Page 195 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

“The lineage is missing from your library.”

“As it is in all archives.”

“Why do you say that so casually? That doesn’t bother you?”

“Of course it does, don’t be ridiculous. But what am I supposed to do? Their hierarchy fell long before my first life. The curse corrupted The Middle, and for centuries the world believed they’d all died in the fires that ravaged their Earthbound lands. It was only in the last century that their heir emerged from the woodwork to fill the empty seat at the table of The Six.”

“What fires?” I demanded, shaking my head when Blaz pulled out a chair for me. He motioned for me to sit. With a huff, he took the chair opposite his mother and watched as I began to pace. The cogs in my head churned with the subtlety of rusted gears forced into motion after too many years of stagnation. Reyna, however, looked equally intrigued and horrified as she shook her head.

“Their estates burned—all records, all the libraries with them. Everything was destroyed by a fire that burned like midnight, save for the few tomes now circulating. Even those seem to have been…altered.”

“Like the pages being torn out?”

“That seems to be the rarity. Some files are redacted, others…read like forgeries. Whatever happened in that hierarchy, someone didn’t want the world to know.”

“Only cowards shy from the ugliness of history,” Blaz said, almost to himself. The words crept from him like a memorized lesson. Judging by the subtle quirk of Reyna’s lips and the finger she held up to ding an imaginary bell, I assumed I was right.

“Very good, son.”

Fear settled like a flock of locusts, making my skin itch as my mind whirred with theories. But it was Aren’s mission that forced the words out. “What do you know of Rhiannon’s diadem?”

Another shake of her head. This time her thin lips pursed in an expression of condolence, like she sincerely pitied my lack of answers. “Not a lot. Only what’s in that book on top. It was crafted out of pure power to harness and control Rhiannon’s magic,” she explained, her tone as calm as reciting a grocery list. “She’d been bred to be invincible—the perfect breeding mare for a powerful king—but they hadn’t anticipated how much magic would course through her veins until she ascended and couldn’t control it. The diadem was their attempt to funnel it for her.”

“What came of it?” Aren had said the current surviving King had it, but I certainly wasn’t about to earn an audience with Moros Balaskas. My last interaction with Bellpost involved me scooping a treasure out of a tomb for Reagan Stuart—so I doubted I’d be particularly welcomed on his doorstep.

“Nobody knows. It was lost to history when the curse claimed the kingdom. They’re just as locked out as your souls are.”

“Can you think of anything else?”

Reyna’s lips curled inward before she sighed, shaking her head. “Only that it had a counterpart.”

Every. Single. Hair on my body upended. A tickle raced over my skin as gooseflesh pebbled to life. My lips parted as an image stirred—of a crown woven of midnight, spirals of star-flecked obsidian stone that hissed promises of power in a thousand whispering tongues. Even now, centuries later, the memory turned my stomach.

There was a reason Lonan had demanded Cyrus deliver me, not my corpse—and I wasn’t ready to face that reality yet.

“Did your parents ever read you The Brothers of Blackthorn?” Blaz asked, as casually as if discussing the weather. When I shook my head, Reyna offered a small smile, maybe sensing the turmoil now roaring in my veins. None of my parents had shared the fable in any form…but I knew how it ended.

Seeming to tiptoe into dangerous territory, Reyna cleared her throat and gently clasped her hands atop the desk.

“Well, the gist is that there were once two brothers who wielded shadows and death. One a reaper, the other a mender. Together, they brought their people to unimaginable power, ruling with fear and respect that demanded allegiance. But the peace of the Highlands was fragile, and war brewed between their hierarchy and Bellpost. To end the bloodshed, they did as all kings did.”

“He married off his daughter,” I guessed.

“Bingo,” Blaz said, eyes alight with the tale. Rhiannon. Even my mind barely dared to whisper her name, as though it were something sacred to keep hidden.

“For their wedding, the first brother presented his bride with a gift,” Reyna explained. “An obsidian crown unlike any other—secretly forged by his brother as a gesture of goodwill. But the truth was hidden in the crown’s shadows.”

Blaz scooted to the edge of his seat, hands growing animated. “The brothers imbued it with their own magic, weaving spells into the stone so it would pull the wearer’s strength into the shadows themselves. They believed they could subdue even the greatest powers—he who owned the crown would become Keeper of the Veil, the wearer’s power funneled through it to feed their reign. Once worn, it couldn’t be removed until the second brother’s rightful heir came to reclaim it. Only to this heir would the crown submit.”

“But the bride somehow sensed the nature of the offering and refused to accept the gesture, burying it away where it was lost to history. The brothers began to hunt, but the loss drove a wedge between them. The first brother became so consumed by ambition that he betrayed the second, turning to dark magic in pursuit of the crown’s power.”

Reyna cleared her throat and straightened her spine. “Some say the second brother was so heartbroken by the betrayal, he vanished into the shadow realm, taking the truth of the crown with him.”

“Others whisper that the first brother killed the second in his outrage,” Blaz added with scandalous enthusiasm.

I cleared my throat in turn, unable to shake the chill turning my skin to ice. “You uh…wouldn’t happen to have any drawings or paintings depicting the crown, just for curiosity’s sake?”

“Not here—I have a copy of the fable at our home in the French countryside, but I haven’t read it in years. I just remember that it was impossibly black—somehow absorbing the light around it as though it intended to snuff them out, and⁠—”