"You are not taking this seriously, Isaac. I should be seeing some preparations for the wedding on your end by now."
King Deema had burst into Isaac's cage late into the night and had scanned the room, his eyes hungry for evidence of compliance, but found none. The decorative items he had sent to soften the space for the incoming bride remained exactly where he had instructed them to be placed: untouched, still in their delivery boxes and gathering dust in the corner.
His face darkened.
"Preparations like what?" Isaac asked, sitting up from his bed.
His charm seemed to increase by a hundred the moment he sat up. Despite looking very casual, his hair was in disheveled waves, his shirt hung loose, revealing the sharp lines of his collarbone, and his eyes, still heavy with sleep, held the kind of spark that could make a woman fall hard. The king's frown deepened in annoyance. In truth, he had always been jealous of Isaac; he could not even compare in the slightest to his own son's shadow despite being his father. The unfairness of it all burned in his chest like lava.
"Preparations like adding more color from the household decor I sent," the king said, his voice rising. "To bring some life to this dull room."
"Oh, you also think it's dull?" Isaac asked flatly. "I have been living here all my life. I am not ready to change it for anyone."
He was being so calm, like he didn't see the king's anger or he simply didn't care, and that only infuriated the king further.
His voice dropped to a chilling whisper. "Isaac, you know me better than anyone. I can easily have you killed for being a threat to humanity and replace you with someone else. Your life is in my hands. So do not dare act high and mighty with me."
Isaac's expression did not flicker, and he . "Yeah, I know."
The words were so dismissive, the kind of words an adult gives a child throwing a tantrum over a broken toy. The king's hands curled into fists at his sides, but before he could speak, Isaac added, "Just so you know, I will not marry someone I do not know."
The king's jaw tightened. His teeth ground together. But even in his rage, he understood that this boy was not someone he could easily bulldoze, especially not with mere threats.
"I will bring her to you," the king said, forcing the words out through clenched teeth. "You can cohabit. Get to know each other. Before the wedding."
Isaac lay back down, pulling the thin blanket over himself; he was done with the conversation. "Suit yourself."
Filled with more fury than he had arrived with, the king stormed out of the cage, the iron door slamming behind him with a sound that echoed through the night.
---
The moment his father's footsteps faded into silence, Isaac rose from the bed.
He picked up a dark robe lying on his study chair and slipped into it. From the small wooden box hidden beneath his mattress, he retrieved Sienna's handkerchief, carefully wrapped within the cloth she had given him, preserved like something sacred. He pressed it to his nose for just a moment, inhaling the faint traces of lavender and rose that still clung to the fabric, then slipped it into his pocket.
He walked to the bathroom.
The space was small; nothing about it suggested anything beyond its obvious purpose. But Isaac did not stop at the sink or the shower. He placed his palm flat against the eastern wall, the one facing the thick, overgrown bush at the far edge of the royal grounds, and pressed slightly.
A tremor ran through the metal.
The wall split open, clean and silent, revealing a wide passage. Isaac stepped through without hesitation. The moment he emerged on the other side, the guards stationed there dropped to their knees in unison, their heads bowed low in honest reverence.
Isaac acknowledged them with a single nod and walked on.
Through the darkness of the night he moved, walking through blind spots and shadowed corridors with so much ease, as if this were not the first time he had walked through here. He was so calm and collected that it seemed more like he was taking a casual walk under the stars, and because of this none of the royal guards were drawn to him.
He entered the main palace through the back door and headed straight for the Queen's quarters, his pace never breaking.
---
The queen was preparing to retire to bed.
She was a middle-aged woman with a full head of white hair that she wore like a crown of snow, a face so meticulously maintained it seemed to belong to someone else entirely, and a medium height that she carried with the rigid posture of a soldier. Her expression was cold; it had been cold since she was married into the royal family.
She had just settled into her silk pajamas when the door pushed open.
Her hand stilled on the button she was fastening. Her ears, sharp and observant, trained by decades of survival in a space filled with vipers, immediately knew the footsteps were unfamiliar.
She turned, and her face furrowed into a frown.
The man standing in her doorway was too beautiful in a way that made her skin crawl; it was that slight familiarity. She didn't even recognize her own son; she had refused to see him even virtually for the past twenty years.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "Who let you in?"
Isaac walked to the sofa in the corner of the room and sat down; he crossed one leg over the other, his dark robe pooling around him like ink.
"You don't even recognize your own son, Queen Meredith?"
The words hung in the air between them, heavy and electric.
It took a moment and then the shock hit her, followed immediately by a wave of fury so heavy it seemed to physically lift her chin.
"You monster." She cried, her voice so thick with barely contained anger, "You devil's creation. You dare show your evil face in my room?"
She reached for her phone, her fingers trembling as she snatched it from the nightstand. Isaac did not move, nor did his expression change; he seemed to be so certain she wouldn't make that call she intended to make.
Her thumb hovered over the dial button, but she did not press it.
"Aren't you supposed to be locked up in a cage?" she spat instead, lowering the phone but not releasing it. "How are you here?"
"I came to clear my uncertainties," Isaac said.
"That does not answer my question."
"My answer will not benefit you in any way, either."
She went silent.
"Whose child am I?" Isaac asked.
The queen went dead still. The color drained from her already pale face. For a long, agonizing moment, she did not speak; it seemed as if the words had lodged themselves somewhere in her throat and refused to come out.
"You would do well to remain where you are kept," she finally said, turning away from him. Her voice was brittle, cracking at the edges. "Stop inquiring about things that do not exist."
"I did not expect you to still defend the king," Isaac said flatly, "despite everything he put you through."
That hit a nerve.
The queen spun back toward him, her eyes blazing. "You... you devil are one of the things he put me through." Her voice rose, filled with years of suppressed fury. "He brought you from God knows where, smiling like you were his ultimate treasure. He did not care about my feelings. He did not care about the feelings of his wife, his wife who had just given birth after trying to conceive for years."
Her hands were shaking now. Tears pooling at the corners of her eyes, though she fought them with everything she had.
"I gave birth to a girl that year. A daughter. And not once, not once did he come to check on me. Not once did he acknowledge her. And then, as if to rub salt into an open wound, he brought you home. Called you his most precious treasure."
Her voice broke.
"I tried. I tried to tolerate you. I tried to be what he wanted me to be: your mother. And then you went mad and you killed her. My only child. She was just a baby, Isaac. She knew nothing. She had done nothing, and you killed her."
She fell to her knees, her face streaked with tears and mucus, her composure shattered into a thousand pieces on the floor between them.
Isaac said nothing.
He watched her weep; it turns out she had every reason to hate him. She who owed him nothing at all and had even suffered because of his existence in ways he never knew until now. He did not offer comfort nor did he apologize because it wouldn't make any difference.
He pulled out his phone and sent a single message to Craig:
"Proceed with the DNA test between the king and me."
He suspected the king wasn't his father either, the signs were all there and he needed proof.
He stood up and walked out of the room the same way he had entered.
He knew she would not tell anyone. She hated the king too much to give him the satisfaction of knowing that his precious treasure had slipped out of his leash. And she had lived in solitude for so long, with no friends, no allies, and no one to confide in, that there was literally no one to tell.