Chapter 241: Calculated Protection

"What comes after her..." Edric echoed.

What could possibly come after Aveline?

She already seemed to be getting everything she was fighting for. She had the determination, the sheer grit, and now, power enough to accomplish things no one else in the kingdom could even imagine.

His hand unconsciously went to his chest.

He could still remember the sensation of it—the invisible pressure around his lungs, the terrifying awareness that his next breath was no longer his to take. Worse still had been the moment when he had felt his blood slow beneath his skin, as though some unseen hand had reached inside his body and taken hold of his very life.

It had been terrifying.

The King turned his gaze toward the capital spread out below the hill. For a long moment, he simply stood there, watching the city.

Then he released a deep breath and lowered himself beneath a tree.

Edric had expected them to return to the palace. Instead, the King looked as though he had suddenly grown too tired to move.

"Sit with me, Edric."

Edric hesitated.

He wasn’t supposed to sit beside the King like an equal, but the command left little room for refusal. He found a lower root beneath the tree and sat there, keeping a respectful distance.

The King rested his back against the trunk.

"I thought I had built a dam strong enough to contain it all," he said, his voice heavy with resignation. "I believed that if the truth remained hidden long enough, perhaps it would never see the light of day."

His gaze remained fixed upon the capital.

"But some things cannot be contained forever, it seems."

Edric studied him. The King sounded defeated. And there was something that had been bothering Edric for a very long time.

"Sire," he said carefully, "is this about the Valterra family?"

The King went completely still. For several moments, he said nothing. Then he drew a slow breath and rubbed a hand over his knee before finally looking toward Edric.

"My father should never have betrayed House Valterra," he said quietly.

Edric’s expression tightened.

"It was said that when the old patriarch was led to the gallows, he laid a curse upon the royal bloodline. He swore that one day, a bastard born of Valterra blood would become the last hope of House Blackwyre."

The King lowered his gaze.

"And it came to pass."

Edric simply stared at him.

The Valterras had been the strongest earth-benders in the kingdom for generations. They had also been among the Crown’s most loyal houses before the betrayal. The Vantaris family had been particularly close to them; Edric’s own grandmother had been born a Valterra.

His mind immediately went to Aveline.

It suddenly made a strange kind of sense.

Her ability to manipulate multiple elements. The way she had broken every rule they understood about bending. The way her powers seemed to grow whenever she was pushed beyond her limits.

But one question remained.

If blood could explain it, why had no one else inherited such an ability?

Nearly every great house in the kingdom had intermarried with other powerful bloodlines over generations. Yet no one had ever demonstrated the ability to wield multiple elements.

Not like her.

Edric’s eyes narrowed. "Aveline Willowgrave..."

He whispered the name almost to himself. He had discovered it after digging through old records. Aveline’s father’s mother had been the bastard daughter of House Valterra. He had thought it was merely an interesting piece of forgotten genealogy.

Apparently, the King had known all along.

And then another realization struck him. His head snapped toward the King. "The Crown Prince."

The King didn’t move.

"You left him at Willowgrave Mansion," Edric said.

The words came slowly as the pieces fell into place.

It hadn’t been coincidence. Prince Vaelor hadn’t somehow ended up in Aurelmont because of the kindness of Adelrich Willowgrave. The King had deliberately sent him there.

But why?

Edric remembered what everyone had been told, that the King had never cared for the Queen or her son.

That story suddenly seemed far too convenient.

"You knew," Edric whispered.

The King remained silent.

"You knew about the Valterra bloodline. You knew about the curse. You deliberately sent the Crown Prince to the Willowgrave family."

His voice dropped.

"You wanted him there."

The King closed his eyes. "I thought that was the fulfillment of the curse."

He let out a weary sigh.

"My bloodline betrayed Valterra, and then the bastard of Valterra blood became the one who saved my son."

Edric’s breath caught.

The King looked toward the distant capital again.

"I thought the curse had come full circle."

His expression darkened.

"But the Oracle has made me understand something."

Edric waited.

The King finally turned toward him. "There is more to the curse than that."

A cold silence settled between them.

"And if the Oracle is right," the King said, "then Adelrich saving Vaelor was never the end of it."

He looked toward the capital.

"It was only the beginning."

Edric pressed his lips together and lowered his head.

He remembered the terrible years surrounding the Crown Prince’s birth.

At the time, House Terravain had been desperate to fill the void left by House Valterra. Yet even though none of the Terravains possessed the same overwhelming strength as the Valterras, the remnants of that ancient house had still been hunted down and exterminated.

There had been attempts on the Queen’s life as well.

Only a handful of people in the court knew how desperately the King had once pleaded with the Queen’s father to allow him to marry her. Yet when the Crown Prince was believed to have died, rumors had spread like wildfire.

The King’s love for the Queen had supposedly faded.

Some even whispered that he had never truly loved her at all.

Then Ingrid Valterra’s pregnancy was announced.

The King took responsibility for the child and declared Ingrid his Royal Mistress. With that announcement, House Valterra’s influence returned to the heart of the kingdom, and Ingrid’s family rose to become the Chancellor’s house.

No one questioned what had happened to the dead Crown Prince. The attempts on the Queen’s life stopped. The kingdom simply watched as the King lavished attention upon his Royal Mistress and her son.

Edric had always found one part of it strange.

If the King had truly stopped loving the Queen, and if he cared so deeply for Ingrid and her son, why had he never deposed the Queen?

And after Prince Vaelor’s return, why had the King been so harsh with his own son while seemingly indulging Alaric at every turn?

Edric had wondered about it for years.

So he had investigated.

The Vantaris archives contained countless rumors from that period—whispers recorded by generations of his family because information, even when unreliable, could become valuable one day.

There had always been something that didn’t fit.

And now, the King had just confirmed it.

There was a reason Alaric could not light-bend. Edric’s eyes widened.

Prince Vaelor Theron was the King’s only son.

It explained everything.

The King’s harshness toward Theron had never been because he hated him.

It had been preparation.

Theron was the only person who could inherit the throne, so the King had been molding him for it from the moment he was old enough to understand what being Crown Prince meant.

And there had been another reason for the King’s treatment of Alaric.

As long as the King continued to indulge Ingrid and her son, the Chancellor could continue believing there was still a possibility that his grandson might one day replace Theron.

The King had allowed that illusion to survive. He had needed the Chancellor to believe it.

Edric almost scoffed at the irony.

Oh, the love of a father.

He had spent years watching the King appear to favor another woman’s son over his own. All the while, the truth had been almost the exact opposite.

And if that was the case...

Edric’s expression changed.

One final piece fell into place.

"The Chancellor killed Aveline Willowgrave’s parents?"

The question came out quietly.

But the moment he said it, even he understood how much depended on the King’s answer.