THE CURSED BLOODLINE

Chapter 10

The Face of the Enemy

I stumbled backward, unable to understand what I was seeing.

Two Adrians stood before me.

One was beside me, his body becoming transparent beneath my trembling hands. The other stood where the creature had been, wearing Adrian’s face but smiling with an expression that belonged to something ancient and cruel.

“Which one is real?” I whispered.

The disappearing Adrian seized my wrist. His fingers were cold, but his silver-blue eye held the same tenderness that had made me trust him when the entire kingdom wanted me dead.

“Evelina, listen carefully. Whatever happens, do not let him touch the crown.”

The other Adrian laughed.

“How touching. Even now, he believes he can protect you.”

I stepped between them, clutching the crown against my chest. Its silver surface burned, yet I refused to release it.

“Who are you?”

The creature tilted its head. “I am what remains when love is corrupted by fear. I am the first king’s greatest mistake, the darkness your ancestors buried beneath their magnificent throne.”

“That does not explain why you look like him.”

“Because he was created to resemble me.”

The words struck harder than any blade.

I turned toward the real Adrian. He shook his head desperately, as though begging me not to believe another word.

The creature continued. “Long ago, the first king discovered that his blood could contain my power. He built a prison around my spirit and bound it to his descendants. Every generation, I waited for a vessel strong enough to release me. Then Adrian was born.”

Adrian’s jaw tightened. “You are lying.”

“Am I? Ask your mother why she never told you what happened to your twin.”

The chamber fell silent.

Adrian froze.

I stared at him. “Your twin?”

His expression crumpled. “I was told he died at birth.”

The creature smiled. “He did not die. Your father offered him to the darkness, believing one son could inherit the throne while the other contained the curse. His body perished, but his spirit survived inside me.”

I looked at the creature’s familiar face and finally understood. It was not merely imitating Adrian. It carried the face of the brother he had never known.

“Your name,” Adrian whispered. “What was your name?”

The creature’s smile vanished.

“Lucian.”

A terrible tremor passed through the ruins.

Behind us, my mother cried out as her chains tightened. I rushed toward her, but the crown flared, projecting images into the air: two newborn boys, a terrified queen, and a king standing beside an altar covered in black roses.

One child cried.

The other lay perfectly still.

The king lifted the living child, while shadows swallowed his brother.

My stomach twisted.

“Your father sacrificed Lucian to protect you,” I whispered.

Adrian looked as though his entire world had collapsed.

“No,” he said. “He would never—”

“He did,” Lucian interrupted. “And when the curse began consuming his kingdom, he blamed the Ashbournes. Your ancestors became enemies because my imprisonment required two bloodlines to remain divided.”

My father stirred on the stones. Blood trickled from his mouth.

“The truth was buried for a reason,” he rasped. “You cannot understand what that boy would have become.”

Lucian turned toward him.

“I am not a boy anymore.”

Darkness exploded from his body.

My father tried to crawl away, but black roots burst through the stones and wrapped around his legs.

“Evelina!” my mother shouted. “The crown needs both heirs. Not their blood— their choice!”

I scrambled toward the crown. The golden thread still connected me to Adrian, though he was fading faster now. I could feel his fear, his grief, and beneath both, a desperate love that refused to surrender.

“Adrian, look at me.”

He lifted his head. “I cannot hold him back.”

“You don't have to do it alone.”

I reached for him, and he reached for me. Our fingertips met just as his outline began dissolving into silver sparks. I caught his hand with both of mine.

“Lucian!” I shouted. “If you were betrayed, then you know what it means to have your choices stolen. Don't let our fathers decide what you become.”

Lucian’s expression changed. Beneath his fury, I glimpsed a frightened young man, trapped for centuries in a prison built by people who called themselves righteous.

Then my father laughed weakly. “He cannot choose. The curse has already consumed his soul.”

Lucian looked down at his hands. The shadows were crawling over his fingers, turning them into smoke.

Something inside him was breaking.

I seized the crown and held it between the brothers. “You can both be free. But you must stop fighting for the life that was stolen and decide what comes next.”

Adrian’s remaining eye filled with tears. “Brother, I never knew you. But I am sorry.”

Lucian stared at him. The chamber shook, and the black roots tightened around my father until his cries vanished beneath the roar.

The crown split with a sound like thunder.

A white light swallowed us all, and in its centre, a woman’s voice whispered, “One brother must die before dawn.”

When the light faded, Adrian was gone.

In his place lay a silver ring, warm with a heartbeat that did not belong to me.