Ashputtel

III: Robin

The Prince of Wallein was certainly an enigma. He showed promise to be someone my match, but that was before he started speaking. He just seemed to innocent and kept to himself, I couldn't possibly see what ever in Hades the Oracles were speaking about. How could I end up with someone like him?

And yet... I couldn't help but think this would be a fun three months. I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt, as if I knew I was to have a trial with someone rumored to be my life partner in their home territory, I'd act nervous too.

Ever since I've been young, I'd envisioned my mate as a powerful caster, one who's magic could rival my own, who was my equal in every way. This full shifter didn't quite match up that standard, but maybe I'd been thinking about it wrong.

If four oracles have a single vision, it must come to pass. The Olympians wouldn't have sent it to multiple oracles if the Fates hadn't already knitted those strands of time together.

Yet visions were always flawed in that there's an element missing, and for all I knew, that gauntlet could be thrown down in the form of the generation after us.

For now, I'd enjoy teasing the Crown Prince of Wallein, and flaunting him around the castle.

It's been fun to gloat that I'd found my mate first, especially to those hopelessly waiting until the eve of their twenty first birthdays to feel their soul entwine with someone else's.

"Robin, were you kind to our guest?" Papa questions.

"Of course I was! I showed my mate around the gardens today and then we got called in for dinner."

He seems pleased with this answer.

"Tomorrow should be a nice day, take a picnic basket with you and show him to the hunting grounds. You could show off what Governess Helda taught you. It's important that we keep this alliance. Keep the prince interested."

I nod at this, earning a nod of approval before my father exits to go presumably find mother before supper starts.

Wallein wasn't the only kingdom with problems. It's quite hard to be the monarchy in charge of a diverse group of supernaturals when your royals lacked any blood connection to a very prevalent group, i.e. the shifters.

My father was a elven seelie hybrid, my mother the strongest caster with a siren ability my family has seen in generations. Yet our family has never crossed paths with a shifter of any kind. In fact, very few nobility were shifter. This is causing an upset, as many casters here have decided to take to Hazelwrenn's toxic ideals and begun to persecute shifters here.

My parents' hope is that marrying a shifter into the family will serve as a clear sign to all that such behavior is not to be tolerated, or rather a final nail in the coffin to this treacherous campaign of hatred in our kingdom. They'd already removed several corrupt officials and were investigating others.

Their advisors warned that this is a suicide mission, however I knew my parents would leave this unscathed and overwhelmingly successful. It would take an entire noble coven to take my parents down, and those who would even dare suggest such a treacherous act are being picked off one by one or have gone into hiding. Those remaining are loyalists, the undecided taking our side after the events of last month.

My father had caught a Lord compelling his knight to murder mother and revoked the spell on the man, my mother giving him a lock of her blood dipped in lamb's blood as a token to show the deed was done. That week, my mother remained in our private quarters, in hiding, so that the court would believe she had truly passed on to Elysium.

At her funeral, we had placed her on the altar, makeup making her appear paler, a charm on her to make her skin cold to the touch. When the Lord who'd sent the knight came up to pay respects, she sprung up, seizing him by the neck, using nothing but her raw dark power to kill him.