"Marissa," Diandre breathed, nudging my side.
I looked away from the hanging bodies of the guards, my throat closing with guilt.
I had been the one who caused them to go searching for the royal family. Now, they were both dead and gone like countless of others perishing in the shrieking night.
I could see everyone clearly now once the moon shifted out from behind the clouds; each figure was sharpened into bright clarity. But something was horribly wrong.
Queen Titania stood in front of Glen on the bridge, shielding him with her wide wings as she glared protectively at the tattooed sprite. But there was something behind her eyes that scared me, something I had never seen before on the face of the summer queen: fear.
Uncontrollable fear. She was shaking in her ballgown, her auburn hair rustling in the breeze like coils of fleeing flame.
Glen was gazing at Titania in utter confusion, sparks igniting between his fingers.
"What is it?" He asked, his voice wavering with uncertainty. "Mother, what is it?"
The tattooed sprite, his ink designs coated in dry blood, grinned at the royal family wickedly. An iron scythe flashed in his hands, a blade moistened with scarlet stains of his victims. It glittered menacingly beneath the light of the stars, and my stomach churned with nausea.
Queen Titania's gaze was fixated on the scythe, and her green eyes widened in complete terror along with something else: recognition.
"Not you," she whispered. "Not you."
"Did you miss me?" The sprite cackled.
To my complete astonishment, he had not spoken to Glen, but to the queen.
"Get away from us, you bastard," Titania commanded the tattooed sprite. Her voice trembled slightly as she spoke. "You were never supposed to come back here. Not after what you had done to my family."
Glen gripped his mother's shoulder, his wings beating nervously.
"What are you talking about?" He exclaimed. "How the hell do you know him, mother?"
The tattooed sprite chuckled darkly. "You've fooled the boy very well, Titania. That enchantment in his mind has proved to be a complete marvel. He can't recollect a single thing from twelve years ago."
Twelve years ago. The year King Oberon was murdered.
Diandre and I shared a look of silent horror.
Glen's eyes filled with raw betrayal as he jerked away from the queen. He recoiled from Titania's touch as if it has burnt him, and I watched him back away towards the lake.
"Mother," he whispered. "Tell me that he's lying." He blinked at her desperately, his auburn hair tickling against his face. "Tell me that you weren't the one who put the block on my mind, the block on everything that connected me to my own father."
Hurt was etched into Glen's features. I could see his magic power growing wild and confused between his fingertips, sizzling with frantic, panicked energy.
Queen Titania looked pained as she gazed upon her son.
"Glen, you don't understand-" she began, her eyes pleading.
But the tattooed sprite cut her off with a flick of his wrist.
"Can you imagine the insult you bestowed upon me?" He laughed at the queen. "The insult of talking to the prince himself and realizing that he had no memory of who I was?" He pouted in mock hurt. "I was quite offended, Titania."
Titania bared her teeth. "I should have just murdered you, damn fool. I should have just killed you instead of watching you run out of my palace and vanish into thin air the night I watched my husband die."
My jaw dropped. It was the tattooed sprite all along; he was Oberon's killer. Glen had told me himself that an assassin had murdered the king, but they were never caught.
Not until now.
Glen's face turned ashen white. All color drained from his cheeks as his fingers slowly curled together into fists.
"It was you," he murmured at first, but his voice began to grow louder and louder. "Twelve years ago, it was you who stabbed my father to death. You were the sick bastard who tore my entire family apart!" Furious tears gathered in his eyes. "IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS! I WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO GROW UP WITHOUT A FATHER!" His shoulders heaved as a bead of sweat slid down his forehead. "I'm going to make you pay," he seethed. "I'm going to kill you for all the hell you put me through."
Queen Titania reached out to her son. "Glen, no! You need to let me explain!"
Glen's eyes were alright with a savage, roaring fire that smoldered across the grounds and scorched straight into the grinning tattooed sprite. I had never seen Glen look like this before. I had never seen him look so possessed by vengeance.
I straightened my jaw and snatched my sword out of Diandre's grasp. This was the sword I had clutched as I watched the tattooed sprite shoot down my own father in cold blood.
"Marissa!" Diandre hissed. "What do you think you're-"
I ignored him, and aimed the blade straight for the sprite's beating heart. I took a deep breath.
I wasn't going to let him hurt anyone else ever again.
With a cry, I leaped out of the underbrush and into the clearing of the stark moonlight. Titania and Glen gaped at me in astonishment as I screamed, lunging at the tattooed sprite and plunging my sword into his stomach. The blade only sank in a little through his skin and muscle, piercing the inside of his chest for a moment. In a flesh of reflexes, the tattooed sprite's staff end of his scythe smacked against my face, the force sending me tumbling to the dirt.
My cheek felt as if it had been lit on fire, and I collapsed with a cry as the tattooed sprite drew my blade from his body.
"Marissa!" Glen shouted, racing to my side. The murder in his eyes had evaporated, replaced with overwhelming fear.
The tattooed sprite winced in pain, but only slightly. He held my sword in the starlight, studying it as his own blood slid down the blade and splashed into the grass.
"You little bitch," he spat at me as he clutched his stomach where the wound still bled through his shirt. "A little pinprick isn't going to kill me."
"This might."
I looked up to see Diandre swing his battle axe at the tattooed sprite's face with a furious roar. But his opponent was ready; with a spin of his scythe, the tattooed Sprite deflected the blow and shoved Diandre away from him.
Glen knelt down at my side, wrapping me in his arms and leaning in close.
"Are you alright?" He asked me worriedly. I could sense the fear reverberating in his breath as he helped lift me to my feet. "How bad did he hurt you?"
"What, this?" I snorted weakly, pointing to my swelling eye and bruised cheek. "That was like a cuddly hug compared to what I did to him."
"You idiot," Glen whispered into my hair, holding me tightly. "You brave, beautiful idiot."
In his arms, all my pain melted and dissolved into a buzzing numbness. But I knew that this was no time to let my guard down.
I drew away from Glen, pointing The Summer Scepter at the tattooed sprite. Diandre joined me at my other side, and the three of us formed a tight, threatening circle around him.
Queen Titania, on the other hand, was frozen in place as her eyes moved broken heartedly between the evil sprite and her son.
"Just give up," I growled to the tattooed sprite. "You've done a decent job serving your master. Disguising yourself as Headmaster Terron for all these years with a blood mark, and plotting to curse me have been damn clever so far."
"I knew there was a reason I thought that Terron the geezer was always off," Glen grumbled.
"You're outnumbered," Diandre snapped to the tattooed sprite. "So why don't you start begging for mercy and tell us how to stop The Master before things get excruciatingly painful?"
He wiped the blade of his battle axe with the ends of his robes, cleaning it as he stared the sprite down. But the tattooed sprite simply cackled in our faces, his bloody lip curling into a sinister grin.
"You think that you've won, you fools? You don't know who you're even dealing with." He growled. "None of you know who I truly am."
"Put the weapon down," I spat at the tattooed Sprite as The Summer Scepter began to pulse threateningly. "Then we'll have a nice little chat."
Glen's hand rested in mine, but his eyes were wide with confusion as he stared at The Object of Power in my hands.
"Where did you get that, partner?" He whispered.
I blinked at him, puzzled. "The vaults," I answered. "Where else would I find it?"
Glen reached out and touched the scepter, his brows furrowing together.
"I don't get it," he murmured. "I don't understand."
The tattooed smirked darkly. "No matter what you do, The Master is two steps ahead. Just a fair warning to all of you." He grinned at Diandre, who paled. "He always, always, tricks you into taking the lower hand."
"I'll give you the lower hand alright," Glen growled, stepping in front of me protectively. "Straight down your throat."
The tattooed sprite narrowed his bloodshot eyes, a victorious, predatory smile weaving itself across his face. "Is that any way to treat your family, young prince?"
There was a heavy, weighted silence in which Glen only stared at the monster before him.
Diandre and I glanced over at Queen Titania in unison, our heads snapping in her direction in a simultaneous movement.
The summer queen's gorgeous face was marred with guilt.
"I should have told you sooner," she murmured to Glen. "I should have told you the truth."
"The truth," the tattooed sprite barked. "The truth that I'm just like you, Glen. We're so similar it's uncanny. Watching you grow up from the shadows has taught me that much." He circled Glen now, twirling his iron scythe. "We're ambitious, clever, arrogant as hell, but best of all, you and I are worshipped. I suppose it runs in the family." He grinned sickeningly. "Father like son, they say."
Father like son. It couldn't be-
Glen's hand went rigid in mine. His breaths were still.
"You're not my father," he spoke carefully, his wings ceasing to beat. "My father died bravely and honorably. He was a leader, he was a ruler. He was loved." The last word was an arrow shot from his lips, a desperate blow of defense.
But the tattooed sprite just smirked. "Come on, my son. Your mother choked you with lies. King Oberon did die that night twelve years ago, he gave in to something greater inside him that could take control." He spread his hands. "Oberon gave in to me. Why be a king, a gold statue in a court of corruption, when you could be a god?"
"You liar," I hissed at him. "There was a funeral for Oberon. The entire kingdom was there in mourning."
Diandre was the one who spoke.
"They never opened the casket," he whispered.
Glen gave Queen Titania a smoldering glare. "We're you in on this the whole time, mother? How did my father become...this?" He gestured wildly to the sadistic sprite. "Why did you lie to me? All this time, you made him a hero in my eyes. You made him a hero. A damn hero who I missed and loved every moment of my life!"
My eyes squeezed shut painfully at the raw betrayal washing out of Glen's hoarse voice.
Queen Titania's eyes were brimming with tears. "What did you expect me to do?" She abruptly shrieked. "How could I let my own baby, my own child, go to sleep at night knowing that his father tried to stab him to death! Oberon wanted to murder you, Glen. I watched the way his eyes ignited the moment I told him he'd have to bestow his power onto his child when you came of age. It had possessed him, the throne and his blood. He would spend hours in the royal library researching blood magic and dark enchantments, anything that would make him dominant over every subject in the kingdom."
I stiffened. That's how Oberon knew how to use a blood mark to possess Headmaster Terron's body. He didn't steal from the royal library, he owned it.
The summer queen glared at Oberon, who hissed at her smugly.
"At least, that's what I first thought." Titania continued. "But then I realized that all the forbidden research was so that he could take your life, Glen. My husband was no longer the man who had captured my heart so long ago." Her eyes were whimsical for a moment before fading into guilt and regret. "He was a devil. He was a devil who hated everyone the moment he watched you come into this world. You grew in his spitting image, but better. I think that hate consumed him the night I confronted him."
"Really?" Oberon crowed. "Better?" His eyes wandered across Glen's petrified face. "I had the adoration of an entire kingdom. It was supposed to last. I was supposed to return from the wars with glory on my sword and streamers flickering in the streets. I worked so hard to rebuild Summer Court from its ruin. And then I could only watch as the kingdom's most powerful ruler was shoved from the spotlight." Years of frustration was pouring out of him, blazing in his eyes. "When the fae gazed upon their new prince, my contributions were forgotten. My sacrifices had vanished from their minds. Everything I had done for my people was no longer remembered. Do you know what that felt like? Witnessing my image being brushed away in hopes for a child to succeed where I had failed? Oberon pointed to Glen. "A child I never wanted to have."
My own heart shattered. My father had always loved me the thirteen years he had raised me; he was the one who encouraged me, trained me, respected me, dared me to dream and believe. He had told me fantastical stories of adventure when I would wake up crying from haunting nightmares. He cradled me in his strong arms, teaching me everything I needed to know about family. He would play with me in the snow, joking around when my mother wasn't looking. His laughter was warm and bubbling. Everything about my father were memories of kindness and joy.
But Glen never had such a thing. He never had a father who cared for him, stayed by his side and supported him during the harshest of moments. His father was a monster who I wondered was even capable of loving at all. He was a monster who wore Glen's face.
I hadn't noticed the subtle resemblance until I really looked closer. Oberon looked older, grittier, than the proud king I had seen in the royal family portraits. His golden hair was matted and greasy, and the stubble on his chin was stark and full of grime. But he was still Oberon. His smug smirk was a mirror image of the prince.
I could see that Glen knew it too. His fingers went to his own face, and his nails dug into his skin as if he could just tear his appearance away and everything that made him like the sprite standing before him. Fractured images cracked and splintered behind his eyes, dreams of a loyal king he would one day see in another life, a father who would one day be proud of his son. All his fantasies of such a man were lost in a heart-breaking instant.
Queen Titania brushed tears out of her glowing eyes. "It was the night of your fourth birthday, I remember." She whispered. "At that point, I knew Oberon didn't need magic to take what he wanted. He took his own battle sword and rampaged down the halls towards your nursery in the middle of the night, to try and cut your heart out himself!"
Oberon spun his iron scythe in his hands.
"I would have done it too, you little bastard," he spat at Glen. "I could feel your heart pumping beneath my fingertips, blood that just invited me to spill it all over the blue nursery floor." He licked his tongue over his teeth. "Your wails were beautiful. They were like a rhythm as I brought my sword down inch by inch."
Glen's entire body seemed to tremble with hardly controlled rage. Fury and anguish and despair cooked inside his head, overflowing out of his lips in hot breaths that seemed to radiate with fire.
I watched the queen's flawless glamor falter for the smallest of seconds, her face paling. Across her cheek was an ugly, deep scar that was carved into her flesh. She pointed to it aggressively. "Do you see this, my son?" She croaked at Glen. "My husband, standing right there, attacked me the moment I told you to get in your closet and lock the door." Her voice broke. "You were scared because you saw me crying, but you were a good boy. You were a smart boy."
Sobs began to shake Titania's shoulders. "I fought Oberon with all my power, but I knew how it would look if I murdered him. The entire realm would resent kings for generations to come. I knew that the fae would fear the royal line, afraid that their own rulers would become beasts just like the one you see before you." The summer Queen pointed to Oberon. "I couldn't let the court compare you to him, Glen! It would break me, but I knew that they would quietly call you the monster's son as long as you lived. They wouldn't let you become the real king the faeries deserve." She swallowed hard.
"So I made Oberon, your father, a sprite. I cursed him myself, exiling him away from you forever so that he could never lay a hand on this family again. I drove him out of your nursery and into the night, vowing that I would torture and kill him if he ever set foot in Summer Court." Once the truth was out, the queen couldn't avoid it any longer. "I was naïve back then, thinking that Oberon would repent for what he had done once he had lost everything. But I still lied to the entire court, masking the truth from the fae so they would never find out. I came up with the lie about Oberon's murder by an assassin to divert suspicion as well."
I felt the bruise around my neck flare up at the thought of Oberon, over all these years, being the one watching me. He lingered in the shadows this whole time, but something about him made me wonder if he was a greater threat than even The Master.
He wasn't cold and calculating, filled with a sense of injustice that needed to be quenched. He wanted to watch the realm die just because of the thrill of causing death itself.
"King Oberon's resting place is just an empty grave." Queen Titania admitted. She looked over at her son, her eyes pleading for forgiveness. "And as for your memories, Glen, I took them away from you. I never wanted you to ever carry the burden of your father on your shoulders your entire life." Tears streamed down her face. "I told you what I wanted every faerie to hear, that Oberon was a hero." She smiled sadly. "My lies inspired you to become the brave prince you are today. They inspired you to do what you thought was right, even if that meant chasing after the impossible and sacrificing what everyone thought of you. I hope you can find it within yourself to forgive me one day, but I don't regret that." Her eyes clouded. "What I regret the most is not being there for you. I wasn't a mother to you, Glen. Not as I found as many men as I could to fill the hole of guilt he created."
Her fists clenched as she turned to Oberon. But Glen's face filled with emotion, a combination of betrayal and compassion that made his eyes shine with green wetness.
"Mother-" he began, a heartbreaking smile surfacing on his face. But Oberon interrupted them with a bellowing laugh.
"How touching," he chuckled. "But sweet mother forgot that wings and magic meant nothing to me. Not when I found a new kind of power." A wide grin stretched over his bleeding lips. "The sprites themselves. They welcomed me into their ranks, and I showed them my gift of forging iron. I created an army out of them. But we needed one last thing, one person before we could seek Lorely's globe that would lead us to the Objects of Power...a Master."
Oberon eyed me wickedly. "You must have wondered who is the man behind the mask," he said, patting his ink tattoos. "But I'm the one who created him."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
So this is probably one of the most insane chapters I've had to write in this book. Did any of you see this twist coming?! That the tattooed sprite is actually Glen's father?! And why do you think Glen was so suspicious when he felt the power of The Summer Scepter? Let me know in the comments below ;) InfiniteWorlds24 and XMarMarX, I hope this plot twist meets your long awaited expectations!