I Woke Up Married to the Cursed King

The tutor’s name was fake.

Elian stared at the record and read it three times.

The name Dunwick had given him — Crane, or something like Crane — didn’t exist. Not in any eastern academy. Not in any official record. Not anywhere.

Someone had invented a person, given them references, placed them in a child’s life for two years, and then erased them just as cleanly.

Professional, Elian thought. Very professional.

He kept digging.

It took most of the morning. Riven had contacts in places records didn’t officially exist. Sable cross-referenced everything against eastern traditions she knew.

What they found:

The man was dead. Had been for years. His real name was different. And he had been connected to something — a network, an operation, old and serious and underground — that Caelian’s father had personally gone out and dismantled twenty years ago.

Elian sat back.

Oh, he thought.

Oh, that’s it.

"The previous king," he said. "He wiped out a dark practitioners network."

"Completely," Riven said. "Went after every member."

"And someone survived," Elian said. "Or someone connected to it. And they came for the son."

"That explains the timing," Sable said. "Caelian was ten when the curse was placed. His father was actively dismantling the network around then."

Elian looked at the records.

You went and stirred up the pot, he thought at the dead king. You wiped out people who had been operating for decades. And they put a hex on your child.

"This is the why," he said.

"Yes," Sable said.

"Someone made a ten year old child pay for what his father did."

He stood up. Went to the window.

Does Caelian know, he thought.

And then immediately: Of course he knows. He grew up knowing his father dismantled that network. He knows why someone might have come after him. He just won’t say it.

He thought about yesterday. The anger in the study. My past is not part of the arrangement.

You’re protecting something your father did, Elian thought. And you’d rather carry a death curse than let it come out.

He picked up his pen.

He wasn’t going to the study. Caelian hadn’t come to him. They were both being stubborn and Elian had work to do.

Fine, he thought. I’ll find it without you.

Across the palace, Caelian was at his desk.

He hadn’t moved from it all morning.

Papers in front of him. Pen in hand. He’d signed three documents and stared at the fourth for forty minutes without reading it.

He looked at his wrist.

The bracelet. Three beads, slightly off color. Not black. Not cracked. Just — changing. Slowly. The way things changed when something was pressing on them consistently from the outside.

He should tell Elian.

He knew he should tell Elian.

He also knew that the moment he walked into whatever room Elian was in, Elian would ask questions. And Elian’s questions had a way of going exactly where Caelian didn’t want them to go.

So he stayed at his desk.

Looked at the beads.

Looked at the unsigned document.

Rowan appeared in the doorway.

"You should talk to him," Rowan said.

"I’m working," Caelian said.

"You’ve been staring at that page for an hour."

"I’m thinking."

Rowan came in. Sat down uninvited. "He found something. About the tutor. About the network."

Caelian went still.

"He’s going to keep looking," Rowan said. "You know that. Whether you help him or not."

"I know," Caelian said.

"And if he finds out what father did—"

"I know," Caelian said again. Quieter this time.

Rowan looked at him.

"You want our father’s deeds to come out?" Caelian said.

Rowan went silent.

"Exactly," Caelian said. "So I suggest we both stay quiet and let him find what he finds."

"And if he finds the wrong thing," Rowan said. "And draws the wrong conclusion."

Caelian looked at the bracelet.

"Then he draws the wrong conclusion," he said.

Rowan looked at him for a long moment.

Then he left.

Caelian sat alone.

Looked at the three beads.

I should tell him, he thought.

He picked up his pen.

Went back to the unsigned document.

He didn’t tell him.

Elian worked until late.

The network’s records were sparse — deliberately. Kings who destroyed underground operations didn’t leave detailed paperwork about it.

But traces existed. Confiscation records. Property transfers. Names that appeared once and never again.

He built a picture.

Multi-generational. Decades of operation. Practitioners feeding something, building something. The previous king had gone after them fast and brutal — no trials, no announcements.

You were thorough, Elian thought. Whatever they were doing, you decided it couldn’t be managed.

He thought about the Varek. About twenty years of patience.

How long did you plan before you acted, he thought. How long did you wait.

He wrote down everything he had.

Then looked at what was missing.

The network’s actual purpose. Who specifically had survived. And — the biggest gap — what exactly the previous king had done that was bad enough that his own sons refused to speak of it twenty years later.

That’s the center, he thought. That’s what I’m missing.

He thought about Rowan going silent.

Both of them, he thought. Both brothers carrying it.

He put his pen down.

Looked at the door.

Caelian was somewhere on the other side of this palace. Carrying three darkening beads on his wrist and a secret Elian needed and choosing, stubbornly, not to share either.

Fine, Elian thought.

Seven days to the eclipse.

I’ll find it another way.

He always did.

He passed Caelian in the corridor at dinner time.

Neither of them stopped.

Caelian gave him a look. Elian gave him a look back.

They kept walking in opposite directions.

Mature, Elian thought at himself. Very mature.

He ate dinner in his study.

Riven brought him food without being asked, which was either thoughtful or concerning. Probably both.

"The bracelet," Riven said, setting the plate down. "Three beads. I noticed when we were in the records room."

Elian looked at him. "You noticed and didn’t say anything."

"I was waiting to see if you’d noticed."

"I noticed."

"And?"

"And I’m not going to him," Elian said. "He can come to me."

Riven looked at him with the expression of a man who had opinions and was choosing not to share them.

"What," Elian said.

"Nothing," Riven said. "Seven days."

"I know."

"Three darkening beads."

"I know that too."

Riven left.

Elian ate his dinner.

Looked at the door.

Come to me, he thought at Caelian, wherever he was. Just come to me and tell me about the beads. That’s all. You don’t have to say anything else.

The door stayed closed.

Elian finished his dinner.

Went back to the records.

The work didn’t care about stubbornness. The eclipse didn’t care. The darkening beads didn’t care.

Seven days.

He kept working.

He went to find Dunwick the next morning.

The old lord was in his usual spot in the council antechamber, reviewing papers with the diligence of a man who had been doing this for decades and saw no reason to stop.

He looked up when Elian came in.

"Lord Dunwick," Elian said. "One more question. Lord Ervan. Who was he."

Dunwick set his papers down.

The name had landed — Elian could see it. Something shifting in the old man’s face.

"Where did you find that name," Dunwick said.

"The records," Elian said. "He appears regularly and then stops. No death. No retirement. Just — stops."

Dunwick was quiet for a moment.

"Lord Ervan," he said carefully, "was a member of the previous council. High ranked. Trusted." He paused. "He was also, we discovered later, connected to certain... activities that the previous king found unacceptable."

"The network," Elian said.

Dunwick looked at him.

"The previous king dismantled a dark practitioners network," Elian said. "Lord Ervan was part of it."

A long pause.

"He was found out," Dunwick said finally. "And he disappeared. Which was — considered sufficient at the time. Better than a public trial. Better than the questions a public trial would raise."

"What questions," Elian said.

Dunwick looked at his papers.

"About who else was involved," he said quietly. "And how deep it went."

Elian sat with that.

How deep it went, he thought. Into the court. Into the council. Into the palace itself.

He thanked Dunwick and left.

He had what he needed.

He sat with the name Lord Ervan on the walk back to the sitting room.

He disappeared, Dunwick had said. Connected to the network. Better than a public trial.

Because of the questions a public trial would raise.

Which meant the previous king had known the network went deep. Into the court. Into trusted places.

And he’d chosen to make the problem disappear quietly rather than expose how far the corruption went.

That’s one way to handle it, Elian thought. But the people you disappeared didn’t stop existing. They just went underground.

And they came back for your son.

He reached the sitting room.

Riven looked up.

"Lord Ervan," Elian said. "Connected to the network. Disappeared rather than tried. The previous king knew it went deep and chose silence over exposure."

Riven nodded slowly. "Which means the surviving members know the royal family knew. And chose to hide it."

"Yes," Elian said.

"That’s a motive," Riven said.

"That’s a motive," Elian agreed.

He sat down.

They got to work.