Hey Everyone!
I'll make it short. Thanks go out to my beta testers: fanfare, M, A, and my mom. Thanks go out to my editor Archangel_M. And for those of you wondering about Peaches and Bane in my Mystery Girl series, you'll be seeing them next week so check back regularly! I hope you like this next chapter!
-Rosi
***
Grim adjusted his tie as he gazed in the mirror. For the first time in years, he was wearing the Bloodspurn insignia carved into the ring on his index finger. It was the ring given to every Bloodspurn King upon succession to the throne. Sure, it was a little early, but given the circumstances, his father had decided it was time.
Grim turned away from the mirror and toward the man in the corner. "Thank you for your support, Father."
Tuoni smiled brilliantly at his son. For the first time in centuries, Grim saw his father for the man he used to be, before the whoring and madness had taken him. "You never need to thank me, Grim. We are family, and family, is everything."
"He's right, you know. Family makes you do things you never thought you would," Grim's mother said as she walked into the room, her tone filled with distaste.
Grim turned his head to face his mother, and blinked in surprise at the olive-green dress she wore, covering most of her skin.
How long had it been since I've seen her skin and not bones?
Grim wondered as went to greet her.
"Morrigan!" his father announced pleasantly as he went over to his wife. "You look beautiful."
His mother smiled sadly and reached out to grasp her husband's hands. They kissed cheeks briefly before she pulled back and turned to Grim. "Would you give us a second, Tuoni? I want to speak with my son."
"Of course, my dear. I feel my mind slipping away, so it's probably a good time to leave." The king squeezed her hands before saluting Grim and heading out the door. But his father was always like that, there one moment and gone the next. Grim just hoped he wouldn't adopt the same trait as he grew older. He hoped he wouldn't inherit a lot from his father.
Grim stared at his mother for long moments, only able to see his brother. They both had the same red hair and myrtle-green eyes. When he was younger, it used to bother Grim to look at Morrigan in her human form and see no connection between them.
Even at a young age, he'd known the difference between Morrigan and Ivona—it was the way his father spoke about each woman. Love and longing reflected back in his eyes when he spoke of Ivona, and pride and power reflected in his eyes when he spoke of Morrigan.
But Morrigan was the only mother Grim had, and no matter how hard she'd been on him or how coldly she'd treated him, he couldn't say he hadn't started it. She'd been a stranger and for the better part of a century he'd treated her that way, and perhaps they'd just fallen into that pattern. But Grim never doubted her love for him; for all her faults it was obvious that she held affection for her sons.
"It's your wedding day." Morrigan began with a sad smile as she glided over to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows and gazed out to the courtyard.
Grim went to her, the sounds of his footfalls absorbed by the thick rugs. "Yes it is, Mother." He stood beside her and looked out at the hundreds of carriages lining either side of the drive. Some of the guests had come to see the human, others to show their support, but all had been expecting this to be a political marriage between the Castoffs and the Bloodspurns. Now that it wasn't, they were all curious as to what would happen.
Grim was wondering the same thing. The Castoff King had yet to respond to the letter he'd sent, and he'd received no word back from Krithi and Tylend. It had been weeks, and with every day that passed Grim wondered if he wasn't starting a war with his actions.
"Mictlantecuhtli?" Morrigan said tentatively, turning away from the window to face her son.
For once Grim didn't cringe at the use of his birth name, but he did take note of it. "Yes, Mother?" Grim's voice was soft but held a note of censure. This was his wedding day, and he didn't want it to be ruined by his mother badmouthing his fiancée. He would take her criticism and commentary to a point.
"Let's put down our swords, shall we?" Morrigan gestured to the crimson chaise and two armchairs. "I want you to sit and listen to a story."
Grim's lips twisted as he remembered a time when he'd said the same thing. He mimicked the motion of sheathing a sword before going to sit in one of the armchairs. "Fine, mother, the swords are away. What is it you would like to tell me?"
Morrigan arranged her skirts in a fan around her ankles as she sat opposite him in one of the chairs, hands resting in her lap. "You know that I don't have the greatest... affinity for humans, Mictlantecuhtli." Morrigan began softly. "But you don't know the story behind my feelings."
Grim nodded for her to continue, and after a deep sigh, she did. "Your father and I did not marry for love, but for power and allegiance. You already know this."
Grim nodded, and folded his hands in his lap. "Yes."
Myrtle-green eyes met his, but darted quickly to the side before he could read them. Then her voice shifted, became lower and softer, and she was suddenly speaking in a dead language that she'd taught him as a child. "That was a lie, Mictlantecuhtli." Morrigan paused and sat up straighter. "When your father and I married, I was a maid; in fact, I was Ivona's maid."
Grim's jaw clenched, as he searched his mind for the language and the words he needed. "You're lying. You are the niece of the Darklore Queen, fifth in line for the Darklore throne and queen of the Bloodspurn kingdom. I know who you are, Mother."
Morrigan shook her head and clenched her fingers tight until her knuckles turned white. "The Darklore Queen is one of our greatest supporters. She was desperate to keep the peace between the kingdoms, and your father was too distraught to marry anyone. I was just the logical and available choice.
"I married him quickly, and I let him grieve in any way he wanted while I raised you. Ivona wanted it that way. She trusted me, and wanted me to be the one to raise you, just perhaps not as your mother."
Morrigan paused, and took a shaky breath in before blowing it out. "Only a select number of people know what I'm about to tell you, Mictlantecuhtli."
Grim didn't know the woman sitting across from him. Where was his mother; the woman who was constantly hysterical, hated humans, and was always disappointed with her sons? The woman in front of him now seemed scared, fear in her eyes. Whatever secrets she carried with her weren't easy ones.
Grim didn't speak, didn't so much as twitch a muscle. All he did was wait for her to continue, wait for her to tell him the deep, dark secret she kept so close to her.
"Your mother went into premature labor because one of the Castoff royalties attempted to assassinate her. We were never sure who exactly it was, but we knew they were exceedingly powerful."
"How did they do it?" Grim interpreted.
"Poison."
Red curls bounced as Morrigan turned away from Grim and seemed to look into the past. "You see, Ivona wasn't just the Bloodspurn Queen; she was everyone's hope.
"Your father had been working with Yin and Yang to try and come up with a way to keep her alive after the birth. They were close too, but she went into labor after the assassination attempt and died."
If what she was telling him was true, then he might not have been the cause of his mother's death. If Yin, Yang, and his father had been close to discovering a way to prevent her death, then she might've still been with him.
Clenching his fists tight, Grim locked his jaw. He leapt his voice low, with just a sliver of hope embedded in the words. "Yin and Yang are forbidden to meddle in reaper affairs.You're sure it was them father was working with?"
"I'm sure, Mictlantecuhtli." Morrigan nodded as her eyes darted around the room. "Yin and Yang were trying to find a way for humans and reapers to have children without the human dying. Because if they did..."
Grim knew the answer. It was the reason reapers and humans had first mated. Reapers needed humanity, because humanity kept them from being lost and consumed by their own power. When the power had consumed reapers in the past it had led to battles, wars, senseless murder, and had almost destroyed them all. It was a symbiotic existence for both species.
"Why would the Castoffs want to stop this?"
His mother shook her head softly at him. "You can't think of the reason?"
Grim stared at his mother for a long second. Slowly the pieces came to him. Why she'd married his father and claimed to be part of the Darklore Kingdom. Why the Castoff Kingdom had tried to assassinate his mother. It all came to him slowly, but clearly.
"They think that if we mate with humans too much, then we would become humans ourselves and lose our power," Grim said lowly, realization dawning on him.
Morrigan nodded, her hands clenched tightly in her lap, bunching the fabric of her dress. "They fear losing power. They fear change they cannot control. Can you then understand why we wanted you to marry the Castoff Princess?"
The change to Felicia didn't surprise him. It was all connected, had been in play before he'd been born. "Keep your friends close..."
"... and your enemies closer," Morrigan finished with a proud smile.
"This game is very old, Mictlantecuhtli." Morrigan continued. "And while the players might have changed, the positions and stakes never did. It goes back to our history, to the founding of the three kingdoms."
"Why does any of this matter now? Why should I trust anything you're saying, Mother?" Grim asked, more out of curiosity than because he thought she was lying to him.
Morrigan reached forward and gripped his hands. "If you believe nothing else, believe that I love you.
