Kat's heart beat against her ribcage so fast, it created a dull ache in her chest. Anticipation and dread battled inside her as she followed Cage back inside the castle. The anger had dimmed the moment he'd agreed to tell her everything, but her stomach twisted with a different feeling.

What if this was wrong? What if what he told her would crush her heart and leave her empty?

No, I can handle this. There was no other way to go further. She had to know who he was, what he'd done. And even if it would prove too much to bear, she'd decide what to do from there.

Once they entered through the hall, she noticed that for the first time in days, all the portraits were back in their frames, as if they could sense that Cage was back.

"Thank the heavens," Sir William breathed. "I was getting worried, boy."

"I'm touched," Cage said over his shoulder, not sounding touched at all. 

He headed straight for the study's door, but Kat lingered in front of the tapestry. The freezing feeling was back as she took in the torn portion, paralyzing her. She had to know, had to ask.

"Did you have any sisters?"

He stopped, quirking an eyebrow at her. "Why would you think that?"

She just nodded at the thin strings dangling in the current inside the castle. "Why did you destroy it?"

"I didn't destroy it. Well, I mean, in a way, I did. But it's not..." He heaved a deep sigh. "I guess this is as good of a place to start as any. What better way to begin than with family history?"

"This isn't a mystery, you know," she pointed out. "Everyone knows you're related to the king."

"In more ways than one," he mumbled.

She couldn't even begin to understand what he meant, but his disdainful tone sounded as if he didn't believe her. Which was ridiculous. Those were facts and he couldn't deny them, even if she had no idea why he would want to in the first place.

"Seriously, if it wasn't for the curse, you'd probably be in line for the throne now that Prince Ferdinand is gone and Edmund is not of age." Not to mention the younger prince's feeble health.

"Shush!" William said, his tone urgent.

Kat frowned at him. It wasn't such a big deal, everyone knew about it. As much as the palace had tried to hide the news, it had even reached their small town, carried on the lips of superstitious sailors. Ferdinand hadn't been seen in months whereas before he used to mingle with the populace, preparing for his role as future king of Iride.

"What did you just say?" Cage asked, his tone even and deadly.

A shudder went through Kat's body and for a second she thought she'd somehow awakened the beast. But when she turned to him, his eyes were the deepest blue, so it was obviously Cage. Just a very focused and somewhat distressed Cage.

"Prince Ferdinand is missing as well as his future bride. I can't remember her name." 

Their engagement announcement seemed like a million years ago. All Kat could remember was the party organized by the Baron for the occasion which had gained her a few coins from the extra work she'd done arranging the food stalls.

"Since when?" Cage rightfully seemed more interested in the disappearance than the engagement, even if, unlike the former, the latter had been on people's tongues a lot more. 

Fairytale romance was needed in a world which seemed to get darker every day. Kidnappings, not so much. Especially since it had been rumored for a while that the king was dying. And even if he had two sons, the need for a stronger line was dire. Edmund had been in poor health since birth, after all.

"I don't know," Kat whispered. "The king and queen are really doing their best to hide it. But I think it's been at least a couple of months." The moment Keleigh had presented the information on the top of the cliff overlooking the harbor felt like a lifetime ago.

Cage paced away from the tapestry and towards the portraits, his hands clasped behind his back, a frown on his face, biting on his lower lip.

"Cage, what are you thinking?" Joey asked, his voice wary.

"You shouldn't have said anything," William hissed at Kat.

"Shut up," Cage said immediately, but still sounded distracted.

"Your Majesty," William said, putting his hand over his heart.

"Shut up," both Cage and Joey said at the same time.

Kat glanced from one to the other, trying to process everything that was happening. "Your Majesty?" Even if Cage really was in line for the throne, no one was addressed with that title unless they were a king or a queen. Even the prince was 'your highness'.

"William's just being an old fool," Joey said, waving his hand.

Cage nibbled on his lower lip some more. "Fuck this, we'll get to it in a moment. Tell me more about Fer." He glanced at the portraits as he said this.

"He really is gone," a small, mousey-hired boy finally said from his upper left corner. "And yes, the palace is trying to cover it."

Cage's frown only deepened. "When and where?"

"Two months ago and by sea," the boy answered, his voice trembling with nerves.

"Wolfbane," Cage growled, and in that moment he was scarier than any cursed beast in the world.

"That's not confirmed," William said, stubbornly.

"What's wolfbane? Isn't it a plant or something?" Kat asked, her voice small and squeaky. 

The intensity with which the men conversed finally got her understanding why this might be something hard to take in.

"I wish," Cage mumbled. "I'll get to you in a minute, sweetheart." He said the word naturally again, nonchalantly, as his attention was once again on the portraits, this time on the man right above Joey. "Malcom?"

The man, who was surely a soldier given his broad built and close-shaved head, squirmed in his portrait. "There have been odd rumors flying about."

"Like what?" Cage insisted. "And I am going to ask why no one bothered to share this news with me."

"What do you mean why?" Joey asked with an eye roll. "Because we knew you would get like this."

"Stop deflecting!"

Everyone fell silent. Kat noticed that some of the portraits were backing out of their frames, trying to escape unnoticed. Cage was indeed frightening at the moment, even if she could not understand why. Yes, it was an issue for the kingdom, but that didn't change anything for them. He was still cursed and stuck in that castle, and she was still on the brink of getting more information. This conversation was just delaying the inevitable.

Noticing that everyone had been struck dumb, Cage turned to her, his eyebrow quirked in expectation. "What rumors?"

She just shrugged. "They say he was taken by pirates."

His jaw tightened as if she'd confirmed his biggest fear. "I thought that much. Malcom!" He returned his attention to the soldier. His tone was the commanding one again and it sent flutter to her stomach.

"Wolfbane's ship has been spotted near the coast," the man said, his tone defeated.

"No one knows what he wants with Prince Ferdinand," William said quickly.

"That doesn't matter. He'll still hurt him. I need to get him back."

Kat did a double take. "What?"

"Whoa there," Joey said almost at the same time. "You need to stay here."

"I can't stay here." Cage turned his back on the portraits and entered the study.

Joey groaned and disappeared out of his frame. Kat guessed he'd followed Cage inside and it was about time she did the same.

"Cage, come on!" Joey was saying when she entered. "You know what happens if you leave the castle."

"I'll wear the mask," he mumbled, throwing his cloak over his shoulders. "And I doubt I'll like anyone enough to draw my nasty side out."

"You know it doesn't work that way," Joey pleaded. His eyes then fell on her. "Kat, tell him this is insane."

"I'm not really sure I understand what's going on." She turned to Cage for answers.

"Fer missing means all this will fall on Ed and there's no way in hell I'm letting that happen," Cage mumbled.

"Wait." She raised her hands. Her first impulse was to aske why he used such short familiar names for the princes, but it could be a family thing. It still didn't explain why he wanted to rush out and risk everything and everyone for the kingdom. "I understand you're worried about your relative, but everyone is searching for him..."

He huffed. "You don't understand. You can't."

"Yes, I can." She put her hands on her hips. "Isn't that whey we're here? For you to explain properly?"

Cage considered her for a bit, as if not sure she had the brainpower to comprehend whatever secret he was hiding.

"I think you can trust her," Joey whispered. "You have to tell someone or it will drive you insane."

"Yes," Kat pressed on. "You said you would."

"Okay," Cage finally said, his voice careful. "And I'm going to start with Wolfbane."

"I'm guessing he's not a plant but the pirate who took the Prince."

He let out a laugh, but it was bitter. "I wish he were just a pirate."

He threw his cloak off his shoulders and, to Kat's utter shock, started unbuttoning his tunic, then his shirt. Her mouth dropped open once he threw the shirt off completely. She'd seen him like that before, but never in such good light, never standing.

The scars on his chest and the wound on his shoulder were gone, leaving clear, golden skin in their wake. His muscles were well defined, but he wasn't big and barrel chested like Donnie. Just lean and beautiful, like a sculpture.

Her admiration of the fine arts was rudely interrupted when he turned around.

"This is Wolfbane," he said.

She knew. She'd seen the scars on his back before, thin lines speaking of immense pain. "What did he do to you?"

"Anything painful and that would leave a mark. He wanted me to be shocking. Perfect from the front, horror from the back." He sighed and turned back to face her. "I chased after him in my youth and it ended with him catching me. It wasn't pretty. Months of pain and torture. If I hadn't escaped..." He shuddered and it was disconcerting to see anything get to him.

Kat's knees weakened and she sat on the sofa. He'd been tortured for months. Even if she'd seen the scars, she hadn't actually believed that to be possible. She'd considered maybe an accident or a one-time lashing, though that made no sense given his status.

He pursed his lips, his gaze lost in the distance somewhere beyond her. "That's why I was made Admiral so young. Not only did I escape Wolfbane, but I left him a little reminder, too."

"Honestly, man, you're still my hero," Joey said. "Wolfbane is known for using an iron claw to torture his victims. He catches cursed individuals and iron is the only way to get to them," he explained. "Cage used his own claw against him and now the bastard has a scar on the entire left side of his face."

Kat had to admit that was pretty impressive. "How did you escape?"

"Theatrics. I've spent two weeks behaving like a total rag, lulled him into a false sense of security. And while he was wondering which knife to use on my face, I took the claw and used it on him. Then it was mostly using furniture, dodging pirates and jumping overboard.

"The thing is, most of it was luck. Luck that he wanted me alive, luck that he didn't expect me to fight back..." His voice faded and he shrugged the shirt back on. "He might want Fer alive as well, but I doubt he'll make the mistake to underestimate him like he did me."

Kat processed his words, but something didn't add up. "You think he's holding Prince Ferdinand for ransom?"

Cage let out a laugh. "Gods, no. My first guess is that he wants to get to me, but I don't want to be self-centered."

"He could want to get to you," Joey mumbled. "Especially if he knows about your curse. He'd love to have you. Sell you to Endir. Imagine how much he'd get off you."

"Wait, what? Sell him to Endir?"

Both Cage and Joey threw her a look as if she were an innocent little peasant girl. Which she guessed she was, but with everything she'd been reading, she had a fair amount of knowledge about current affairs. This, however, was completely new.

"Endir buys anything that's been touched by magic," Cage said. "Unlike us who've outright banned it, they're desperate for it. The Steward thinks it could give him the right to become king if he absorbs enough of it. Become the next Witch King."

The thought made Kat shudder. She knew that after the Witch King was killed inside the castle in Valona, Endir was left without an heir. If they ever had one, they disappeared. Since then, the conflict died down and they were at peace. Or so literature claimed.

"Why isn't this in any of the books?"

He let out a hallow laugh. "Who do you think wants to admit that is happening right under our noses?"

"Wolfabne is mostly a mercenary," Joey supplied. "But in the end, he works for them. Makes a nice profit as well."

"Is that why we're chasing pirates?" Kat asked, trying to wrap her head around this new information.

"No. But that was why we chased them," Joey said. "At least ever since we found out about Wolfbane. He can't get his hands on you." He said to Cage.

"I'd honestly love to introduce him to my nasty side," Cage said. "But I don't think it's that. I think he knows and he wants the kingdom turned upside down."

"Knows what?" Kat asked, frowning in confusion.

He let out a sigh. "Everything. He's one of the few people who knows who I really am."

Before she could ask, he walked to his desk and rummaged inside one of the drawers from where he pulled out a rolled up map.

"Kat, you have to make a choice," he said, fixing her with the most intesnse stare. "Because once I tell you this, there's not going back."

It was annoying how his gaze and the sound of his voice managed to distract her almost as efficiently as him taking his clothes of. She shook off the stupor. "I think there's already no turning back for us."

 He seemed to accept her answer because he returned his attention to the map in his hands. "I believe you are familiar with the royal line," he said.

She nodded and stood to join him next to the table. Everyone knew this. It was displayed in schools and churches for all to see. She'd always admired the art, how it was drawn like a shower of stars, each one a member of the royal bloodline. It was on the ruined tapestry he had right outside the door.

He unrolled the map which turned out to be a rendition of the royal line instead of a map. Except it was different.

"What the?" She looked closer, as if brushing her nose against the paper would somehow change what was written on it.

"There's a reason this thing hangs on every wall," Cage said. "It's to create the illusion that it's real."

"This one doesn't hang on every wall," she whispered. The stars were different, intertwined, with the names in all the wrong places.

She ran her hand on the bottom of the image, but this one didn't have the princes on it. At the bottom, there was just one lone name, scratched out. "Seriously?"

"What?" he asked.

"I can't get your name even here?"

He let out a laugh which this time was honest. "Nope."

But her attention wouldn't stay on that. "Your father... He's not..."

"A royal bastard? No, he was not. He was as legitimate as they came. He was also Fherras' older brother, not his distant cousin like the other lineage claims."

The king's older brother... "But that would mean..." Her eyes widened as she took him in.

Cage just took out another rolled up bloodline, the official one this time, and lined it up with the other, totally ignoring what it meant. But then again, he'd always known this, so it wasn't an utter shock to him.

"Fherras claims his grandfather had a bastard child which in turn had my father. So that would make me bastard cousin twice removed. But it's not like that." He ran his finger down the true lineage. "There were no bastard children. The family has a tradition for being faithful. It's even in the Crest."

Kat nodded mechanically as her eyes took in the words on top of the lineage: In loyalty we find strength.

"So you're..."

"I'm nothing," Cage answered with a huff. "Because the official lineage is the one you know."

"That's only because you don't want to stir trouble," Joey interjected.

As she shook away the shock, Kat's brain started working properly. "What happened then? Why wasn't your father king?" Why aren't you?

Even being bastard cousin twice removed, he would still be in line for the throne after Edmund. The royal family was dying out. Which was why it had been so important for Ferdinand to find a bride, get married, have an heir.

"Oh, he was," Cage answered unexpectedly. "For three whole days before he was rudely murdered."

Her jaw dropped at the news. "What?"

"My grandfather died after he killed the Witch King of Endir. You know this story. How he bravely used his own lingering magic abilities to cut down the bastard as he attempted to take over the castle. What's missing from the stories is what happened afterward.

"Slashing him down didn't immediately destroy the armies of Endir. We were still at war. Everyone panicked. People took to the streets, fled the capital. It was a time of riots, murder and looting. I was too young to remember, but I have a source." Cage nodded towards the door and she understood it to mean William.

"The funeral of the king was delayed due to obvious, logistic reasons," he continued. "My father took over immediately, repositioned the troops, devised a strategy to finish what the dead king could not. It didn't sit well with certain people."

"Who?" Kat asked, her voice trembling.

"I'm not sure or they'd be dead, though I have my hunches. Anyway, three days later, he was dead. He'd never been crowned, the last king was still decomposing somewhere in the castle, and I was three."

She could picture this so well. The chaos of those times, no one knowing what went on behind the closed doors of the castle. A toddler Cage hiding as his father was brutally murdered.

"It doesn't matter. You're still rightfully king." She knew that, she'd read the rules of the lineage in so many politics books lately.

"By law, my mother was to be regent until I became of age. But he took care of that, too."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop to the one out in the grounds. She didn't want to hear this, but as long as she was dancing this dance, it would be to the end.

"Is she dead?" she whispered.

Cage laughed, but it was almost cruel. "I sometimes think it would have been easier on me. No, she's alive and well, and if you believe the official position of the palace, happily married."

He pointed with one finger on the official lineage and another on the real one. Towards the same name in completely different places.

"Your mother is Queen Melina?" Her voice came out high and almost like an yelp.

"Oh yes. My dear uncle Fherras married her before my father got the chance to grow cold. The regent was now the queen and he was king both by marriage and by birthright."

"But what about you?"

Cage shrugged. "She was allowed to keep me in the castle and raise me. I had no idea about all this for a long time anyway. My uncle tried to convince me that I'm a tolerated product of my mother's affair."

"That piece of shit!"

An affirmation like that could get her hanged for treason, but she'd never been so angry in her life. She hadn't thought much about King Fherras outside his ridiculous ban on magic, but the man turned out to be horrid.

Yes, and he must be destroyed. He has no right to rule. For the first time in her life, she agreed with the voices swirling around her brain.

"Thank you," Cage said with a smirk. "My thoughts exactly."

"Mine too," Joey mumbled.

Kat turned away, clutching her head in her hands, both to try and understand and to drive away the sniggering voice. Why would Cage's mother do such a thing? She practically denied her child's birthright just to give it to someone else. To...

"Wait! Ferdinand and Edmund are your brothers?"

"Three quarter brothers to be fair. Since their father is my uncle and everything."

No wonder Cage was so protective of them. But it made everything so much harder to process. And it was obvious who the main suspected of killing the rightful king was. The new king had taken everything from Cage. His rights, his mother, his home and his title.

"Before you get all revolutionary, hear me out," he said, as if reading her mind. "I don't want the throne. I'd much rather Fer has it. I was given certain perks in exchange for my silence. Like the chance to be at sea, to travel, to do something worthwhile with my time. And I came to peace with what happened."

"How could you come to peace with something like that?" she demanded.

He let out a deep sigh. "Because you don't know me. I sometimes think this curse made me better. But I think it's time you knew who you're really dealing with."

Kaboom! The kingdom of Iride goes kaboom with court politics and drama! Ah, to be king!

I'm really curious what you think after reading this. The intricate politics are really fun for me to write and the premise is something that would definitely happen in the time period. No one was safe from the cruelty of kings. Not even their own. (See war of the roses for reference).

Also, yes, the chapter title is definitely a shout out to chapter 11 of RIFOY.

I'm not done. Next chapter you get to find out why Cage was cursed and exactly who he was before he was forced to stay behind closed doors.

Vote for support. Comment for love.