"I'm dying" Raven lamented. "only a kiss of true love can save me "
"Best I can do is a high five of semi- cordiality"
After a lifetime of house arrest, River Verlice attends his niece's first birthday banquet, expecting nothing more than a quiet e...
A few moments of awkward and tense silence fell on two brothers.
River's heart kicked up in elation. If they had permitted his attendance, one way or another, that meant he could go outside. Even if it was for a few short hours,even just to the other side of the palace, he would be let out of his wretched house arrest.
To a banquet, to boot!
"I'll come," River said at last, not letting his face betray the giddiness bubbling up in him. Valour's face instantly lit up, like a kid who had been offered candy.
River stopped himself from thinking about confronting the Queen at the banquet tonight or at any point in the future. He could almost see her narrow black eyes burning holes in his face.
She hated River to her core and was not subtle about it either. She could not keep her unfilial son from hobnobbing with his younger brother, no matter how hard she tried, and it made her furious.
River was born into a heavenly bloodline. This meant his god-knows-how-great-grandfather was one of four legendary warriors who attained godhood. But for some reason, the said heavenly relative, who oversees the mortal affairs of the kingdom, has abandoned him at birth.
This has never happened in the past thousand centuries, and needless to say, it was considered a worse omen than a torrential downpour on a wedding day.
Not knowing what to do with him, the Verlices assumed that the gods wanted them to pretend like he didn't exist as well. On the other hand, a son rejected by the gods was not exactly a good look for a royal family.
So the decision was made to put him under house arrest for, well, forever. Or at least until the gods said otherwise. And so far, it looks like this is exactly what the heavens wished for.
He had a shamefully tiny amount of divine essence, which was basically the blood of gods. This meant that, other than charming little artifacts, River could not perform higher magic.
Gods also speak to their descendants regarding important mortal matters. According to Valour, it's like a voice in their heads, guiding them. For the last nineteen years of his life, River had not heard the voice of a holy spirit either.
So that's how River ended up as a nameless nobody who was fated to rot behind the stone walls of the East Wing.
"Speaking of which," Valour gave River an unreadable look. "Do you know Raven Alistair?"
"The infamous King of the South?"" River asked. "Who doesn't know him?"
Even River, who had literally lived under a rock, knew about Raven Alistair. The name constantly popped up in Valour's letters, starting three years ago.
Valour's little pen pal arrangement and his blind valet, who was allowed out in the main palace, were his only sources of juicy political gossip.
Raven Alistair, better known as the slayer of Alistair, was the new king of South and was quite the talk of the town.
"Let's try again." Valour furrowed his brows. "Does he know you?""
"Unless he is North God, no," River replied. "Why ?"
"I met him in Seafort two full moons ago. He was disturbingly interested in knowing if I had siblings."
River felt his brows furrowing. It was indeed peculiar.
"He even went as far as asking if I was sure that our father didn't have illegitimate children." Valour scrunched up his face.
"Are you sure that your father didn't spawn another fucking hellion?" Valour said in a deep,raspy voice, mocking the King of the South.
River felt a deep sense of unease settle in his stomach.
There were only a handful of people who knew of his existence. Besides Verlices, the High Priestess, his dead mother, and his blind valet, not even the royal physician knew of the second Verlice son.
From the midwife who cut his umblical cord to separate him from his mother's corpse to the master who taught him to read and write -the king killed them all,solely to keep his existence a secret.
To know the Verlice secret was to die.
So to hear that a man had been asking around for the couraged one's sibling, with the sure knowledge that such a sibling existed, was indeed disturbing.
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