The Forgotten

by Marly Mathews

  “I take that it was perfectly fine for your husband to have his many paramours but you were expected to remain faithful and be the dutiful little wife. He was a hypocrite of the highest class!”

  “You could say that. I always believed that Ryn loved me—even though he’d shared his body with other women and possibly men, I thought deep down that he felt something for me—I was wrong…he didn’t love me anymore than my new lover, Glen did. Neither of them cared one toss about me and when it came to answering for our sins, they made sure that only I was the one put in chains—and sentenced to death. The men in Avonry are always treated better than the women. I don’t know how it is now but back when I was at Court the eldest child of the High King was a girl and she wanted the throne with a burning longing. Ryn was second in line behind his brother, the heir to the throne.”

  Rage sparked within Lucan. He wanted to kill everyone that had ever hurt her. He wanted to seek vengeance against the bloody hypocrites that had caused her so much grief. He put his hands on her shoulders, which were slightly trembling.

  “I know what I did was wrong—and by the Gods, I should have stopped myself and I couldn’t. All I wanted to do was hurt Ryn when the person I was really hurting was myself. How very short sighted I was. I was such a little fool. I unknowingly sealed my own fate when all I had to do was sit and bear it—happiness could have been mine. Instead, I ruined everything. I was weak—I was so very weak.”

  She hung her head. He took his right hand and tipped her face up so he could drink in the glorious beauty she possessed. Her eyes still glowed with the deep emotions she felt.

  “You are going to hate me now,” she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks and emotion cresting her voice.

  “I could never hate you, Neri. I knew the first moment I laid eyes on you that you were the woman for me, and I pray you feel the same way about me. I knew I could never give you up and prayed to the Gods that you would feel the same way.”

  “When I fell pregnant with child and told Glen that I was with child and therefore had to break our relationship off, he turned me in. He told the High King and the Queen that I had bewitched him with my magic and that I had seduced him against his will. He betrayed me without a second thought.”

  “How did you know it wasn’t Ryn’s baby?”

  “My husband had scads of women he kept and not one of them had borne him a bastard. That confirmed that he was the problem—not me.”

  “I see.” He didn’t see. He couldn’t understand any of it. So she’d had an affair and gotten pregnant—none of it seemed scandalous enough or wicked enough to earn her a death sentence.

  “I’m a wicked woman, and I have no defense for myself. I was wrong to do what I did—and so was Ryn.”

  “If you are a wicked woman, Neri, then I am a wild man. I do not condemn you for your actions, I only wish I could have punished those who treated you so ill.”

  She closed her eyes as if she needed to fortify herself against the incoming waves of pain.

  “It gets worse, Lucan. Ryn’s family decided to haul me into His Majesty’s Royal Court upon which representatives from the Nine Royal Houses served as judges. They condemned me. My parents testified against me telling the Court that I was always morally reprehensible and that they had no wish to defend me.

  They pitched me into darkness. They left me without allies—without friends. After my mother followed my father’s scathing testimony, with her own detailing what a horrible daughter I was, I could barely keep my composure. For the first time in my life I felt the small amount of Huntress blood stirring within me. I wanted to strike them all dead, Lucan. Gods help me, if I hadn’t been with child and therefore limited by what I could do—changelings are depowered when they are pregnant, I would have killed them all. The rage inside of me was so voracious.”

  “I completely understand, Neri. You were in an unimaginable situation.”

  “The moment that totally broke me was when Ryn denounced me. He told them all that it was my den of iniquity that made him wander from his marriage vows. He told them all what they expected to hear—and any belief that my husband had genuinely cared about my well-being was shattered in that terrifying soul sucking instant. He looked at me with such coldness in his eyes. He wanted me and my babe dead, and I could see that he would do anything to make it happen. I believed I was doomed. I was returned to my jail cell to await my death by fire.” Emotion strangled her voice and he yearned to pull her into his arms and kiss her tears away. The tears sparkled like white jewels on her cheeks.

  “How did you escape?” he asked, his voice hoarse. He wanted to howl at the moon, the rage he felt inside of him burned so.

  “I didn’t escape. I was helped by those who believed I had gotten the raw end of the deal. They had little sympathy for Ryn and knew the true nature of his being. The guard that freed me told me that I didn’t deserve death, and released me from my jail cell. He gave me the red hunter cloak and the blade that had belonged to my Hunter ancestor. Evidently, my childhood nursemaid had found a way to gain entrance to my parents’ home so she could give me what she believed I needed. In my hour of need she was the only one who still cared about me—hers was the only love I could count on.”

  “And I take it this is where my father came in?”

  “Your father helped me when I was fleeing the Royal Guards. He gave me the sanctuary of his covered carriage and wiped the blood from my hands. He gave me comfort and shelter when everyone else wanted my death.”

  “I don’t understand, Neri. Why would you have blood on your hands?”

  He could hear the rapid beating of her heart. She was in a turmoil, afraid that her confession would turn him against her.

  “When the guard freed me from my cell, I went to my husband’s harem. With blood in my eyes, and vengeance in my heart, I found him close to the shadow of death in his massive luxurious bedchamber. I saw him dying on his massively luxurious bed, and my instincts kicked in. I ran to help him, foolishly thinking that I could do something to stem the flow of blood that rushed out of him as fast as water runs through a waterfall. He looked so very shocked to see me cradling him as he died. In that horrible moment, my hatred for him faded away. All I could remember was the good times—all I knew was that I was holding the first man who made me truly love him, and I was going to lose him for good this time.

  He kept trying to speak and could only make gurgling noises. His eyes were frantic, and filled with what I hope was love and worry for me. For he cupped my face with his large hands as he used to do when we were making love, and he winked at me. I think that was his way of asking for my forgiveness when he couldn’t bring his failing body to say the words.

  I will never know what he was trying to say, and perhaps, that’s for the best, considering the fact that he abandoned me in my time of need. If he really was asking for my forgiveness and proclaiming his love, it’s better I not really know. I like to make up what I wanted from him. It’s better that way, at least for my peace of mind.

  His guards found me there, holding him and sobbing with tears I never should have shed for him. They believed I had murdered him, and indeed, I had gone there with thoughts of vengeance in my mind, and a killing lust inside of my soul—to be honest, I would never have been able to go through with it, I realized that as I held his dying body and prayed to the Gods above to breathe life back into his body. I wanted him to live so badly.”

  “He didn’t deserve your loyalty,” Lucan said gruffly.

  “Maybe so. In the long years that have passed since he died, I’ve had time to deliberate greatly on the matter. I know he was a vile bastard and yet, for most of our married life he treated me with kindness and made me believe that he loved me as much as I had grown to love him.

  As arranged marriages went—I could have done much worse. He never struck me in anger or screamed his lungs out at me. He never tried to control me in any way, I had freedom to come and go as I pleased and I had full control o
ver the fortune I had brought to our marriage. He even seemed to like my company when we weren’t in bed. I guess that’s why his betrayal hit me so hard. I never saw it coming—I honestly believed that since he was having his own little bit of fun on the side that he wouldn’t mind if I did the same thing—and if he did mind, I hoped it would shake him loose from keeping his women and that he would pick me over them. I was terribly mistaken, and I did end up paying for it more than I ever wanted to pay.”

  “My father harboured you and took you to safety, I gather.”

  “Yes. He made sure I wanted for no comforts as we made our long journey back to the Cambrian Countryside. I never dreamt I would have to find sanctuary back in Shardizar, but here I am. Your father viewed me as a Princess, and he treated me like one. He was my saving grace and he was the only reason why I don’t think that all men are alike,” she laughed.

  It sounded hollow, and made him feel for her instead of feeling jovial.

  “I never thought my father would help a damsel in distress.”

  “Your father might have wronged you in your own life, Lucan, and I completely understand your feelings of apathy toward him. I have to tell you though, he saved me and he gave me the greatest gift by taking me to your mother. I know he wouldn’t marry your mother because of her station in life but I have to tell you one thing—he loved your mother. His eyes burned with the kind of love I see in your eyes when you look at me.”

  Lucan looked away from her. Pain radiated in his heart. He wanted to continue thinking that his father was a rat bastard. He didn’t want to know about this good side of him—the very side of him that most likely made his mother fall for him in the first place. He couldn’t have been that bad if his mother decided to mate with him. He’d known that the relationship had been consensual.

  He wanted to sway the topic of conversation back to Neri and away from his father. Knowing that his father wasn’t quite the asshole that he’d always painted him to be caused a sickening feeling to twist in his gut.

  “What happened to your child?” he asked softly.

  No matter how much hell his father had put his mother and he through he had a feeling that it in no way equalled the hell that Neri had been through in her long years of life.

  She glanced up at him, her vibrant blue eyes had a violet hue to them and had become bloodshot with her tears. She smiled sadly. “I carried my twins to term thanks to your father’s help, and I gave birth to them in this very tavern. I suppose,” she laughed nervously, “I suppose that Ryn was looking down at us with regret burning in his heart because he had condemned me to death thinking I carried my lover’s child, when in actuality, I carried our miracle babies. Ryn couldn’t easily get a woman with child, and through some divine happenstance, he managed to finally impregnate me.”

  “I don’t want to sound unfeeling, Neri, but how do you know you gave birth to your husband’s children?”

  She locked gazes with him. “Because my son was the sort of changeling that could only come from our union, so is my daughter. If he’d been Glen’s child, he would have been a different kind of changeling, and in a cruel twist of fate, if he’d been my lover’s child, he would have lived past a few hours of being out of my womb. Unfortunately, my baby, my son, needed something I couldn’t give him—only his father’s kind could give him what he needed so he could continue to breathe, and without them, his tiny lungs collapsed and I lost him.

  My only consolation was that my daughter fought and survived, she had a little bit of me in her that allowed her to survive where her brother was all like his father, and so therefore needed the breath of life breathed into him that I could not give him. Still nothing could prepare me for the devastation of losing my son.” Heartbreak shattered the calmness of her voice, and a keening grief rocked through her. She collapsed against him, totally spent from dredging up the past.

  “What happened to your daughter?”

  “I raised her here and she grew into a lovely young women. Your mother adored her and she adored your mother—she was like the grandmother Rhiannon could never have. I made her leave this place when Ulwyn came to power. She’s made her way throughout Shardizar helping those who need her special talents. I miss her, and I want her back with me, but I will not have her living under that man’s thumb. She’s too young to be suffocated that way. She needed a place to spread her wings and have the freedom she can’t have here. I always wonder what my son would have been liked. I imagine he would have been just like his father as Rhiannon is a lot like Ryn, both in looks and abilities.

  She looks exactly like the High Queen of Avonry. Her grandmother would have adored her—alas, she’ll never know that Rhiannon exists if I have my way.

  Fortunately, she looks feminine. If she looked exactly like Ryn I fear she wouldn’t be as desired by the male sex as she is. Still, every year when this day rolls around it’s bittersweet for me. When Rhiannon was here we would go the cemetery together. I know she feels the pain almost as keenly as I do, for she has lost her other half. I fear for her every day. I fear that those in Avonry will discover she is her father’s child and they will go after her the way they went after me.”

  “It will be alright,” he murmured.

  “It won’t be alright it will never be alright. Ryn’s family would have finally had their heir, they would have had their little Prince. If I’d only been able to control my emotions, if I’d been able to control my seething jealousy at knowing what Ryn had done—my child would have lived, and our lives would have been drastically different. I sealed all of our fates, Lucan. I killed my child, and my husband, and I shattered my future—I messed it all up, and there was nothing—nothing that I could do to fix it.

  With all of my magic…with all of my gifts—I was completely helpless to make it better. I’ve doomed my daughter to living a life in the shadows. She will never be able to claim her birthright. She was denied the childhood I should have liked to give her—she was denied the title of Princess, she was denied everything that should have been hers, and most of all; she was denied her brother’s presence in her life, and it’s all my fault.”

  “I’ve learned through my own trials and tribulations that we can’t go around burdening ourselves with what could have been—what should have been—and it’s unfair to you to continue putting yourself through that kind of living hell, Neri. You need to let it go—you need to let it rest. What happened to you and your son is not your fault. You had no way of knowing what the fallout to your actions and your husband’s actions would be. Our lives are filled with consequences and no matter how hard we try, we can’t avoid that—all of the magic in Shardizar can’t keep us from having to deal with the ramifications of our actions.”

  “I should have behaved myself. I never should have let temptation rule my life—I dabbled in sin and I was burned badly.”

  “In my eyes, Neri, you committed no crimes. Did you ever find out who actually murdered Ryn?”

  She shook her head, and twisted around in his arms so she had her back pressed against his front.

  “No. I have a few theories, but as of yet his killer hasn’t been brought to justice, and there is a very good chance that he or she will never be held responsible for their reprehensible actions. For all I know, they could already be dead. In fact, I hope they are dead, and are burning in the hell of the Dark Underworld.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, none of it matters,” Lucan sighed. “You are here with me, and we’ll build a new life together. We will have a life filled with joy. The darkness we lived through is in our past, and it can stay there as far as I’m concerned.”

  “That’s the problem. It might not always stay there, Lucan. For all I know the Royal Guards could still be after me. Ryn’s parents will not forgive and forget so easily, if they are still on the throne—I will always be a liability—Ryn’s brother liked me. I don’t think he’ll pick up the torch once his parents are dead. The only reason no one has found me yet is because Cambria is so far
from Avonry.”

  “I don’t care. We’ll face whatever comes our way, together. You seem quite sure that Rhiannon is safe.”

  She twisted back around in his arms, and kissed his chin lightly. “Rhiannon knows how to take care of herself. She can fight whatever comes her way, and as long as she doesn’t fall pregnant, she’ll be able to do so. We’re only vulnerable when we’re carrying a child. You amaze me, Lucan. You barely know me and yet, you’re willing to risk everything for me. Why? I can’t seem to fathom it. Ryn knew me better than any man in my life and yet…”

  “He didn’t hesitate to seek retribution against you—he didn’t waver in his resolve to see you punished in a most horrific manner—he never truly loved you, Neri. Any man who loved a woman, really loved a woman wouldn’t allow you to be hurt that way. He might not have liked you cheating on him, but if he loved you, he never ever would have wanted you to burn.

  I’ve spent far too many years trapped in a dark world of someone else’s creation. When I first laid eyes on you, my heart lifted, and a force unlike any other I’ve ever felt rushed through me. I didn’t just feel lust for you, Neri—I felt love, and I’ve never felt like that before.”

  She brushed her tears away and pursed her lips together. Her eyes filled with something resembling hope.

  “I don’t think I deserve you, Lucan. You’re like a…”

  “Knight Mage in a shining cloak.” He winked at her, causing her to laugh and this time no nervousness filled it. It was an honest to goodness genuine laugh.

  “Tomorrow marks the anniversary of my son’s death. I always spend the morning in the Temple Graveyard—I don’t know why. I know his spirit isn’t there, for some reason I’m just drawn there, and every year no matter how hard I try to stay away, I can’t. I only pray that Rhiannon fights the urge to return and join me. I can’t bear having her here right when everything is about to go to hell.”