Bridging the Ancient ✓

Chapter 10

Oisin was supposed to be a prince. He was supposed to soak in the kingdom adoring him as he grew but barely made it past the age of five. His power hadn't been discovered yet but with the strength of his two parents, there isn't a doubt he would have been immortal. And one day, ruled the kingdom if Silas never produced an heir.

He was supposed to grow, raised to be a kind-hearted warrior. With Renit's training and his mother's consoling, Oisin's life would have been any child's dream. To run through the long stretches of hallway in the castle and allow every worry to drift away is a blessing. At least it would have been.

After that night, nothing was ever going to be the same again. Not the sunrise drifting over the hillside or the sound of someone's laughter carrying through the gardens. That was supposed to be Oisin's laughter as he grew—not swallowed by an empty graveyard. I still don't know if the tombstone I saw was his or his mother's, there was only a flash of a memory before the truth was gone entirely.

I never heard a whisper of what had happened a hundred years ago. No one spoke of it, the spiked heads on the gates after the castle was attacked or the loss of a prince soon to be. Oisin didn't need to be accepted by the king, Renit would have found a place for him somewhere. Even if not a prince, Oisin would have been something. And he's gone.

A life lost young is considered bad luck in households of witches. Our kind is expected to live much longer through their power and with the perks of immortality helping them through misfortunes. Oisin's situation was much worse than what we consider accidents, this happened because of a cause. Rebels like the force building today, the reason we're here.

Would Bren kill a child if he had the chance? Would he hesitate? Did the assassin that killed Oisin think twice about taking the life of a young witch? I can't answer those questions and I don't think Renit can either, not when it comes to his son. He blames himself enough for not protecting them more. But those deaths weren't his fault—they were accidents. Even witches in all their immortality are prone to those fates.

The cost of losing Renit's son wasn't just the grief he had to face alone. Even if he had a close support system with Silas and Hallie, who didn't reveal her age for a reason since she's nearly half as old as the princes—Renit went through everything without feeling a single thing. And then there was the matter of the king.

Once he learned there was a child on the way, one with the Marron bloodline flowing through his veins—and a son—he became overjoyed. No one hoped for anything better, except for small tidbits left by the king about how a woman of status would have been his choice.

Renit, loving his wife, brushed off those comments without care. Darlene was his, and he dropped to his knees for her. The king had even come to accept what had come of his son's life. To the point he promised Oisin to be a prince amongst his people. He had a crown, one small enough for his dainty head, and dressed in the finest the kingdom could provide.

When Oisin died, that all changed. The king blamed his son for not being there and putting the future of the kingdom in jeopardy. Although Renit was already trained to kill, the king pushed him harder to reach a new level. And Renit became known as the king's weapon because of it. He stopped holding back in fear of his father's wrath.

Each bit of information swirls in my mind, the bits he shared with me the night before and this morning, when the rest of the truth spilled about how his father came to hate him. After the healer came to remove more of the infection, enough to keep him down once more, he was in the mood to speak again. And I've never heard him talk so much and be so comfortable with every word. I knew his story would be heartbreaking but, on this level...I hadn't expected this.