My Father Ordered His Own Mother's Execution and Forgot My Name—Then the Secret of His Relic Throne Revealed the Terrifying Truth About Our Enclave
The revelation from Caleb left a hollow ache in my chest. We emerged from the coal seam just before dawn, the air sharp and cold, carrying the distant bleating of sheep.
I imagined my father, sitting on that cold, memory-eating iron, his mind slowly unraveling, all to keep the water flowing. My “tyrant” father, a silent martyr. The world had turned upside down.
As we approached the main gates of Zion’s Rest, a knot of people had gathered, murmuring, pointing.
A chill, colder than the morning air, ran down my spine.
“What is it?” I asked, quickening my pace.
Gideon, ever analytical, went ahead, pushing through the small crowd. His back stiffened.
I reached the front, and my eyes landed on the gate. It was not the usual decrees or prayer requests tacked there.
Scrawled in angry red ink on coarse parchment, a dozen pamphlets were nailed haphazardly across the weathered timber. Each one bore a crude drawing of a woman with wild hair and glowing eyes, clutching a serpent.
Below the image, in stark, damning words, was my name.
“Evangeline Danforth,” I read aloud, my voice trembling. “Demon-spawned usurper. Tainted outsider. Who poisons the King’s bloodline and seeks to bring Zion to ruin.”
A gasp rippled through the small crowd. Faces turned towards me, their expressions a mix of fear, suspicion, and outright hostility. A young mother instinctively pulled her child closer, her gaze hardening as it met mine.
This was not a mistake. This was deliberate.
“Witch!” a voice from the back of the crowd snarled, the accusation hanging heavy in the air.
More voices joined in, a low growl rising from the crowd. “Blasphemer!” “Curse!”
I instinctively recoiled, my heart pounding. My hands clenched into fists, nails digging into my palms. This was calculated. Someone was actively turning the people against me.
“These are not King Malachi’s loyalists,” Gideon stated, his voice calm, cutting through the rising tension. He plucked one of the pamphlets from the gate, examining the paper and ink. “The language, the symbols—this is a deliberate smear. Designed to inflame.”
He turned the pamphlet over, scrutinizing the back. “No official seal. And this paper,” he sniffed it, “it smells of the lower market presses, not the sanctum’s fine linen.”
The implication hung in the air: someone was funding this. Someone with access to resources, but operating from the shadows, outside the King’s official channels.
“But who?” I whispered, my gaze sweeping over the faces, some of whom I had known since childhood, now filled with open distrust.
My father was losing his mind, struggling to save the enclave. Who would take advantage of such a vulnerable moment to sow this kind of venomous dissent?
Just then, an old man with a long beard, Elder Thomas, pushed through the crowd, his face a mask of outrage.
“This is an abomination!” he declared, ripping a pamphlet from the gate with surprising force. “Evangeline Danforth is Malachi’s daughter, returned to us!”
But his words were met with grumbles and a few angry shouts. The seed of suspicion had been planted, taking root in the fear-soaked ground of the enclave.
“The King’s madness began when she returned,” a woman cried out, her voice shrill. “Coincidence? I think not!”
The crowd surged forward, their anger palpable. I felt a prickle of panic. They were turning on me.
“We need to find out who printed these,” I said to Gideon, my voice low and urgent. “And who paid for it.”
The thought of my father, suffering under the throne’s curse, and now this open rebellion against his only child, twisted my gut. Someone was orchestrating this, not just to remove me, but to destabilize the entire leadership of Zion’s Rest. But who?
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