Chapter 83 That’s why

Chapter 83 That’s why
~Kael~
For several seconds, I couldn't hear anything. The meeting hall, the people around me, even my own breathing faded into the background.
All I could hear were the last four words that had just left Mama Cheryl's mouth.
“She was murdered.” 
Beside me, I felt Elira's hand slowly reach for mine. Her fingers slipped between my own before tightening gently, grounding me enough to remember where I was.
I looked at Mama Cheryl. "What..." My voice sounded foreign to my own ears. "...do you mean she was murdered?"
She lowered her head and released a long, weary sigh.
"My King..." Her voice trembled. "There is no way to answer that without telling you everything."
She gestured weakly toward the chairs surrounding the long table. "Please sit."
Nobody spoke after that. Ryker was the first to break the silence. He looked toward me before speaking carefully.
"Perhaps Lyra and I should leave." His voice was respectful. "This sounds... personal."
I looked at him for a moment before slowly shaking my head.
"No. If you've heard this much..." I swallowed. "...then hear the rest."
He nodded once. Without another word, everyone pulled chairs closer.
Mama Cheryl remained where she was while the rest of us sat around her. The room became impossibly quiet.
She folded her weathered hands together. "It all began..." Her eyes drifted somewhere far beyond the palace walls. "...when I was brought into the royal palace as a maid."
I frowned. "The palace?"
She nodded. "I wasn't assigned there by chance. Her Majesty..." A faint smile appeared across her lips. "...your mother personally chose me."
I blinked and leaned forward. "Wait." She looked at me. "My parents were royalty?"
The question sounded absurd even as it left my mouth. My entire life, I had believed my parents were ordinary people. People who happened to die while I was still too young to remember them properly.
Mama Cheryl slowly nodded. "They were. You have always carried royal blood." She smiled sadly. "Perhaps that is why becoming a king came so naturally to you. It was already in your blood."
I leaned back in my chair. Beside me, Elira looked just as stunned. She glanced at me before turning back toward Mama Cheryl.
"What happened next?"
Mama Cheryl nodded.
"I became one of the Queen's personal attendants. I accompanied her almost everywhere. At first..." Her smile softened. "...she was the happiest woman I had ever met. But after some time… something changed."
Her fingers tightened around each other.
"We would be laughing together one moment and the next, she would disappear into her own thoughts. I wanted to ask what troubled her. But servants were not allowed to question their Queen. So I stayed silent."
She paused, then continued. "Until one day, she told me herself."
Mama Cheryl's eyes became distant again. "She told me she was carrying a child. You. I congratulated her and I thought she'd be overjoyed. But instead she cried."
The room fell silent again.
"I couldn't understand why. So I asked. What could possibly make a mother unhappy about her own child? She said she wasn't afraid for herself but she was afraid for her baby."
A strange coldness settled in my chest.
Elira leaned forward. "Why?"
Mama Cheryl answered quietly. "Because His Majesty, your father had begun digging into things he should never have touched."
I immediately sat upright. "What things?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know. She never told me. She was very careful. But I remember her words." She closed her eyes briefly, recalling them.
"She told me she begged the King to stop, to leave it alone and focus on ruling the kingdom. But he refused. He kept telling her… 'I'm close, just a little longer. Once I expose his secret I can finally rest.'” 
Every person around the table exchanged looks. Elira spoke first.
"'His' secret? Whose secret?” 
Mama Cheryl nodded. "I asked the same question. But she never answered. I don't know whose secret he was chasing, I only know she believed that secret would eventually kill him or her family."
Mama Cheryl continued.
"As the months passed, the King spent less and less time in the palace. He was constantly traveling, researching and searching. The Queen grew more frightened every day. She was convinced someone was watching your family."
My jaw tightened.
"A week before she was due to deliver, I was sent into the forest to gather herbs. I’d done it countless times before so there was nothing unusual about it."
Her breathing became uneven. "Until that night." She looked down at her trembling hands. "They came out of nowhere. Men dressed entirely in black, their faces were hidden. I never saw who they were. They surrounded me before I could even scream."
Tears welled in her eyes.
"They told me if I made a sound, they would kill my daughter."
She broke and a tear rolled slowly down her cheek.
"I never told anyone I had a child. My mother had been raising her in another village. The Queen didn't know, If she had, she never would've chosen me. She believed mothers belonged beside their children."
Mama Cheryl covered her mouth briefly.
"I couldn't understand how strangers knew about my little girl. I begged them and even offered them my own life. I told them to let her go. But they refused. They said they didn't need me dead. They needed me inside the palace."
She looked up at me.
"They gave me one instruction. They said, 'When the Queen goes into labor you will allow one extra physician into her chambers.' I asked why but ignored me. They simply promised that if I obeyed my daughter would live."
Her tears fell freely now.
"I agreed. I hated myself the moment I said yes, but I was a mother and I couldn't lose my child."
No one spoke for what felt like an eternity. I couldn't stop staring at Mama Cheryl.
Part of me wanted to believe that she was lying and somehow, this was all a terrible mistake.
Another part of me hated myself for even thinking that. She had been one of the few constants in my childhood. She had fed me, clothed me and, as far as I had always believed, protected me. If she had carried this burden for all these years, then the weight of it must have been unbearable.
Elira gave my hand another gentle squeeze. "Please continue," she said softly.
Mama Cheryl nodded, though it looked as though the words physically hurt to say. "The night your mother went into labor..." she began, "...she was different."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"She was calm. I expected fear, or panic, but there was none." Her eyes grew distant again as she slipped into the memory. "It was almost as though she already knew something terrible was coming."
The room fell silent once more.
"When her pains became stronger, I helped escort her to the birthing chamber. The physicians were called for, the servants rushed through the palace gathering hot water and fresh linen, and everyone believed it would simply be another royal birth."
She swallowed. "But before the physicians arrived... she called me closer."
Mama Cheryl's voice cracked. "She held my wrist so tightly I can still feel it to this day. 'Cheryl,' she said, 'Promise me something.'"
Mama Cheryl closed her eyes. "I told her anything. 'If something happens to me, take care of my son.'"
A heavy knot settled in my chest.
"I laughed." A bitter smile crossed her lips. "I told her nothing was going to happen. I told her she would raise her child herself. But she simply smiled at me, it was a sad smile. Then she asked again. 'Promise me.' So I did. I promised."
She lowered her head and my jaw clenched. She continued before anyone could interrupt.
"The physicians arrived. I recognized every one of them except one. He wore the same robes and emblem. He carried the same physician's bag. No one questioned him, but I knew. I knew he was the man those masked strangers had spoken about."
She looked at me with tears streaming freely down her face. "And I stepped aside, I opened the door… .and I let him in."
The image alone was enough to make my stomach turn.
"I stood outside the chamber and I could hear your mother screaming through the doors. I wanted to run inside and confess everything. But every time I thought about my daughter, I froze."
My fists slowly tightened beneath the table.
"I hated myself and kept praying. 'Please let me be wrong. Please let those men only want information.' But then, I heard you cry. It was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard."
She smiled through her tears.
"You were alive. And for one brief moment, I believed everything would be alright. I rushed into the chamber before anyone could stop me and picked you up. I told the physicians the Queen had instructed me to prepare your first bath and no one questioned me."
She closed her eyes again.
"I kissed your forehead and I ran."
I frowned. "You... left the palace?"
She nodded. "I didn't know what else to do. I remembered the promise I'd made to your mother, so I ran with you. I hadn't even reached the palace gates when I heard the bells."
Every kingdom knew what those bells meant. It meant death. 
"My legs gave out beneath me. I knew she was gone."
The words settled over the room like ash. Finally, I managed to ask the question that had been burning inside me.
"...Where was my father?"
Mama Cheryl slowly looked up.
"He wasn't there."
The answer struck harder than I expected. "What?"
"He had left the kingdom several days earlier. He was still chasing whatever truth he believed he'd uncovered."
Her eyes filled with sorrow again. "The Queen begged him not to go. She wanted him beside her when you were born."
"But he told her, one more journey, when I return, this will all be over. He never made it back before she died."
Something inside me snapped. "So he left her." My voice came out colder than I intended.
"He left his pregnant wife alone?"
"No," Mama Cheryl said quickly.
"He loved and adored her. He truly believed he was protecting both of you. But sometimes, good intentions still end in tragedy."
I pushed back from my chair so suddenly it scraped loudly against the stone floor. I couldn't breathe and didn't know who I was angry with anymore.
My entire life had been built on lies.
I had spent years mourning a mother who supposedly died giving birth to me… When she'd actually been murdered.
And my father… He hadn't even been there.
I ran a hand over my face. "So everything you told me wasn't true."
Mama Cheryl nodded weakly. "I wanted you to survive. I thought if you knew the truth, they might come back for you."
She took a shaky breath. "I have lived with that guilt every single day. I never expected to see you again."
She looked around the room. "Until today, a strange force pulled me here."
She placed a frail hand over her chest. "And I knew my wolf was telling me that before I leave this world, I had to stop lying."
Silence returned and It was Ryker who finally broke it this time.
"There is something I need to ask." He looked at Mama Cheryl.
"Were Kael's parents part of the First Bloodline?"
She didn't hesitate. "Yes." Every head turned toward her.
"They were descendants of the First Wolf."
Elira's eyes widened and she looked at me with sudden understanding.
"That's why."
I frowned. "What?"
"That's why the pull didn't affect you." She glanced toward Ryker. "Just like it didn't affect him."
I stared into space.
Another answer and another dozen questions.
It was too much. Without saying another word, I turned and walked toward the doors.
"Kael..." Elira called after me but I didn't stop. I couldn't.
If I stayed in that room another minute, I wasn't sure what would break first.
My heart or everything I'd ever believed about who I was.