Chapter Text
“My Lord? High Priest Heimdall is requesting your immediate presence in the throne room.”
Weary, King Lachlan sat up with a groan. “What is it?” His advisor, Gavin, a tall, rail-thin man with long, greasy hair, hovered anxiously beside the bed. Lachlan blinked once, then his mind caught up with his body, and he perked up with interest. “The ceremony?”
“I… yes.” Gavin wrung his hands together. “It’s about the ceremony.”
Lachlan glanced over his shoulder at his wife, Queen Gemma, still fast asleep. He started to wake her, but Gavin quickly shook his head.
“My lord, I think it would be best if you let her rest.”
Lachlan frowned. He and Gemma had spent the entire night waiting for news of Arcum’s newest princess—his son’s future wife—but as the hours dragged on without an announcement, he had taken his worried wife to bed, assuring her that everything would be resolved by morning. “Is it bad news?” he asked gruffly.
“I think you’d better talk to the High Priest…” Gavin muttered. “He said it was most urgent.”
Lachlan huffed and threw off the covers. He swung his legs out of bed and, with a lazy flick of his wrist, summoned his red, silken slippers. Gavin continued to hover, fidgeting, and Lachlan growled, “Out of my way,” as he reached for his matching robe and pulled it over his broad shoulders.
Lachlan was a large, imposing man with golden hair and a thick beard. Handsome, yes, but his sharp gray eyes were as cold as the steel on the hilt of his ceremonial sword. Once clothed, he strode out of the bedchambers, Gavin trailing nervously behind.
“What time is it?” Lachlan asked as they swept down the candlelit corridor.
Gavin clicked his fingers, conjuring a small, ghostly sundial in his palm. “Just before dawn.”
Lachlan barely acknowledged the magnificence of his castle as he took the long spiraling staircase downward. “The christening ceremony should be complete by now,” he muttered. “The midwife would have visited each household, and the Divine Selection should have been revealed.”
“I believe that’s why Heimdall is waiting,” Gavin said carefully. “But he seemed… troubled.”
“But what about?” Lachlan shot him a sharp look. “What did Heimdall tell you?”
Gavin only shook his head, lips pressed together.
Frustrated, Lachlan stormed down the last flight of stairs, crossing the main hall—a long, stone corridor lined with portraits of dead ancestors—and reached the throne room doors.
Inside, the chamber was dimly lit by flickering torches, the first weak rays of sunlight creeping through the arched windows. At the back of the room, High Priest Heimdall stood near the throne, staring into the darkened recesses of the chamber. His long robes hung loose on his gnarled frame, and he was muttering softly to himself.
The old man had been doing that more often lately—staring into the shadows, whispering to things unseen. He claimed to see things in them, but rarely spoke of his visions.
“Heimdall,” Lachlan called, pulling the priest’s attention away from the gloom. “What’s going on? What news do you have for me?”
Heimdall turned, his pale eyes heavy with something unspoken. “Lachlan,” he greeted solemnly. “The christening ceremony is complete. The Prince’s mate has been revealed.”
Lachlan’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “Finally. Thank Cian.” The selection of the princess from amongst their ranks was obviously a huge deal with the villagers. There would be parties in the street, a parade would be held, and there would be food for days. This was supposed to be a good time for everyone. “So, where is the girl now? Who are her parents?”
Heimdall did not immediately answer. Instead, he glanced pointedly at Gavin, and the advisor took the hint, bowing and stepping out of the room. The doors shut behind him with a quiet snick.
Lachlan exhaled impatiently. “What is with this secrecy?” he scoffed. “Is something wrong with the child?”
Heimdall hesitated.
The pause was slight, but Lachlan felt it. A ripple of unease crept over him.
“Seven women gave birth last night,” Heimdall began carefully. “That isn’t unusual of course, the village women have the conception date down to a science.”
Lachlan grunted his agreement. Four years after the heir to the throne was born, on the day of the summer solstice, the great and mighty God Cian picked the next ruling queen from the village. A newborn girl. The High Priest was required to perform a ceremony, a secret ritual nobody but him and the midwife were subject to, and afterward, the Prince’s mate was revealed.
“There were six baby girls tonight,” Heimdall continued. “And one boy.”
“Yes?” This wasn’t unusual either. Magic was pervasive in the people of Arcum. It wasn’t difficult for the village women to influence the gender of their offspring. Usually, there was a shortage of boys born around the prince’s fourth year. But not all women were strong enough to use their magic internally. He suspected this was the case with the boy. It didn’t mean anything significant, only that the boy was automatically disqualified from the christening ceremony. There had never been a male consort before.
“None of the girls were chosen, Lachlan.”
Silence.
Lachlan stared at Heimdall, waiting for him to correct himself, to say something else—anything else—but the priest only held his gaze, solemn and unmoving. “…What?” Lachlan finally asked. His voice was barely above a whisper.
Heimdall sighed and stepped closer. “The midwife, Macha, and I performed the ritual on each of the six girls. There was no reaction. Not a flicker of Cian’s mark. At first, I thought we had made some mistake. That perhaps the girl had not yet been born, or that we had miscalculated the day of conception.”
Lachlan’s heartbeat quickened. “And?”
Heimdall swallowed. “Macha… suggested we check the boy.”
Lachlan’s stomach twisted.
“I dismissed her at first,” Heimdall admitted. “But… I could feel it too. There’s a strange power in that boy, Lachlan. An overwhelming force. Something in me whispered that we should not ignore it.”
Lachlan shook his head in disbelief. “You performed the ritual on a male?”
“I did.” Heimdall’s face was grim. “And when I lifted my hand… the mark of Cian burned upon his forehead.” Heimdall had the very symbol of which he spoke hanging around his neck. The priest stroked the symbol absently, his finger tracing the crescent moon, melted into the sun. “It shone so brilliantly, Lachlan, I could scarcely look at it.”
“No,” Lachlan said softly, his head spinning. Only those destined to royalty, those destined to power, were blessed with the symbol. It was invisible almost all of the time, but there were ways to make it appear, just as Heimdall had. “T-that’s not possible.”
“It is,” Heimdall said firmly. “I saw it with my own eyes. I have never seen a child marked with such intensity. He is powerful, Lachlan. Perhaps more so than the prince himself.”
Lachlan’s mind reeled.
This was utter disaster.
A boy? The Divine Selection was male?
Cian’s choice was absolute. As soon as his son, Kieran, met this little village boy, the magical bond between them would activate—a powerful link tying their souls together forever.
A bond that could never be undone.
They would share a mind link, able to sense each other’s strongest emotions and feelings, their pain and pleasure alike. Worse, they would be sexually bound as well. Kieran would be forever trapped with a male partner. He would be physically unable to orgasm with another. Which meant Kieran fathering heirs would be totally out of the picture. Males couldn’t very well get pregnant, after all!
This would destroy their family completely.
No heir. No succession. No future. The noble houses would see this as a weakness. And Arcum was already vulnerable, as it was. The war with the Helmsfirth barbarians was growing worse every year and Kieran needed a strong bloodline to secure the throne. If he failed to produce a legitimate successor, the noble houses would revolt. The royal line would collapse.
For they had enemies beyond Helmsfirth, as well—families who would gladly seize power the moment the throne showed the slightest crack.
And Kieran… his golden boy, his perfect warrior of a son… forced into a bond that doomed him to a sexless, barren marriage...
No. This wasn’t fair!
Lachlan exhaled sharply, struggling to steady his thoughts. He had always been a man of faith, but this? This was a cruel joke. He wasn’t going to let his son resort to sodomy! Not only was it disgusting, but it was an act against nature and thus, against Cian himself!
There had to be another way…
“No,” he whispered. “We cannot let this stand.”
“I understand your fear, but this is Cian’s will,” Heimdall warned, his voice unwavering.
Lachlan clenched his fists, panic curling in his gut. His mind was made up though. He would not allow his son to get attached to this boy. If Kieran met him—if the bond took hold—it would be too late to undo it.
There would be only one way to sever it then….
The village boy would have to die.
Lachlan turned to Heimdall, his gray eyes dark with resolve. “No one else can know the truth.”
“The midwife—”
“She will be silent, or I will make her silent.”
Heimdall sighed heavily but did not argue.
Lachlan shook out his shoulders and already, his calculating mind was working. One thing was for certain though, for now, the prince would not meet the boy. “He cannot come here,” he said firmly. “Not now, at least. The other houses would gossip too much. They’d begin to question my authority…”
“They’re all going to be talking,” Heimdall said off-handedly. “Everyone in the village will be wondering about their new ‘princess’.”
“Better to let them wonder than to tell them the horrible truth,” Lachlan muttered darkly. “For now, we’ll ignore tradition.” Normally, the baby girl chosen by Cian would be brought to the castle, trained in everything a future Queen would need to know, from etiquette to singing and dancing to the fine arts of feminine magic. Both men realized straight away that no boy could ever go through such training. It was totally unheard of.
“We cannot ignore Cian’s will forever,” Heimdall said seriously, his pale eyes dancing in the torchlight. “To do so would be blasphemy.”
Lachlan snorted bitterly. In his opinion, homosexuality was far more blasphemous than ignoring Cian’s so-called will. You could never be forgiven for lying with another man, after all.
“When the boy reaches the age of fourteen, the marriage must be completed,” Heimdall continued much to Lachlan’s annoyance. “It is the will of Cian, and no force—divine or mortal—has ever been able to break such a bond once it is formed.”
Lachlan folded his arms disagreeably. He knew for a fact Heimdall wasn’t being totally honest. He’d witnessed the same magical bond be severed between his parents after the untimely death of his father. The pain of it had almost completely crushed his mother, but she’d been old and set in her ways. Kieran could and would recover from such an experience with little to minimal scarring if he was prepared for it. “Kieran will be eighteen,” he muttered, thinking he had a good 14 years to toughen up his son’s spirit.
“Yes. The same age you were when you took your bride.” Heimdall gave Lachlan a pointed look. “Once Kieran is crowned, he and the boy must be wed. That is how it has always been.”
Grudgingly, Lachlan nodded, but his mind was still turning.
While it would indeed be blasphemous to outright murder Cian’s Divine Selection—the marked village boy—perhaps, in the future, this great and overwhelming power Heimdall had mentioned he possessed could come in handy. They would wait until the boy was of age, then bring him to the castle for a quick training, a sham marriage, then they would shove him into battle. If he spent enough time on the field, he’d most assuredly die—no matter his power—and really, what other use for him could they possibly have?
“No one else must know,” Lachlan repeated himself loudly. “Not my wife. Not my son. Not the nobles.”
“And the boy?” Heimdall asked.
Lachlan’s jaw clenched. “We will deal with him when the time comes.”
Heimdall sighed, his expression unreadable. “Delaying the inevitable will not change the will of Cian.”
Lachlan sneered. “Then perhaps Cian should have chosen more wisely.”
The torches flickered violently, as if the very air recoiled at Lachlan’s heresy. A chill went down his spine, but he didn’t outwardly flinch. Heimdall, in comparison, visibly curled into himself with discomfort, but he, too, said nothing.
For a long moment, neither man spoke. Then Heimdall clasped his hands together and exhaled into the heavy silence. “If that is your will, my king… then so be it.”
“Excellent.” Lachlan nodded curtly. “Now that that’s settled, I’m going back to bed.”
“I will do some research on the subject, discreetly, of course,” Heimdall said, pressing his thin fingertips together in the shape of a steeple. “I will seek the council of my predecessors, as well.”
Lachlan stiffened at Heimdall’s words. All the priest’s predecessors were dead, and yet the man talked of them so casually. Talking to spirits wasn’t considered evil, but it was certainly not the norm. He sneered a little. “You do that, old man.”
Heimdall didn’t seem too concerned, however. He’s smiled at Lachlan’s comment, an eerie, thin lipped smile that displayed his crooked teeth. “Goodnight, my boy.”
Lachlan bristled a bit at being referred to as a boy…it had been many years since Heimdall had done so, but he decided to let it go. He wanted to go to bed. He wanted to stop worrying even more. So, he wouldn’t get his daughter-in-law anytime soon. It would crush his Gemma’s high hopes and his son’s expectations, but soon enough, everything would be worked out to his satisfaction.
Arrogantly, Lachlan lifted his chin and spun on his heel. He was heading for the exit when he stopped and looked back over his shoulder to meet Heimdall’s eyes head on. “By the way, I’m curious…. What’s the boy’s name?”
“His mother calls him Rory.”
Whirling away, Lachlan’s lips turned down as he finally stalked out of the room. He didn’t know why the name made him so upset, but it did. Rory. Lachlan was in such a hurry to escape, he didn’t notice the priest’s pale gaze flickering toward the darkened recesses of the throne room once more, as though he could see something lurking just beyond the candlelight.
Something that was watching.
And waiting.