed to grow, raised to be a kind-hearted warrior. With Renit's training and his mother's consoling, Oisin's life would have been any child's dream. To run through the long stretches of hallway in the castle and allow every worry to drift away is a blessing. At least it would have been.

After that night, nothing was ever going to be the same again. Not the sunrise drifting over the hillside or the sound of someone's laughter carrying through the gardens. That was supposed to be Oisin's laughter as he grew—not swallowed by an empty graveyard. I still don't know if the tombstone I saw was his or his mother's, there was only a flash of a memory before the truth was gone entirely.

I never heard a whisper of what had happened a hundred years ago. No one spoke of it, the spiked heads on the gates after the castle was attacked or the loss of a prince soon to be. Oisin didn't need to be accepted by the king, Renit would have found a place for him somewhere. Even if not a prince, Oisin would have been something. And he's gone.

A life lost young is considered bad luck in households of witches. Our kind is expected to live much longer through their power and with the perks of immortality helping them through misfortunes. Oisin's situation was much worse than what we consider accidents, this happened because of a cause. Rebels like the force building today, the reason we're here.

Would Bren kill a child if he had the chance? Would he hesitate? Did the assassin that killed Oisin think twice about taking the life of a young witch? I can't answer those questions and I don't think Renit can either, not when it comes to his son. He blames himself enough for not protecting them more. But those deaths weren't his fault—they were accidents. Even witches in all their immortality are prone to those fates.

The cost of losing Renit's son wasn't just the grief he had to face alone. Even if he had a close support system with Silas and Hallie, who didn't reveal her age for a reason since she's nearly half as old as the princes—Renit went through everything without feeling a single thing. And then there was the matter of the king.

Once he learned there was a child on the way, one with the Marron bloodline flowing through his veins—and a son—he became overjoyed. No one hoped for anything better, except for small tidbits left by the king about how a woman of status would have been his choice.

Renit, loving his wife, brushed off those comments without care. Darlene was his, and he dropped to his knees for her. The king had even come to accept what had come of his son's life. To the point he promised Oisin to be a prince amongst his people. He had a crown, one small enough for his dainty head, and dressed in the finest the kingdom could provide.

When Oisin died, that all changed. The king blamed his son for not being there and putting the future of the kingdom in jeopardy. Although Renit was already trained to kill, the king pushed him harder to reach a new level. And Renit became known as the king's weapon because of it. He stopped holding back in fear of his father's wrath.

Each bit of information swirls in my mind, the bits he shared with me the night before and this morning, when the rest of the truth spilled about how his father came to hate him. After the healer came to remove more of the infection, enough to keep him down once more, he was in the mood to speak again. And I've never heard him talk so much and be so comfortable with every word. I knew his story would be heartbreaking but, on this level...I hadn't expected this.

He lost a large chunk of his heart that day and even I won't be able to make up for that. No one can, no witch has the power of granting life to someone who has already lost it. Their bodies will rest in that graveyard for the rest of the Marron's rule.

In the early hours of the morning, we rest our backs against the wall and tear off bits of roasted rabbit. At least the food has gotten better as we wait here. I have yet to ask Bren what we're waiting for exactly, if anything at all, or if he's biding time until moving until the next location or waiting for someone else to arrive. A higher leader, perhaps.

He can barely tell me what's been happening these past few months, let alone what they plan to do next.

Renit smacks his lips and tears off a chunk of burned skin. Once he's finished, all meat shredded from the bone, he tosses the bones aside and heaves a sigh. Just the effort of eating that alone is enough to drain his strength.

With his head rested back against the wall, he turns towards me. "Can I ask you something?"

"You just did," I respond with a mocking tone. Instead of finding the enjoyment, he frowns and blandly averts his eyes. "Fine, what do you want?" I tear off a piece of rabbit and hand it over to him, knowing he needs much more than I do.

He pauses for a moment, weighing the question. "How much did you love your parents?"

I raise my eyebrows at him but find he's completely serious. Not a hint of a smile or joking expression casts over his features. He wants a real answer, then. I hand over the rest of my rabbit despite the tight knot in my stomach and shift to face him. "My parents were...my everything. Besides Celestine, I couldn't live without them. I would have died for them, if I had the chance."

Renit nods, pursing his lips together. The stubble on the bottom half of his face is now a darker shade and his hair is a new level of greased I haven't seen yet. He's always kept himself clean as a prince is supposed to do but underneath the lack of soaps and supplies, he looks more like a citizen of Arego than what the kingdom has grown used to.

This is the battle Renit, the one who fought a bloodied war with soldiers as battered as he was. I don't have the courage to ask if he went to war because he lost the two people he loved most in the world.

"Why do you ask?" I inquire.

"I've never...I ask myself often if I love my father but I can't say that I do." He turns to meet my eye, the glisten in the silver slowly returning once he's healed. By tonight, it will be gone again as he attempts to deal with his fever.

I shrug. "After all he's done, I don't blame you." I couldn't bring myself to love the man Renit calls his father. A father is supposed to be someone caring and loving towards their child. But Renit has dealt with much more pain, all at his father's hand, physically and mentally. I remember the way his back looked after the whipping I should have received. The beating, rather, as his father went so far as to punch him.

I block the image of Renit toppling to the side, screaming in pain, before I find my appetite swept away in the wind. The prince finishes eating the rest of my rabbit and tosses the bones again. They clink against the wall and land near the pile of straw.

"What about your mother?" I ask. No one has spoken of her, not even a whisper. The only proof of her ever being in the castle are the portraits over the years as the princes aged. But the last one they took, however long ago that was, showed the true devastation of life as a queen. The bags underneath her eyes, the tight frown, the loneliness in her expression. The king had sucked all the life out of her and took the rest for himself.

"I miss her," Renit confesses. "I miss her in the way a son would miss their mother just because we've been connected since I was born but I don't miss her."

I snicker. "Renit, you don't have to be tough down here. You can say you miss your mother."

His eyes turn cold. "That's not what I'm doing. Don't make me regret talking to you in the first place. We're forced to be down here together but that doesn't mean we actually have to speak to each other." That lingering hatred isn't completely gone, then. Neither is it inside of me, although most of it has drifted away after trying to keep him alive. I want to keep him alive, meaning I can't completely hate him.

I pick at the loose pebbles underneath me and avoid his eye. Will we ever get past this point? Part of me will always despise him for what he did and the same goes for him—Renit doesn't want me here. He never has and he never will. I don't blame him for wanting to have Darlene and Oisin instead, they are his true family and no one will ever compare.

Renit clears his throat. "She was rumored to be part of that rebellion." His eyes shift to me and back to the titanium bars quickly when my stare snaps to meet his. If his mother was part of the group that orchestrated Oisin's death then that changes everything. "I feel guilty for ever thinking of siding with her after bowing to my father's wishes for so long."

"You don't think she ordered then to kill Oisin, do you?" My voice is low enough so no one on the outside is listening to our conversation. Outside, they move about quietly as well so no one in Fosux hears or spots them from through the trees. No one has yet, although there was a close call with a wandering slave.

In the end, they were dragged back by one of the overseers and never seen again. The distant beat of pickaxes on stone has become lost inside my mind, I don't hear their clatter half the time and if anything, that's what helps me sleep through the night. Some slaves are forced to work when the moon has risen and the quiet echo of their labor helps me—little as it does for them.

Renit shakes his head slowly, as if considering the truth. "I don't think she would. She adored Oisin." He cringes when the name leaves his tongue. "I think she was part of the force that wanted my father off the throne because he was cruel to her, same as everyone else. Oisin happened to get trapped in the middle of it. She couldn't forgive herself for not protecting him further that night. Oisin was...her best friend in the castle." Eyes full of regret, they dart to me and then back to his lap. Meaning he wasn't there for his mother when she needed him most. Someone, anyone, to be there.

Instead of looking towards her husband and her sons, the queen found refuge in Oisin, the boy barely old enough to register what love was. But she knew it all too well.

"How do you know she was part of those rebel forces?"

"There were rumors. She was interrogated. My father never told me she confessed but there was a reason she lost her head and it wasn't because he didn't want a wife anymore. I've always known there was a reason her blood was spilled."

All this time, everyone in the kingdom believed the queen was killed at the hand of the king's cruelty. That was not the case. I allow my mind to swarm with all the memories of secrets and rumors shared through Arego. The queen lost her head because she turned on the throne, on her husband's crown.

What better ally to have than the queen herself? The rebels had the force in the palms of their hands and with what they had, taking the life of Oisin, they conquered their goal. Break the kingdom, break the prince. But they hadn't anticipated the rage of the king.

I move to ask another question about his mother, who she was, what life she may have had inside the castle with Oisin as her best friend. Why did her eyes look so lonely? Why do you think she joined the rebels in the first place? Why did your father hide the truth? So many questions, so little time. But I don't get the chance as boots thunder down the stairs.

I recognize the first set of steps to be Bren, then Tesha, and a pair I don't recognize. When I turn to see who is arriving, I find Akeno trailing behind, keeping a close watch on the skilled sniper in front of him. She can hit a target through an array of obstacles. Anyone would be foolish not to watch her every step.

"What is it?" I ask anxiously. Do we finally get to go home? Is the king coming to find his son?

Bren stands in the middle of his first and second in command and crosses his arms over his chest. Unsettling determination clouds his pale blue eyes and he stares at the prince, not once looking at me. I'm ready to defend, my mind screams at me to do so, but they're not here to hurt him. They're here to share information. Bren lacks the normal entourage of weapons.

"We're sending a ransom note to your father," Bren says.

The air thickens in the dungeons. It's then I realize we're not playing a game anymore. They mean to kill the king.