The guards came bright and early. A slam on the door before wood was knocked down, ripped off its hinges.

  In the entry way, stood several soldiers, all wearing armor. At the head of them, hands clasped behind his back, Lord De’Shai stood in all his splendor. He had a bemused smile on his face.

  “You,” he spoke, his voice cool and void of any emotion. “You, who I have given so much to, who I have shared my home with, whom I let close to my son and be his friend. You are the one, from inside these walls, who has been my biggest enemy.”

  Galvin sat on his bed, a book open, his eyes scanning the pages. He’d expected as much. He shut the book and set it by his bedside and stood up. He stretched and yawned.

  At the slightest movement, all the soldiers perked up, readying their weapons, holding them out towards him.

  Galvin held his hands up. “Relax,” he spoke. “I’ve got no weapons on me.”

  “And you think you could have won by trying to manipulate my son? My own flesh and blood.”

  Galvin raised an eyebrow. “That’s debatable,” he said. Galvin strode up to Lord De’Shai, their gazes penetrating each other. Tension filled the air. Galvin held his hands in a closed fist. He forced himself to relax.

  “Where is that little boy anyways?” he asked, scanning the guards in the room.

  “He told me to go ahead without him. That is how little he has in regards of you. If you think you can win by trying to twist him against me, then you were wrong.”

  Lord De’Shai nodded to the other guards. Three of them stepped forward with chains in their hands.

  “So many people? Just for one guy? I’m flattered.”

  “A necessary precaution, unfortunately,” Lord De’Shai spoke. “Can’t be too safe. After all, I know you’re one of them, the power holders. Now you can either come peacefully or I can bring in a whole battalion to your tiny room.”

  “I’m not going to fight,” Galvin spoke. “I can recognize when I’m beaten. But if I’m right, and if I stake everything on the line for this, then you will end up being the one on the ground.”

  Lord De’Shai let out a laugh. “You can’t be serious,” he said.

  “If you don’t want that, then your best bet is to kill me now,” Galvin said harshly.

  “Why would I do that?” Lord De’Shai began. “When I can have my little fun with you, and take out all of Justicar in one fell swoop.”

  The guards closed in. Chains wrapped around his ankles, around his wrist, around his neck, all over his body. Metal rattled as it scraped the wooden flooring, and by the time the guards were finished, Galvin was wrapped from head to toe in the restrictive material. He barely had any room to breathe.

  One of the guards stepped up and held the piece of chain sticking out and began leading Galvin along. However, the chains proved too tight as he could barely walk. He had to hop along, and Lord De’Shai led the soldiers out. Galvin didn’t have to see the man to know he bore a smug look on his face as he exited.

  Little did Lord De’Shai know, deciding not to kill him would be a big mistake.

  The door slammed open. Morwin jerked awake. His body was still sore from the previous day’s battle.

  Guenevir stormed into his room, tears staining her cheeks, fists clenched into balls. Morwin expected as much.

  He slowly stood up, wrapping a hand around his sapphire necklace.

  “You bastard,” Guenevir said, marching up to him. They stood about an inch from one another. “You told him out, didn’t you? You told that bastard De’Shai everything. Why else would they come and take him out of the blue like that?”

  Morwin Absorbed in the sapphire, a trickle of essence opening and flowing into his body. That is, until Guenevir opened his hands, snatched the sapphire, and flung it behind her, letting it slide across the wood, and out the door.

  “You don’t try to calm me down!” she screamed, slamming a fist into his gut. He let out a yelp of pain and fell back onto his bed. “You know he trusted you! It’s not every day that the leader of Justicar actively tries and brings someone in, much less the son of one of the Ministers. You knew that, and you crumbled his trust and threw it away.”

  Morwin breathed in. Tears stung at his eyes. “You think I wanted to?” was all he could choke.

  Guenevir had been wrong. He wanted to use the sapphire to calm himself down, not her. He wanted out of all this, to put it behind her. Let Galvin rot in prison, as much as it hurt him, and let Guenevir disappear. Leave him alone so he could resume his normal life. No more fighting, no more trying to be some kind of “hero”.

  “I really thought that he was on my side, that he trusted me. But he lied. He made a promise and he broke it. He knew the consequences of breaking the promise.” He clenched his fists and held the wool of his bedsheets tightly. He couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. As much as Guenevir hated what he did, he hated it more that his trust was betrayed.

  Guenevir raised an eyebrow. “What promise?” she spat.

  “The promise that he would not bring harm to my family or my servants,” Morwin spoke. “I made him promise and in exchange, I will help him in Justicar, and assist in toppling the king’s rule. Just one simple thing. And what did he do? He sends Darius to try and kill my old man.” Morwin clenched his teeth. “And I warned him too. Warned him what would happen if he broke that promise! What happened, it’s all on him. I just did what I had to.”

  Guenevir couldn’t help but laugh. She laughed and laughed and laughed. Morwin couldn’t tell if it was a humorous laugh or a maniacal one.

  He wiped at his eyes and stared as her stomach twist and turned.

  “He didn’t tell us about that promise,” Guenevir spoke.

  “Because he never intended to keep it,” Morwin whispered.

  “Because we weren’t going to bring harm to your servants anyways.”

  “But my father!”

  “Lord De’Shai? You think that man is your father? Get a grip. Your family is dead, Morwin. You only have one family member left. And because of you, he’s locked up in a cell, with thousands of chains around him.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  What?

  “My parents are both dead. My brother an infant when it happened. I doubt he even knows about me.” Those words echoed in Morwin’s mind. Back then, in Jovin City, when Morwin was captured for the first time. Suddenly, the pieces started clicking. Galvin didn’t deceive Justicar. He didn’t need to tell them about the promise he’s made. Because there was no way they would break it.

  Still, with the truth in front of him, he found it hard to believe. “You… you guys knew,” Morwin breathed. “That’s why he was interested in me. Why he wanted me so badly to join with you guys. Why he looked after me as a lowly servant, going above and beyond.”

  “Yes,” Guenevir replied. “And what did he get from that? You being a traitor and selling him out. He trusted you and told us not to harm you from the beginning. We wanted to be rid of you, though. Who gives a damn you’re his birth brother, when you were raised here for your entire life, being spoon fed lies upon lies upon lies. You are the embodiment of everything we hate in Agnius.”

  Those words slapped Morwin. He sat back and thought for a moment, letting it sink in. More tears flowed from his eyes. But there was still a burning question he needed to ask, one he deserved to know. Everything that’s happened these last two days, it was too much for him. He took in a deep breath and asked, “Then who is Lord De’Shai to me?”

  “Why don’t you go to where he’s locked up and find out yourself?” Guenevir said. “It’s too late now. Our operations here, they’re over. You ruined it.”

  Galvin is my brother, Morwin thought. And Lord De’Shai was never my father.

  Then who am I?

  Without a second thought, Morwin dashed out of the room, picking up his sapphire necklace on the way out, leaving Guenevir in there by herself.

  Down the stairs, through the intertwining hallways, down more stairs, past the guards, down yet another set of stairs. As Morwin moved, he could tell his lungs starting to burn up and choke him, but he didn’t care.

  He watched as walls turned from ornate marbling to dungeon cobblestone. The deeper he went in the prison underneath Rathalin, the more vines grew along the walls, and the darker it was. He had to stop and take a torch off the stand to light up the rest of the way.

  By this point, sweat ran down his face in rivers. His shirt drenched, and every muscle in his body ached, but he didn’t stop. With more resolve, he continued pushing on down.

  The dungeon had five levels. Something that outsiders don’t know was the servants of the De’Shai palace doubled as guards for the dungeon. It explained why there were so many. People just assumed Lord De’Shai needed many servants.

  As he moved through the stairs, he saw face he’s seen around the palace. They didn’t question him as he passed by.

  He finally reached the bottom floor, which was darkest and dampest of all, with vines growing like a jungle. On the bottom floor, it was where the worst criminals of Agnius reside. As he passed with the torch, some of them leapt to the bars of their jail cells.

  Morwin jumped at the sound, but they were held back by chains.

  He didn’t need to go much further to know that Galvin was branded the worst criminal in all of Agnius, as he received a special cell just for him, with three times as many chains as a normal cell. Every inch of his body was covered in the metal, the only thing revealing was his nose and mouth. Morwin couldn’t see the rest of his face.

  “Galvin,” Morwin whispered, walking up to him, holding the torch in his hand.

  “Hello Morwin,” he said. Despite being chained like an animal, he still had the same confident sound and leader-like tone of voice. He sounded tough and resilient.

  How could he have that much confidence when his entire world was wrapped in darkness?

  Morwin walked up to the cell and sat down, placing the torch in front of him. He held the sapphire necklace in the palm of his hand, thinking about his mother. Was his mother not really his mother as well, and it had all been a fabrication?

  He needed to get answers.

  “Guenevir told me something interesting,” Morwin spoke. “Told me that you’re my brother.”

  The chains around his mouth wrapped and twisted ever so slightly. Morwin noticed. Galvin was smiling.

  “Did she now?” Galvin said, a hint of amusement on his voice. “Damn. I wanted that honor to be mine.”

  “You guys knew this entire time,” Morwin whispered. “You could have said it at any point. Why did you not say anything?”

  “You wouldn’t have believed me,” Galvin said. “I know my little brother well enough that you don’t believe me even now. I can hear the doubt in your voice, hear the weariness of your step. I don’t need my eyes to tell things about you, Morwin.”

  Morwin thought back to every conversation they had, when Morwin was talking about his fa- no, about Lord De’Shai. Morwin had proclaimed the man as his father, but Galvin never did such a thing. Nor did the rest of Justicar. They’d called him by his title and name. He’d found that peculiar, but now everything clicked into place.

  “You would have though,” Galvin continued on. “That I was making up some absurd lie to try and win you over to our side.”

  Morwin held up the sapphire necklace, its glow within still shining brilliantly despite in near absolute darkness.

  “You could have used this,” Morwin said.

  “I could,” Galvin replied. “There are some abilities with Mind that you do not know about. I could have.”

  “Then… why?” Morwin asked. “Why would you keep something like this from me?”

  “Put the sapphire closer,” Galvin said.

  Morwin inched closer to his ‘brother’ hesitantly, the sapphire dangling from his wrist.

  Galvin sucked in a deep breath.

  Morwin reached out with his mind to the gemstone and could tell the essence slowly draining from his gemstone. A bright glow emanated from the sapphire, and he could feel an otherworldly presence steadily pushing against his mind. As if a soft knock on his bedroom door.

  He mentally allowed the presence in, and before he knew it, his world plunged into darkness.