A Royal Rebellion by Revella Hawthorne Read Free Book Online

hadn’t been touched in decades. Probably not since the queen died in her bed, just ten feet from where Arianna stood now. Her blood chilling despite the stifling atmosphere, Arianna shivered in morbid dismay. She had no idea where to look.
    What was it that Mason said? He was here, the morning his mother died, the only one of her eight children to be present…and it was because he was there when his mother died Esme told him a terrible secret.
     
    ***
    Memory
     
    “She was dying. She had been dying for her whole life, and her last pregnancy, my youngest sister, was the one the one that drove the final nail in her coffin. She died because she told my father the truth too late, and his bitter resentment and sense of betrayal made him lose all grasp of reality.”
    “What betrayal, Mason?” she asked, gripping the bars of his cell, leaning as close as she dared.
    “There is a fatal weakness in our line, introduced through my mother. From her mother, a noblewoman in Elysian who married into their royal house. It’s a genetic disease, one that has over a 75% chance of being passed from parent to child, regardless of gender. In most it stays dormant, but can become active in the right conditions during childhood illness.” Mason’s face was free of his usual cynicism. His eyes were as dark as his brothers’, and she had no trouble reading hem. He was speaking the truth.
    “A weakness? A disease? Tell me! Are my children alright? Do they have it? Does Malcolm?” Panic was seeping into her nerves. Were her babies sick? Her husband. Surely not, they were all so healthy. They must be fine. Her hopes were dashed, and Arianna almost fell off the chair she was using to see into Mason’s cell.
    “Malcolm has it, sister dear. I have it, and the children have been spared, but they are not spared the fallout from the lies. My sisters, even with the assistance garnered in their births, were born with it. It presents falsely as a form of chicken pox when they’re children. My mother, Saints rest her soul, gave the disease to us all, save one.”
    “What is it?” Arianna whispered, terrified.
    “I could go into a horrible, long winded lecture on what it does, but the disease itself has been around for eons, attacking houses that have seen to many inter-marriages of cousins and the like generation after generation. It’s a disease that attacks the eggs and sperm cells in developing children, that causes a type of cellular disintegration of the cell walls,” Mason said, a weird smile twisting his lips. “There is no treatment for it, not for a Cassian Royal at least.”
    “I don’t understand,” Arianna complained, though in part, she did. A deepening well of despair was building in her gut. This couldn’t be true.
    “The disease, Ari, renders those afflicted with increasing levels of sterility. Most people aren’t aware they have it. A fever will occur when a child, growing in severity, then one day be gone as if by magic. But inside the body, especially in females, the cells are becoming weaker. Eggs in the ovaries are becoming warped, breaking down. In advanced cases, like with my mother, the cellular degeneration can spread to the uterus and vaginal walls, even into the intestines. It weakens everything.”
    “Oh, dear God, no,” Ari breathed, in total shock. “My sons? Malcolm?”
    “The men luck out, if you want to call it luck. We won’t die of it, but Malcolm and I are sterile. It just warps our sperm as its produced, making them weaker, less viable, and eventually we will cease to make any at all.”
    “But…I have children! They are his! My children are Malcolm’s! Stop lying!” Arianna snapped, becoming enraged. This was all a horrible, nasty lie. “I have slept with no man but him!”
    “You have children, yes. So does my witch of a wife. They are not sick, but that doesn’t matter.” Mason smiled, a rueful display of bitterness. “Malcolm is not the father. Nor am I.”
    “What? What do you