THE CURSED BLOODLINE

CHAPTER 2

: The Secret Beneath the Throne

The command echoed through the shattered room, and every guard outside the door drew a sword.

“Who said that?” Adrian demanded.

The voice had come from nowhere, yet its words still trembled in the glass scattered across the floor. The red light beneath my skin pulsed like a second heartbeat. I tried to pull my hand from Adrian’s, but his fingers tightened around mine.

“Let go,” I whispered.

“I would, if I could.”

His honesty frightened me more than the threat. A thin golden thread shimmered between our joined hands, twisting around our wrists before sinking beneath our skin. Adrian stared at it, horrified.

“What is this?”

“I was hoping you knew.”

The door burst open. Queen Seraphina swept inside, her black gown whispering over the broken glass. Lord Lucien followed, his expression calm, almost pleased. Behind them waited a dozen armed guards.

The queen looked at our hands. For a moment, the cold certainty in her face cracked.

“Separate them,” she ordered.

Two guards seized Adrian. Another grabbed my arm. The instant we were pulled apart, pain tore through my chest. Adrian staggered, clutching his heart, while every candle in the room exploded into sparks.

“Stop!” Queen Seraphina shouted.

The guards released us. I fell to my knees, gasping. The golden thread had vanished, but I could still feel Adrian, as if a piece of him had been stitched into my soul.

Lucien crouched beside me. “Remarkable. The bond has survived eighteen years.”

Adrian shoved past the guards. “What bond?”

Lucien rose, brushing dust from his sleeve. “An old magic, Your Highness. One that should have died with the Ashbourne family.”

The queen struck him across the face.

“Not another word.”

His cheek reddened, but his smile remained. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

I looked from one to the other. They knew my family. They knew my magic. Mara’s warning returned to me: Do not let the prince touch your blood.

“What happened to the Ashbournes?” I asked.

Seraphina’s eyes settled on me with terrible stillness. “Traitors challenged the crown. They were punished.”

“I was a baby.”

“Then you should have died with them.”

Adrian stepped between us. “Mother.”

“Do not defend her.” The queen’s voice sharpened. “You have no idea what she is.”

“I know she is frightened and surrounded by people who refuse to tell her the truth.”

For one heartbeat, I wanted to trust him. Then I remembered his family’s crest, the crown split by a sword, stamped on every guard’s uniform. Whatever kindness Adrian showed me, he had been raised inside the very house that hunted my blood.

Seraphina turned toward the guards. “Take the girl to the lower chambers. No visitors. No exceptions.”

Adrian reached for me, but Lucien blocked him.

“The bond is unstable,” the adviser warned softly. “If you follow her, you may trigger something neither of you can control.”

Adrian’s jaw tightened. “If she is harmed, I will hold you responsible.”

“And if she destroys the kingdom?” Lucien asked.

No one answered.

The guards dragged me through corridors I had known since childhood, past portraits of kings whose painted eyes seemed to follow me. At the eastern stairwell, I twisted free long enough to slip the iron key from my pocket. Mara had given it to me for the chapel beneath the tower. I needed answers, and I knew the queen would never offer them.

I stumbled into a narrow passage while the guards argued behind me. A small door stood half-hidden behind a tapestry showing the first king kneeling before a silver crown. The key turned before I had fully pushed it into the lock.

Cold air breathed from the darkness beyond.

I slipped inside and descended a spiral staircase, one hand against the damp stone. The deeper I went, the stronger the warmth beneath my birthmark became. At the bottom waited an ancient chapel lit by a single blue flame. Its altar bore the same symbol as my mark: a red star inside a black ring.

Mara stood before it, pale and trembling.

“You came,” she said.

“You knew this place existed. You knew who I was. Tell me the truth.”

She opened her mouth, but a sound behind the altar silenced her: three slow knocks from the other side of the stone.

My breath caught. The altar shifted, revealing a narrow doorway. Beyond it, someone whispered my name.

Not Evelina.

“Princess Elara.”

Mara covered her mouth. I had never heard that name before, yet something inside me answered it. The blue flame turned crimson, and the stone walls began to shake.

A figure stepped through the doorway wearing a crown of black thorns. His face was hidden beneath a silver mask, but his voice was unmistakable.

“Your mother is alive,” he said. “And she is waiting for you beneath the cursed throne.”

I stepped toward him, but Mara seized my sleeve. “Do not believe everything you hear in this place,” she warned. Her voice shook with a fear I had never seen in her before. “Some doors were sealed for a reason.” The masked stranger tilted his head, and the black thorns on his crown glimmered like wet bone. “Ask your guardian what she promised the queen in exchange for your life,” he said. Mara went utterly still. The betrayal in her silence hurt more than any answer could.

Then the ancient chapel bell rang somewhere below us.