Chapter 18
title: "The Bastard's Arithmetic" wordCount: 2361
The journal entry was dated three days before his mother drowned, and it began: Caelan, my love, my lie, my greatest sin—you are not the Emperor's son.
Caelan's fingers went numb. The leather binding slipped, and he caught it against his chest, pressing it there like he could stop the words from being true through sheer force. Behind him, Thalia's breathing had gone shallow.
"Caelan." Her hand touched his shoulder. "Put it down."
He turned the page instead.
I met Torven Ashmark in the third year of my service to the Emperor. He was a blood mage, a revolutionary, everything the court despised. He was also the only man who ever looked at me and saw something other than a beautiful ornament for the Emperor's collection.
The handwriting wavered here, like she'd been crying while she wrote.
We were careful. So careful. But I got pregnant, and I knew—I knew what would happen if anyone discovered the truth. The Emperor would have killed us both. Killed you before you even drew breath.
Caelan's throat closed. The silver comb in his hair felt suddenly heavy, pulling at his scalp.
So I seduced the Emperor. It wasn't difficult—he'd always wanted me in his bed, and I'd always refused. I let him think he'd finally won me over. Three weeks later, I told him I was carrying his child. He believed me. Why wouldn't he? I was his recognized consort under the old laws. The child would be legitimate.
"Stop reading." Thalia's voice cracked. "Please."
But he couldn't stop. His eyes devoured the words, each one a knife sliding between his ribs.
Torven wanted to run. Take you and flee to the outer provinces where blood mages still practiced openly. But I knew Kieran would hunt us. The Emperor's legitimate son, stolen by a blood mage? They would never stop searching. So I made Torven leave. Told him I loved the Emperor, that our affair had been a mistake. He didn't believe me at first.
The next line was smudged, the ink blurred.
I broke his heart to save your life. I have never forgiven myself.
Caelan's hands shook so badly the words blurred. He forced himself to focus, to keep reading.
You grew up believing you were the Emperor's son. I let you believe it because the lie kept you safe. But Kieran always suspected. He watched you too closely, questioned your legitimacy too often. When the Emperor died and Kieran took the throne, I knew it was only a matter of time before he found proof.
The next entry was dated two days before her death.
Kieran has hired investigators. They're asking questions about my relationship with Torven, about the timing of your birth. I've destroyed every letter, every gift, every trace of him I kept. But there's one thing I cannot destroy—the blood magic in your veins. You have Torven's gift, Caelan. Not the Emperor's. If Kieran ever sees you use it, he'll know.
Caelan's vision tunneled. The reading alcove spun around him, and he gripped the journal harder, his nails digging into the leather.
So I'm going to drown. I'm going to use blood magic in front of witnesses, make it look like I've been practicing in secret for years. I'll let them think I was a traitor, a revolutionary, anything to draw Kieran's attention away from you. If I'm the blood mage, you're just the innocent son who never knew. The legitimate heir wronged by his treacherous mother.
The final entry was dated the day she died.
I'm sorry, my love. Sorry for the lie, sorry for the legacy of shame I'm leaving you. But you're alive, and that's all that matters. If you're reading this, it means you've survived long enough to find the truth. I pray you're strong enough to bear it.
You are not the Emperor's son. You are Torven Ashmark's son. You are a blood mage's child, born of love and deception. You have no claim to the throne. You never did.
But you are mine. And I would do it all again to keep you breathing.
The journal slipped from Caelan's hands and hit the floor with a sound like a body falling.
He didn't know how long he sat there. Time moved strangely, stretching and contracting like a muscle in spasm. The dawn light crept through the broken windows, turning the dust motes into drifting stars, and he watched them fall without seeing them.
Everything he'd built his life around—the righteous anger, the claim to legitimacy, the certainty that he was the wronged heir—it was all ash. Worse than ash. It had never existed at all.
His mother had drowned herself to protect a lie.
Footsteps on the stairs. Thalia's voice, careful and too gentle. "Caelan."
He didn't look up. "You should go."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"I'm not the Emperor's son." The words tasted like copper. "I have no claim. Everything I've done, everyone who's followed me—it's all been for nothing."
Thalia crouched in front of him, forcing herself into his line of sight. Her face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed. "It's not nothing."
"I'm a fraud." He laughed, and it came out broken. "A bastard playing at being a prince. How many people have died for my lie, Thalia? How many more will die before Kieran puts me down like the pretender I am?"
"You didn't know."
"That doesn't matter." He finally met her eyes. "I've been leading a rebellion based on a claim I have no right to make. I'm worse than Kieran. At least he's honest about what he is."
Thalia's face hardened. She reached for his hand, and he pulled away.
"Don't." His voice came out harsh. "You should leave. Find someone else to follow. Someone who isn't built on lies."
"I can't do that."
"Why not?" He stood, needing to move, needing to put distance between them. "You've betrayed me before. This should be easy."
She flinched like he'd struck her. Good. He wanted her to hurt, wanted someone else to feel even a fraction of the hollow devastation eating through his chest.
"I've known for weeks," Thalia said quietly.
The world stopped.
"What?"
"Lord Venn discovered the truth about your parentage." She stood slowly, her hands clenched at her sides. "He told me. Showed me documents, birth records, letters between your mother and Torven Ashmark. He wanted me to use it against you, to leverage it for the blood mage cause."
Caelan's hands curled into fists. "And you didn't tell me."
"No."
"You let me keep believing the lie."
"Yes."
The betrayal was a physical thing, sharp and cold in his gut. "Why?"
Thalia's eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Because you needed to believe it. Because the rebellion needed you to believe it. Because—" Her voice cracked. "Because I couldn't be the one to destroy you."
"So you just kept lying." He laughed again, bitter and raw. "How noble."
"I stayed." The words came out fierce. "Venn wanted me to expose you, to use the truth to fracture your support and push the blood mages to act independently. I told him to burn in hell. I stayed with you, helped you, fought beside you, knowing you were chasing a claim you'd never have."
"Why?" The question tore out of him. "Why would you do that?"
Thalia's hands shook. "Because you're not fighting for a crown anymore. You haven't been for weeks. You're fighting because people are dying and you're the only one who can stop it. That's worth more than any bloodline."
"That's not—" He stopped. His throat was too tight. "I'm nobody. A blood mage's bastard with delusions of legitimacy."
"You're the man who saved Carrick when you could have left him to die." Thalia stepped closer. "The man who chose to protect blood mages even when it cost you allies. The man who—"
"Stop." He held up a hand. "Don't make me into something I'm not."
"I'm not making you into anything." Her voice dropped. "I'm just seeing what's actually there."
The neither spoke between them, fragile and sharp-edged. Caelan wanted to believe her. Wanted to think that maybe, somehow, this didn't change everything. But the journal's words echoed in his skull, relentless and damning.
You have no claim to the throne. You never did.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs, fast and urgent. Davos burst into the alcove, his face streaked with blood, his shirt torn. "We have a problem."
Caelan's hand went to his blade on instinct. "What happened?"
"Kieran." Davos bent double, gasping for air. "He's declared martial law. Soldiers in every district, curfews, checkpoints. And he's—" He straightened, his eyes wild. "He's executing blood mages. Publicly. In the main square."
Thalia went white. "How many?"
"I counted six bodies when I left." Davos wiped blood from his split lip. "But there were more in chains. He's making a spectacle of it, calling it justice for the Emperor's murder."
"We have to stop him." Thalia was already moving toward the stairs. "We have to—"
"Wait." Caelan's voice came out flat. "We can't."
She spun on him. "What?"
"I have no authority." The words tasted like poison. "No claim, no legitimacy. If I try to stop Kieran now, I'm just a blood mage's bastard interfering with the rightful king's justice."
"People are dying." Thalia's voice shook with fury. "Right now. While we stand here debating philosophy."
"I know that."
"Then do something!"
"What?" He spread his hands. "March into the square and declare myself the true heir? I'm not. I never was. Anything I do now is just—"
"Saving lives." Davos's voice cut through their argument like a blade. "That's what you'd be doing. Saving lives."
Caelan looked at him. The boy—no, not a boy anymore, not after everything—stood in the doorway with blood on his face and steel in his eyes.
"I don't care whose son you are," Davos said. "I don't care about bloodlines or claims or any of that court nonsense. I care that there are people dying in the square, and you're the only one who can stop it."
"I'm nobody," Caelan said again, but the words came out weaker this time.
"You're somebody to them." Davos jerked his chin toward the window, toward the city beyond. "The blood mages being executed, the people watching it happen—they don't know about your parentage. They just know you've been fighting for them. That matters."
"It's built on a lie."
"So what?" Thalia moved closer, her face fierce. "You think Kieran's claim is any cleaner? He murdered his way to the throne. At least your lie was meant to save lives, not take them."
Caelan's hands clenched and unclenched. The silver comb in his hair caught the light, and he thought of his mother—not the Emperor's consort, but the woman who'd loved a blood mage and lied to keep her son alive.
I would do it all again to keep you breathing.
"How many are in chains?" he asked quietly.
Davos's expression shifted, hope flickering across his face. "At least a dozen. Maybe more."
"And Kieran's there personally?"
"Overseeing the executions himself. Making speeches about purging the empire of blood magic corruption." Davos's lip curled. "He's also announced that you're a false heir working with blood mage terrorists. Says you're trying to destabilize the throne."
"Well." Caelan's laugh was sharp and humorless. "He's not entirely wrong."
"Caelan." Thalia's hand found his arm. "We don't have time for this. Every minute we waste is another life lost."
He looked at her—really looked at her. The woman who'd betrayed him, who'd kept his mother's secret, who'd stayed anyway. Her eyes were desperate and determined, and the truth landed: with a jolt that she wasn't asking him to be the rightful heir. She was asking him to be someone who gave a damn.
Maybe that was enough.
"I'm not doing this as the Emperor's son," he said slowly. "I'm not claiming the throne or demanding legitimacy. I'm just—"
"Stopping a massacre." Thalia's grip tightened. "That's all. Just stop the massacre."
Caelan closed his eyes. Breathed in, breathed out. When he opened them again, something had shifted in his chest. Not resolution—he wasn't ready for that. But a grim, hollow determination that felt almost like purpose.
"Davos." He turned to the boy. "Can you get us to the square without running into Kieran's patrols?"
Davos's grin was sharp and feral. "I know every back alley in this city. Follow me."
They moved through the palace like ghosts, keeping to the servants' passages and forgotten corridors. Davos led them with the confidence of someone who'd spent years learning how to be invisible, and Caelan followed, his mind still reeling from the journal's revelations.
He wasn't the Emperor's son. He was a blood mage's bastard, born of a love affair and protected by an elaborate lie. Everything he'd believed about himself was false.
But the blood mages dying in the square—that was real. Their screams would be real. Their deaths would be real.
Maybe that was all that mattered.
They emerged from a side door into the palace courtyard, and Caelan's breath caught.
The courtyard was filled with soldiers. Dozens of them, maybe more, all wearing Kieran's colors. They stood in formation, weapons drawn, facing the library entrance like they'd been waiting.
And in the center of the courtyard, bound in chains that glowed with suppression runes, was a woman with dark hair and defiant eyes.
Not just any woman.
Lyanna.
His mother.
Alive.
Caelan's world tilted. She was supposed to be dead. He'd watched her drown, had seen the water close over her head, had mourned her for months.
But there she was, breathing and bleeding and very much alive.
Kieran stood beside her, one hand fisted in her hair, the other holding a blade to her throat. His smile was cold and triumphant as his eyes found Caelan's across the courtyard.
"There you are, little brother." Kieran's voice carried across the space, sharp and mocking. "Let me show you what happens to blood mages under my rule."
The blade pressed deeper, and Lyanna's blood ran red down her neck, and Caelan was already moving—