The King's Queen | ✔

Chapter 78

Lyle sighed through the mind link, the sound reminiscent of crashing waves. "After thousands of years, you are still so naïve, Parkos."

***

We all turned to look at Ezra, whose overl eyes were wide as he stared at Lyle in stunned silence. "P-Parkos?" he choked out after a few seconds.

"Yes," Lyle answered without hesitation. "How could you not realize you were with a descendant of Lavinia? Did not you feel a connection to her?"

As Ezra stared at Lyle, his brows furrowed in confusion. I was shocked, too. Was that the reason he and Sybil had become such close friends?

"You were sealed away, too, Parkos. The Guardians knew that if they left you, one of my most loyal companions alive, you would attempt to free me."

"That's not—I don't remember any of that!"

"Will you allow me to look into your thoughts?" Lyle asked, surprising us because we assumed he was reading everyone's mind.

"I assured Parkos and Lavinia that I would never read their thoughts, and I will keep my word."

"Do whatever you want," Ezra said, crossing his arms defiantly. "I am not your companion, and I have nothing to hide."

"I can see that," Lyle murmured. "Your memories of our time together are gone. Your earliest memories are of waking up and being surrounded by Origens. Someone has tampered with your memories."

"I saw them." Lady Freya had nodded. "It's my first time seeing these memories. Your memories, and also... his memories."

That's when it hit me. Lady Freya had erased Ezra's memories. She'd said she didn't remember any of the memories she erased, but that was because Emperor Caden never allowed her to see the person afterward. Meeting me again at the Western Palace made her remember my memories, and Ezra was a part of my memories.

Seeing Ezra again in my memories then made her remember his memories. She knew all about Lyle and what had happened in the past. That's how she was able to see the hieroglyphs...

We should have suspected that Lady Freya was involved. The fact that the Origen Association had assigned an age to Ezra, an Origin with no memories, meant they had a way of ascertaining how old he was.

Lady Freya had been able to take only twenty years of his memories away, meaning he had been twenty years old.

If Ezra had been centuries old like some of the other Origins, Lady Freya would have died trying to erase all of his memories.

"I'm incredibly lucky to be alive right now! Caden almost killed me!"

So that's what she'd meant!

"Interesting," Lyle murmured, assessing my thoughts. "When they found Parkos sealed away, the Origens must have been surprised to see that he was still alive."

"Is that true?" Ezra turned to me, and his eyes widened when he saw the unmistakable truth in my own. Unable to believe what he was hearing, he shook his head slowly, his disbelief evident. "I am not unaffected by Nightshade like you are. I wouldn't survive being sealed away like that."

"Before they sealed you away, I gave you my blood to preserve you," Lyle explained patiently. "I did the same for Lavinia, but she was carrying a child. Lavinia was the daughter of a Guardian, so they would have allowed her to give birth before sealing her away." His gaze briefly fell on Sybil.

I had so many questions. Sybil had the uncanny ability to see premonitions despite being a human. How could a descendant of an Origin be human?

"It is quite interesting," Lyle mused. "Let me be clear with you. I am the first of my kind, but humans existed before me. Over many millennia, I roamed this earth before revealing my secret to twenty-four humans. They followed me, and I turned them into Origins. They are the ancestors of the twenty-four families you have today.